Quotes about blood
page 9

“She says the solution is to ban guns. They tried that in France which has among the toughest gun laws anywhere in the world, and 130 people were brutally murdered by Islamic terrorists in cold blood. Her plan is to disarm law abiding Americans, abolishing the Second Amendment, and leaving only the bad guys and terrorists with guns. No good. Not going to happen, folks. … She wants to take away American's guns and then admit the very people who want to slaughter us. Let them come into the country, we don't have guns. Let them come in, let them have all the fun they want.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

2010s, 2016, June, Speech about the Orlando Shooting (June 13, 2016)

People, World, Law, Guy

“Would it be too bold to imagine that, in the great length of time since the earth began to exist, perhaps millions of ages before the commencement of the history of mankind would it be too bold to imagine that all warm-blooded animals have arisen from one living filament, which the great First Cause endued with animality, with the power of acquiring new parts, attended with new propensities, directed by irritations, sensations, volitions and associations, and thus possessing the faculty of continuing to improve by its own inherent activity, and of delivering down these improvements by generation to its posterity, world without end!”

Erasmus Darwin book Zoonomia

Zoönomia, vol. 1 (1794).

Age, World, Imagination, History

“Sit like a fool then, crassly emptying
Glass after wineglass in some foul tavern,
Watching the night and its candles gutter,
Snoring at sunrise.
In England now the wind blows high
And clouds brush rudely at the sky;
The blood runs thinly through my frame,
I half-caress the hearthstone’s flame,
Oppressed by autumn’s desolate cry.
Then homesick for the south am I,
For where the lucky swallows fly,
But each warm land is just a name
In England now.
The luckless workers I espy
With chins dipped low and collars high,
Walk into winter, do not blame
The shifting globe. A gust of shame
Represses my unmanly sigh
In England now.”

Anthony Burgess (1917–1993) English writer

English Literature: A Survey for Students.
Poetry

Fools, Autumn, Winter, Cry

“The way to make money is to buy when blood is running in the streets.”

John D. Rockefeller (1839–1937) American business magnate and philanthropist

Attributed in The Fourth — And by Far the Most Recent 637 Best Things Anybody Ever Said (1990) by Robert Byrne; attributed elsewhere to Nathan M. Rothschild

Money, Way

“All I could do was to ask the prime minister of the country not to allow the blood of innocents be spilled for the crime committed by two misguided security men.”

Zail Singh (1916–1994) Indian politician and former President of India

When Indira Gandhi was assassinated and riots broke out in Delhi and other parts of the country, his pleas to control the situation did not result in positive response from Rajiv Gandhi.
Source: K.R. Sundar Rajan "Presidential Years:Zail Singh's posthumous defence of his controversial tenure."

Men, Country

“How can they say confiding is relief?
Light are the woes that to the eyelids spring,
Subdued and soften'd by the tears they bring;
But there are some too long, too well conceal'd,
Too deeply felt,—that are but once reveal'd:
Like the withdrawing of the mortal dart,
And then the life-blood follows from the heart;
Sorrow, before unspoken by a sigh,
But which, once spoken, only hath to die.”

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

The Neglected One
The Venetian Bracelet (1829)

Life, Confidence, Spring, Tear

“These days, to be "patriotic" means to wave the flag and shout slogans whenever the mass media deem it appropriate. It means to cheer the government whenever the government decides to use its cruise missiles or its smart bombs to kill a bunch of people in some other country, regardless of the reason. Instead of blood-based patriotism, today we have government-based patriotism. If you wave the flag and support the government, you're a patriot. If you don't like what the government is doing and you say so, then all of the flag-waving, slogan-shouting yahoos look at you as if you were the enemy.”

William Luther Pierce (1933–2002) American white nationalist

The New Patriotism, 2002
2000s, 2002

People, Support, Country

“He was a fool — a brilliant man and I loved his beard, and there was the mountain ax in his brain, and all the blood poured out, and he could not see the Mexican sun. Your people raised the ax, and the last blood of revolutionary mankind, his poor blood, ran into the carpet.”

Norman Mailer book Barbary Shore

Lannie Madison, on the assassination of Leon Trotsky, in Ch. 21
Barbary Shore (1951)

Love, People, Fools, Mountain

“Governments can err, presidents do make mistakes, but the immortal Dante tells us that Divine justice weighs the sins of the cold-blooded and the sins of the warm-hearted on different scales. Better the occasional faults of a government that lives in a spirit of charity than the consistent omissions of a government frozen in the ice of its own indifference.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945) 32nd President of the United States

1930s, Speech to the Democratic National Convention (1936)

Justice, Heart, Indifference

“This Caesarean madness stops at no barrier. Without compunction it rides roughshod over those achievements of the past which have all too often had to be purchased with the heart's blood of the people. It is always ready to smother with brutal violence the last rights and the last liberties which might interfere with its plans for holding all social activities within the rigid forms set by its will. This is the great danger which threatens us today and which immediately confronts us. The success or failure of monopolistic capitalistic power plans will determine the structure of the social life of the near future.”

Rudolf Rocker book Nationalism and Culture

Source: Nationalism and Culture (1937), Ch. 1 "The Insufficiency of Economic Materialism"

Life, People, Failure, Success

“The dinosaur world I grew up in was classical. They were universally seen as scaley herps that inhabited the immobile continents. There was no hint that birds were their direct descendents. Being reptiles, dinosaurs were cold-blooded and rather sluggish except perhaps for the smaller more bird-like examples. They all dragged their tails. Forelimbs were often sprawling. Leg muscles were slender in the reptilian manner. Intellectual capacity was minimal, as were social activity and parenting; the Knight painting of a Triceratops pair watching over a baby threatened by the Tyrant King was a notable exception. Hadrosaurs and especially sauropods were dinosaurian hippos, the latter perhaps too titanic to even emerge on land, and if they did so were limited by their bulk to lifting one foot of the ground at a time. Suitable only for the lush, warm and sunny tropical climate that enveloped the world from pole to pole before the Cenozoic, a cooling climate and new mountain chains did the obsolete archosaurs in, leaving only the crocodilians. Dinosaurs and the bat-winged pterosaurs were merely an evolutionary interlude, a period of geo-biological stasis before things got really interesting with the rise of the energetic and quick witted birds and especially mammals, leading with inexorable progress to the apex of natural selection: Man. It was pretty much all wrong. Deep down I sensed something was not quite right. Illustrating dinosaurs I found them to be much more reminiscent of birds and mammals than of the reptiles they were supposed to be. I was primed for a new view.”

Gregory Scott Paul (1954) U.S. researcher, author, paleontologist, and illustrator

Autobiography, part I http://gspauldino.com/part1.html, gspauldino.com

World, Mountain, Nature, Bird

“Conversation once colored by esteem
Became dialogue as a diagram of a play for blood.
Took a vacation, my palate got clean.
Now I could taste your agenda
While you're spitting your cud.”

Fiona Apple (1977) singer-songwriter, musician

Not About Love
Song lyrics, Extraordinary Machine (2005)

Color

“The main plank in the National Socialist program is to abolish the liberalistic concept of the individual and the Marxist concept of humanity and to substitute therefore the folk community, rooted in the soil and bound together by the bond of its common blood.”

Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) Führer and Reich Chancellor of Germany, Leader of the Nazi Party

On National Socialism and World Relations http://research.calvin.edu/german-propaganda-archive/hitler1.htm, speech in the German Reichstag (January 30, 1937). German translation published by H. Müller & Sohn in Berlin. <br class="br">1930s

Communication

“We are strong and powerful now, able to drive into the ocean any power on earth that should step, with ostile foot, upon the fsoil of the republic. But it was not always so. In our days of weakness, the men of this wronged race gave their blood freely for the defense and liberties of the country. The first victim of the Boston Massacre, on the 5th of March 1770, which made the fires of resistance burn more intensely, was a colored man. Hundreds of colored men entered the ranks and fought bravely on all the fields of the Revolution.”

Henry Wilson (1812–1875) Union Army officer, Vice president, politician, historian

Source: Speech (June 1853), p. 80

Men, Color, Strong, Country

“And amid the thunderous roar of a world in collision WE, ON THE LAST STAGE OF THE PATH TO SUPREMATISM BLASTED ASIDE THE OLD WORK OF ART LIKE A BEING OF FLESH AND BLOOD AND TURNED IT INTO A WORLD FLOATING IN SPACE. WE CARRIED BOTH PICTURE AND VIEWER OUT BEYOND THE CONFINES OF THIS SPHERE AND IN ORDER TO COMPREHEND IT FULLY THE VIEWER MUST CIRCLE LIKE A PLANET ROUND THE PICTURE WHICH REMAINS IMMOBILE IN THE CENTER. The empty phrase 'art for art's sake' had already been wiped out.”

El Lissitsky (1890–1941) Soviet artist, designer, photographer, teacher, typographer and architect

1915 - 1925, Suprematism' in World Reconstruction (1920)

World, Art

“A tidal wave of trucks and carts moved slowly, inexorably toward the now open gate, bumping and clanging into each other as they squeezed through. The investigator jumped out of the way, and as he stood there observing the passage of this hideous insect, with its countless twisting, shifting sections, he experienced a strange and powerful rage. The birth of that rage was followed by spasms down and around his anus, where irritated blood vessels began to leap painfully, and he knew he was in for a hemorrhoid attack. This time the investigation would go forward, hemorrhoids or no, just like the old days. That thought took the edge off his rage, lessened it considerably, in fact. There's no avoiding the inevitable. Not mass confusion, not hemorrhoids. Only the sacred key to a riddle is eternal. But what was it this time?”

Mo Yan book The Republic of Wine

Source: The Republic of Wine (1992), Chapter I, Section 1

Way, Birth, Rage, Time

“Although Qigong has been spread for quite a long period of time, several decades already, no one knows its real implications. Therefore, I have written in the book, Zhuan Falun, everything about certain phenomena in the Qigong community, why Qigong is spread in ordinary human society, and what the ultimate goal of Qigong is. Therefore, this book is a systematic work that enables one to practice cultivation. Through reading it repeatedly, many people feel that there is something unique about the book: no matter how many times you have read this book, you always seem to feel a sense of freshness, and no matter how many times you have read it, you always attain a different understanding from the same sentence, and no matter how many times you have read it, you always feel that there is still a great deal of content in it that is yet to be found. Why is it this way, then? It is because that I have systematically compiled many things that are considered heavenly secrets within this book, such as that people are able to practice cultivation, how cultivation should be practiced, and the characteristics of this universe, etc. For a practitioner, it can enable him to complete his cultivation practice successfully. Because no one has ever done such a thing in the past, when reading this book, many people find that a lot of the contents are heavenly secrets. After races are mixed up, you will find one's child born to be an infant of mixed blood. However, there is a partition in the middle of this child's life. If it is separated, he will be physically and intellectually incomplete or a person with an incomplete body. Modern science also knows that it is getting worse one generation after another. It would be like this”

Li Hongzhi (1951) Chinese religious leader and dissident

Falun Buddha Fa Lecture in Sydney http://www.falundafa.org/book/eng/lectures/1996L.html

People, Secret, Books, Way

“Auschwitz existed within history, not outside of it. The main lesson I learned there is simple: We Jews should never, ever become like our tormentors … Since 1967 it has become obvious that political Zionism has one monolithic aim: Maximum land in Palestine with a minimum of Palestinians on it. This aim is pursued with an inexcusable cruelty as demonstrated during the assault on Gaza. The cruelty is explicitly formulated in the Dahiye doctrine of the military and morally supported by the Holocaust religion.I am pained by the parallels I observe between my experiences in Germany prior to 1939 and those suffered by Palestinians today. I cannot help but hear echoes of the Nazi mythos of "blood and soil" in the rhetoric of settler fundamentalism which claims a sacred right to all the lands of biblical Judea and Samaria. The various forms of collective punishment visited upon the Palestinian people -- coerced ghettoization behind a "security wall"; the bulldozing of homes and destruction of fields; the bombing of schools, mosques, and government buildings; an economic blockade that deprives people of the water, food, medicine, education and the basic necessities for dignified survival -- force me to recall the deprivations and humiliations that I experienced in my youth. This century-long process of oppression means unimaginable suffering for Palestinians.”

Hajo Meyer (1924–2014) Dutch physicist

" An Ethical Tradition Betrayed http://www.huffingtonpost.com/hajo-meyer/an-ethical-tradition-betr_b_438660.html," huffingtonpost.com, Jan. 27, 2010. Retrieved on March 27, 2010.

Pain, People, Youth, Education

“Handsome, strong, gay … She felt again the thro and lilt of her blood. She had loved Kameni in that moment. She loved him now. Kameni could take the place that Khay had held in her life. She thought: "We shall be happy together - yes, we shall be happy. We shall live together and take pleasure in each other and we shall have strong, handsome children. There will be busy days full of work … and days of pleasure when we sail on the River…Life will be again as I knew it with Khay…What could I ask more than that? What do I want more than that?"”

Agatha Christie book Death Comes as the End

Death Comes as the End (1945)

Love, Life, Happiness, Children

“This country has shed more blood for the freedom of other people than all the other nations in the history of the world combined, and I'm tired of people feeling like they've got to apologize for America.”

Fred Thompson (1942–2015) American politician and actor

[Charles Hurt, New York Post, http://www.nypost.com/seven/08182007/news/nationalnews/not_yet_running_thompson_stumps_in_iowa_nationalnews_charles_hurt__washington_bureau_chief.htm, NOT-YET-RUNNING THOMPSON STUMPS IN IOWA, August 18, 2007, 2007-09-21, https://archive.is/5KYSw, 2013-06-30]

People, World, Feeling, History

“Ideas grow quickly when watered with the blood of martyrs.”

Giuseppe Mazzini (1805–1872) Italian patriot, politician and philosopher

Attributed in The Cambridge Modern History (1907), ed. Adolphus William Ward et al., Vol. 10, p. 122

Idea, Water

“This much have I learned: A man’s life weighs more than glory, and a price paid in blood is a heavy reckoning.”

Lloyd Alexander The Chronicles of Prydain

Source: The Chronicles of Prydain (1964–1968), Book V : The High King (1968), Chapter 3 (Taran)

Life, Learning

“They're Crips and Bloods in Brooks Brothers suits.”

Jesse Ventura (1951) American politician and former professional wrestler

On US Republicans and Democrats.
Harvard interview (February 2004)

“The natural sciences are sometimes said to have no concern with values, nor to seek morality and goodness, and therefore belong to an inferior order of things. Counter-claims are made that they are the only living and dynamic studies… Both contentions are wrong. Language, Literature and Philosophy express, reflect and contemplate the world. But it is a world in which men will never be content to stay at rest, and so these disciplines cannot be cut off from the great searching into the nature of things without being deprived of life-blood.”

Cyril Norman Hinshelwood (1897–1967) English physical chemist

Sir Cyril Norman Hinshelwood. "Presidential Address to Classical Association," 1959; Partly quotes in: Chemists through the years, part 1, The Royal Society of Chemistry, 1994.

Life, Men, World, Search

“Things as they are have been destroyed.
Have I? Am I a man that is dead
At a table on which the food is cold?
Is my thought a memory, not alive?
Is the spot on the floor, there, wine or blood
And whichever it may be, is it mine?”

Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) American poet

The Man With the Blue Guitar (1937)

Food, Memory, Wine, Dead

“I wouldn't want to stop making those gaffes, even if I could. People realise I am flesh and blood. I am not sensitive about it. It's just my enthusiasm. I want to say so much more than I have time for.”

Murray Walker (1923) Motorsport commentator and journalist

Byron Young (November 9, 1997) "Schu dirty rats! - Motor racing", News of the World, Section: Sport, p. 63.
Interviews

People, Time

“It’s in my blood. My great-grandfather made wine and it’s a tradition I want to pass on to my son.”

Maynard James Keenan (1964) musician

On his work with his vineyard in Northern Arizona and wine label of the same name, Caduceus — reported in Jon Dolan (August 2006) "33 Things You Should Know About Tool" http://www.blender.com/guide/articles.aspx?id=2002, Blender, Alpha Media Group Inc.

Wine

“When rowan leaves are dank and rusting
And rowan berries red as blood,
When in my palm the hangman's thrusting
The final nail with bony thud,
When, over the foul flooding river,
Upon the wet grey height, I toss
Before my land's grim looks, and shiver
As I swing here upon the cross,
Then, through the blood and weeping, stretches
My dying sight to space remote;
I see upon the river’s reaches
Christ sailing to me in a boat.”

Alexander Blok (1880–1921) poet

"Autumn Love" (1907); translation from C. M. Bowra (ed.) A Book of Russian Verse (London: Macmillan, 1943) p. 99.

Christ

“As man lives, and moves, and has his Being in the Divine Nature, and is supported by it, whether his Nature be good or bad; so the Wrath of Man, which was awakened in the dark Fire of his fallen Nature, may, in a certain Sense, be called the Wrath of God, as Hell itself may be said to be in God, because nothing can be out of his Immensity; yet this Hell, is not God, but the dark Habitation of the Devil. And this Wrath which may be called the Wrath of God, is not God, but the fiery Wrath of the fallen Soul.
And it was solely to quench this Wrath, awakened in the human Soul, that the Blood of the Son of God was necessary, because nothing but a Life and a Birth, derived from him into the human Soul, could change this darkened Root of a self-tormenting Fire, into an amiable Image of the holy Trinity, as it was at first created.
This was the Wrath, Vengeance, and vindictive Justice that wanted to be satisfied, in order to our Salvation; it was the Wrath and Fire of Nature and Creature kindled only in itself, by its departing from true Resignation, and Obedience to God.”

William Law (1686–1761) English cleric, nonjuror and theological writer

Christian Regeneration.
The Grounds and Reasons of Christian Regeneration (1739)

Life, God, Justice, Soul

“Whatever I do, whichever way I turn, I can neither feed nor clothe my family, nor take part in public affairs as a citizen, nor speak the truth as I conceive it, without being stained with the blood of my brothers and sisters; without putting my hands into the wickedness that prostitutes every sacred national and religious function.”

George D. Herron (1862–1925) American clergyman, writer and activist

Source: Between Caesar and Jesus (1899), p. 24

Truth, Family, Way, Sister

“O white and midnight sky, O starry bath,
Wash me in thy pure, heavenly crystal flood:
Cleanse me, ye stars, from earthly soil and scath—
Let not one taint remain in spirit or blood!”

Richard Watson Gilder (1844–1909) editor

The Celestial Passion, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Star

“I said, "I want to be in there when he dies"… so Burkeley forced his way into the operating room and said, "It's her prerogative, it's her prerogative…" and I got in, there were about forty people there. Dr. Perry wanted to get me out. But I said "It's my husband, his blood, his brains are all over me."”

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (1929–1994) public figure, First Lady to 35th U.S. President John F. Kennedy

The "Camelot" interview (29 November 1963)

People, Way

“sewing in itself is already in the women's blood.”

Elfriede Jelinek (1946) Austrian writer

p 3
Women As Lovers (1994)

Women

“He is the last of that old guard defending Cattle Land,
Those knights who jousted for the cause — blood brothers of the brand;
But now they’ve fenced the water-hole, they’re harrowing the plain,
They’re changing all the sagebrush flats to fields of waving grain;
The cowmen will be gone, they say, and there are no recruits —
Good-bye, brave cattle-puncher in the high-heeled boots!”

Arthur Chapman (poet) (1873–1935) American poet and newspaper columnist

The High-Heeled Boots http://www.cowboypoetry.com/ac.htm#HIGH, st. 3. <br class="br"> Out Where the West Begins and Other Western Verses http://www.cowboypoetry.com/ac.htm#outbk (1917)

Water, Change

“Chicago was a town where nobody could ever forget how the money was made. It was picked up from floors still slippery with blood.”

Norman Mailer book Miami and the Siege of Chicago

Pt. 2, p. 88
Miami and the Siege of Chicago (1968)

Money, Forgetting

“Those who betray or subvert the Constitution are guilty of sedition and/or treason, are domestic enemies and should and will be punished accordingly. It also stands to reason that anyone who sympathizes with the enemy or gives aid or comfort to said enemy is likewise guilty. I have sworn to uphold and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic and I will. And I will because not only did I swear to, but I believe in what it stands for in every bit of my heart, soul and being. I know in my heart that I am right in my struggle, Steve. I have come to peace with myself, my God and my cause. Blood will flow in the streets, Steve. Good vs. Evil. Free Men vs. Socialist Wannabe Slaves. Pray it is not your blood, my friend.”

Timothy McVeigh (1968–2001) American army soldier, security guard, terrorist

Letter to Steve Hodge.
1990s

Men, God, Peace, Soul

“BE IT KNOWN unto all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people, unto whom this work shall come: That we, through the grace of God the Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, have seen the plates which contain this record, which is a record of the people of Nephi, and also of the Lamanites, their brethren, and also of the people of Jared, who came from the tower of which hath been spoken. And we also know that they have been translated by the gift and power of God, for his voice hath declared it unto us; wherefore we know of a surety that the work is true. And we also testify that we have seen the engravings which are upon the plates; and they have been shown unto us by the power of God, and not of man. And we declare with words of soberness, that an angel of God came down from heaven, and he brought and laid before our eyes, that we beheld and saw the plates, and the engravings thereon; and we know that it is by the grace of God the Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, that we beheld and bear record that these things are true. And it is marvelous in our eyes. Nevertheless, the voice of the Lord commanded us that we should bear record of it; wherefore, to be obedient unto the commandments of God, we bear testimony of these things. And we know that if we are faithful in Christ, we shall rid our garments of the blood of all men, and be found spotless before the judgment-seat of Christ, and shall dwell with him eternally in the heavens. And the honor be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost, which is one God. Amen. OLIVER COWDERY DAVID WHITMER MARTIN HARRIS”

David Whitmer (1805–1888) Book of Mormon witness

Book of Mormon, 1830 Edition, p. 585 (1830)

Men, God, People, Faith

“It is urgent and important to legalise universal blood transfusion by immune adoption.”

André Gernez (1923–2014) French physician

'Il est urgent et important de légaliser la transfusion sanguine universelle par adoption immunitaire.'
From Le scandale du siècle tome 2, DVD of Bilien (2008)

Universe

“People like Mr Hitchens are ready to fight to the last drop of other people's blood, and it's utterly and completely contemptible.”

George Galloway (1954) British politician, broadcaster, and writer

David Usborne, " Hitchens vs Galloway: The big debate http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/article312968.ece", The Independent, September 16, 2005 <br class="br">During a debate with Christopher Hitchens, September 14, 2005

People, Fight

“We know only too well that all over the world, from wayward undergraduate to B. B. C. producer to publisher's reader there are people, otherwise sensible and sane, people who would not believe in six-headed cats and blood-curdling spectral monsters, who yet read some folly about Noah's ark or Atlantis or cataclysmic world-tides, and say, with a contented sigh, "There may be something in it, you know."”

Glyn Daniel (1914–1986) British archaeologist

As quoted in Sumathi Ramaswamy: The Lost Land of Lemuria: Fabulous Geographies, Catastrophic Histories (University of California Press, 2004) p. 2

People, World, Cats, Reading

“Ulcers, high blood pressure and heart attacks, insomnia and depression, all stem from trying to do more than we can in a situation that has lost its humanity.”

Michael Elmore-Meegan (1959) British humanitarian

All shall be well (2014)

Heart

“Not till we come to a simple reliance on the blood and mediation of the Saviour, shall we know what it is either to have trust in God, or know what it is to walk before Him without fear, in righteousness and true holiness.”

Thomas Chalmers (1780–1847) Scottish mathematician and a leader of the Free Church of Scotland

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 602.

God, Fear

“Ambition breaks the ties of blood, and forgets the obligations of gratitude.”

William Scott, 1st Baron Stowell (1745–1836) British politician

As quoted in History of the Anti-Corn Law League (1853), by Archibald Prentice, p. 54; around 1876 this began to began to be cited to W. Scott, and then around 1880 sometimes to Walter Scott, but without citations of source, including a variant: "Selfish ambition breaks the ties of blood, and forgets the obligations of gratitude" in a publication of 1907.

Forgetting, Gratitude

“Ay, down to the dust with them, slaves as they are!
From this hour let the blood in their dastardly veins,
That shrunk at the first touch of Liberty's war,
Be wasted for tyrants, or stagnate in chains.”

Thomas Moore (1779–1852) Irish poet, singer and songwriter

On the Entry of the Austrians into Naples (1821).
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

War

“I am not virtuous. Our sons will be if we shed enough blood to give them the right to be.”

Jean Paul Sartre book The Devil and the Good Lord

Act 3, sc. 5
The Devil and the Good Lord (1951)

“Poetry is a transfusion of the ephemeral blood that sustains the universal heartbeat within human society.”

Vanna Bonta (1958–2014) Italian-American writer, poet, inventor, actress, voice artist (1958-2014)

The Cosmos as a Poem (2010)

Universe

“He reached his hand toward me. “You don’t mind my asking, do you?” “Of course not,” I say calmly as I reverse the lit end of the cigarette so that the flame is cupped in the palm. I reach for his handshake. He screams like a woman in distress with her skirt held high. I puff my meanness as he licks at the burn and whimpers, “You sonofagun. You’ve burned the dickens out of my hand.” “I know.” “But why? I didn’t do anything. I don’t even know you.” “I guess it’s my Samoan blood.” Sal rushes to my defense. He points his finger at the fag. “Out!” “But I didn’t do anything.” “Out, out!””

Oscar Zeta Acosta book Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo

he shouts, his hands stiffly on the bar. The old fag picks himself up and begins to drag himself out.
Source: Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo (1972), p. 68.

“But despotic governments do not recognize the precious human component of the state, seeing its citizens only as a faceless, mindless - and helpless - mass to be manipulated at will. It is as though people were incidental to a nation rather than its very life-blood. Patriotism, which should be the vital love and care of a people for their land, is debased into a smokescreen of hysteria to hide the injustices of authoritarian rulers who define the interests of the state in terms of their own limited interests.”

Aung San Suu Kyi (1945) State Counsellor of Myanmar and Leader of the National League for Democracy

In Quest of Democracy (1991)

Love, Life, People

““When he advanced from the capital of Karra, the Hindus, in alarm, descended into the earth like ants. He departed towards the garden of Behar to dye that soil with blood as red as tulip. He cleared the road to Ujjain of vile wretches, and created consternation in Bhilsan. When he effected his conquests in that country, he drew out of the river the idols which had been concealed in it.”66”

Amir Khusrow (1253–1325) Indian poet, writer, musician and scholar

About Sultan ‘Alau’d-Din Khalji (AD 1296-1316) in Vidisha (Madhya Pradesh) Elliot and Dowson, History of India as told by its own historians, Vol. III, p. 542.ff
Miftahu'l-Futuh

Country

“If you remove the English army tomorrow and hoist the green flag over Dublin Castle, unless you set about the organization of the Socialist Republic your efforts would be in vain. England would still rule you. She would rule you through her capitalists, through her landlords, through her financiers, through the whole array of commercial and individualist institutions she has planted in this country and watered with the tears of our mothers and the blood of our martyrs.”

James Connolly (1868–1916) Irish republican and socialist leader

Shan Van Vocht, January, 1897. Reprinted in P. Beresford Ellis (ed.), James Connolly - Selected Writings, p. 124.

Tear, Effort, Water, Country

“There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
I cremated Sam McGee.”

Robert W. Service (1874–1958) Canadian poet

The Shooting of Dan McGrew http://freemasonry.bcy.ca/biography/service_r_w/dan_mcgrew.html (1907), The Cremation of Sam McGee http://www.wordinfo.info/words/index/info/view_unit/2640/?letter=C&spage=26

Men, Secret, Light, Sun

“What is the real issue at stake? Why this determination on the part of the South to maintain the color line and to fight back with all her strength against the combined efforts of certain groups in our Nation, white and black, to break down segregation and to destroy Southern ideals and customs? The answer is simple. The South stands for blood, for the preservation of the blood of the white race. To preserve her blood, the white South must absolutely deny social equality to the Negro regardless of what his individual accomplishments might be. This is the premise - openly and frankly stated - upon which Southern policy is based. This position is so thoroughly justified in the minds of white Southerners that it is sometimes difficult for them to comprehend the reasoning of those who seriously dispute it.”

Theodore G. Bilbo (1877–1947) American politician

Source: Take Your Choice, Separation or Mongrelization (1946), Chapter Four: Southern Segregation and the Color Line.

Color, Effort, Fight, Parting

“They are vampires, I guess, Seth allowed after a minute, compensating for Leah's reaction. I mean, it makes sense. And if [drinking blood] helps Bella, it's a good thing, right?
Both Leah and I stared at him. […]
Mom dropped him a lot when he was a baby, Leah told me.
On his head, apparently.”

Stephenie Meyer (1973) American author

Seth Clearwater, Leah Clearwater, and Jacob Black, p. 266
Twilight series, Breaking Dawn (2008)

Moms, Drink, Sense, Help

“And love became the world's origin and the world's ruler, yet littered its path is with flowers and blood, flowers and blood.”

Knut Hamsun book Victoria

Victoria (1898)

Love, World, Flowers

“In the interpretation of figurative passages, let the following canon be observed. If the passage be preceptive, either forbidding some flagitious deed and some heinous crime, or commanding something useful and beneficent: then such passage is not figurative. But, if the passage seems, either to command some flagitious deed and some heinous crime, or to forbid something useful and beneficent: then such passage is figurative. Thus, for example, Christ says: Unless ye shall eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood; ye shall have no life in you. Now, in these words, he seems to command a heinous crime or a flagitious deed. Therefore the passage is a figure, enjoining us to communicate in the passion of our Lord, and admonishing us to lay it up sweetly and usefully in our memory because, for us, his flesh was crucified and wounded. On the other hand, Scripture says: If thy enemy shall hunger, give him food; if he shall thirst, give him drink.”

George Stanley Faber (1773–1854) British theologian

Here, without all doubt, an act of beneficence is enjoined.
Source: Christ's Discourse at Capernaum: Fatal to the Doctrine of Transubstantiation (1840), pp. 147-149

Life, Hunger, Food, Communication

“I listened to the sermon, and I remember complete astonishment because what they were talking about were things that were just crazy. It was communion time, where you eat this wafer and are supposed to be eating the body of Christ and drinking his blood. My first impression was, "This is a bunch of cannibals they've put me down among!" For some time, I puzzled over this and puzzled over why they were saying these things, because the connection between what they were saying and reality was very tenuous. How the hell did Jesus become something to be eaten?
I guess from that time it was clear to me that religion was largely nonsense--largely magical, superstitious things. In my own teen life, I just couldn't see any point in adopting something based on magic, which was obviously phony and superstitious.”

Gene Roddenberry (1921–1991) American television screenwriter and producer

The Humanist, Mar/Apr 1991

Life, Religion, Hell, Drink

“Outside Palestine the ancient East treated women as slaves without rights… in the fourth commandment, Thou shalt honour thy father and thy mother, the mother is set upon the same level as the father in the eyes of the children. Such reverence for women was not revealed by oriental 'flesh and blood.”

Michael von Faulhaber (1869–1952) German Roman Catholic Cardinal

Sermon Two

Women, Children

“We are covered in blood, girl. You know both our forefathers were slaves. Let us hope they've found mercy in their bone-filled graves.”

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

Song lyrics, Slow Train Coming (1979), Precious Angel

Hope, Girl

“Mr. President, you are not leading this Nation—you're just managing the Government. You don't see the people enough any more. Some of your Cabinet members don't seem loyal. There is not enough discipline among your disciples. Don't talk to us about politics or the mechanics of government, but about an understanding of our common good. Mr. President, we're in trouble. Talk to us about blood and sweat and tears. If you lead, Mr. President, we will follow.”

Bill Clinton (1946) 42nd President of the United States

As quoted by President Jimmy Carter during his Malaise Speech, delivered on 15 July 1979 http://www.slate.com/articles/podcasts/whistlestop/2015/07/when_ted_kennedy_challenged_incumbent_president_jimmy_carter_for_the_democratic.html. <br class="br">1970s

People, Understanding, Tear

“The whole system of symbolism impressed on the art and the life of the Middle Ages must awaken the admiration of poets in all times. In reality, what colossal unity there is in Christian art, especially in its architecture! These Gothic cathedrals, how harmoniously they accord with the worship of which they are the temples, and how the idea of the Church reveals itself in them! Everything about them strives upwards, everything transubstantiates itself; the stone buds forth into branches and foliage, and becomes a tree; the fruit of the vine and the ears of corn become blood and flesh; the man becomes God; God becomes a pure spirit. For the poet, the Christian life of the Middle Ages is a precious and inexhaustibly fruitful field. Only through Christianity could the circumstances of life combine to form such striking contrasts, such motley sorrow, such weird beauty, that one almost fancies such things can never have had any real existence, and that it is all a vast fever-dream the fever-dream of a delirious deity. Even Nature, during this sublime epoch of the Christian religion, seemed to have put on a fantastic disguise; for oftentimes though man, absorbed in abstract subtilties, turned away from her with abhorrence, she would recall him to her with a voice so mysteriously sweet, so terrible in its tenderness, so powerfully enchanting, that unconsciously he would listen and smile, and become terrified, and even fall sick unto death.”

Heinrich Heine (1797–1856) German poet, journalist, essayist, and literary critic

Religion and Philosophy in Germany, A fragment https://archive.org/stream/religionandphilo011616mbp#page/n5/mode/2up, p. 26

Life, Death, God, Age

“Dear brothers and sisters … we cannot but recall the crimes of these criminal [Jews] throughout history. … Why did France, in 1253, expel and uproot the Jewish entity which was represented by the ghetto? Why did they expel them? Because they sucked the blood of the French, because they shed the blood of the French, slaughtered them, stole their money, and conspired against them. At the end of the day, the French had no choice but to expel them in 1253. … The series of expulsions continues to this day, … and Allah willing, their expulsion from Palestine in its entirety is certain to come. We are no weaker or less honourable than the peoples that expelled and annihilated the Jews. The day we expel them is drawing near. … We extend our hands to feed these hungry dogs and wild beasts, and they devoured our fingers. We have learned the lesson: there is no place for you among us, and you have no future among the nations of the world. You are headed to annihilation.”

Mahmoud al-Zahar (1945) Co-founder of Hamas

Speech on Al-Aqsa TV, Video with English captions http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UT6grrx8do (5th November 2012)

Money, People, World, Dogs

“Behind the stream of my mind and body, behind the stream of my race and all mankind, behind the stream of plants and animals, I watch with trembling the Invisible, treading on all visible things and ascending.
Behind his heavy and blood-splattered feet I hear all living things being trampled on and crushed.
His face is without laughter, dark and silent, beyond joy and sorrow, beyond hope.”

Nikos Kazantzakis book The Saviors of God

The Saviors of God (1923)

Hope, Laughter, Animals, Joy

“I wanted to go away, in the midst of something entirely different,
I had been there, in the house of torture,
I have seen people being kicked, men’s bodies scorched,
nails pulled out with pliers.
Armed with flame and cudgels, grinning men in shirt sleeves.
Where I could hear my friends being thrown headlong
down the stairs.
Night was as day, and long shrieks wounded me.
In vain I tried to think of wooded lanes and flowers,
a serene life and human words.
The thought seized up, it was as if a wound were opened up
again and again and endlessly searched.
From the mouth struck, teeth and blood came out,
and lamenting moans from the deep throat.
Away, away from that house, from that street and town,
from anything similar to it.
I must save myself, keep up my mind,
that I should not be led to madness by these memories.
Oh, if we could go back to a void, from which a new order,
a maternal opening could come forth,
if I hear a certain tone of voice even in jest, I shudder.
My unhappiness is that I avoid the sight of suffering,
hospitals and prisons.
I have yearned for high solitudes, lands of still sunshine
and sweet shadows,
but I would always be pursued by the ghosts of human beings.
All of a sudden I feel the need of distraction and play,
to lose myself in the noise of the fairground.
I remain with you, but forgive me
if you see me sometimes act like a madman.
I try to heal myself by myself, as an animal,
trusting that the wounds will close.
I stop to listen to the simple conversations of the women
in the marketplace, with their dialectical lilt.
I rejoice at the footsteps of running children,
their overpowering calls.
Because you do not know the absurdity of my dreams,
the fixed expressions, the incomprehensible gestures.
There is turmoil inside me, which seems to ridicule me.
And I cannot cry out, not to be like them.
Tomorrow I will go towards some music, now I am getting ready.”

Aldo Capitini (1899–1968) Italian philosopher and political activist

Life, Women, Men, Children

“The man's become inhuman, I tell you," said Kemp. "I am as sure he will establish a reign of terror—so soon as he has got over the emotions of this escape—as I am sure I am talking to you. Our only chance is to be ahead. He has cut himself off from his kind. His blood be upon his own head.”

H. G. Wells book The Invisible Man

Source: The Invisible Man (1897), Chapter 25: The Hunting of the Invisible Man

Chance

“Putin hasn’t come out of the blue, you know? It’s not just Putin. That’s why again in my book Winter is Coming, I emphasize why Vladimir Putin and enemies of the free world must be stopped. Because Putin, you may call him bosses of bosses, Capo dei Capi, he’s like a spider in the center of this web. Because Putin helps other bad guys, other thugs, dictators, and terrorists to sort of feel free to attack the free world. Because they all know that unless they attack the free world, unless they attack the United States as the leader of the free world, they will have no credibility with their own people because neither Putin nor Iranian mullahs, nor Al Qaeda, Islamic State or other dictators around the globe, they have nothing to offer but confrontation. They have to present themselves of the protectors of their own people against the world evil. And of course, they have to attack the free world that produces everything that, by the way, they use quite effectively against us. They cannot compete in innovations, they cannot compete in ideas, in productivity. But they can compete in something quite different because for us, each human life is unique. *For them, killing a thousand people, hundreds of thousands of people, a million is a demonstration of strengths. So we should realize that they have no allergy for blood. And they will keep pressing their advantage, and it’s not that we have grown – that our enemies have grown stronger. It’s our resolve that has grown weaker.”

Garry Kasparov (1963) former chess world champion

2010s, Interview with Bill Kristol (2016)

Life, People, Books, World

“Even read in such broken bits Origen is real food and drink. You can feel it being absorbed, right away, into your very blood. How terse, how compact he is! All this modern stuff is barley-water in comparison.”

Ida Friederike Görres (1901–1971) Austrian writer and noble

Broken Lights p. 87 Diaries 1951-1952.

Food, Feeling, Drink, Water

“Davis was winning a position as a leader in the Senate. Successor to Calhoun, he had become the spokesman for southern nationalism… not independence but domination from within the Union. This movement had been given impetus by the Mexican War. Up til then the future of the country pointed north and west, but now the needle trembled and suddenly swung south. The treaty signed at Guadalupe Hidalgo brought into the Union a new southwestern domain, seemingly ripe for slavery and the southern way of life: not only Texas down to the Rio Grande, the original strip of contention, but also the vast sun-cooked area that was to become Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, part of Colorado, and California with its new-found gold. Here was room for expansion indeed, with more to follow; for the nationalists looked forward to taking what was left of Mexico, all of Central America down to Panama, and Yucatan and Cuba by extension. Yet the North… had no intention of yielding the reigns. The South would have to fight for this… using States Rights for a spear and the Constitution for a shield. Jefferson Davis, who had formed his troops in a V at Buena Vista and continued the fight with a boot full of blood, took a position, now as then, at the apex of the wedge.”

Shelby Foote book The Civil War: A Narrative

The Civil War: A Narrative, Volume 1: Fort Sumter to Perryville (1958)

Life, War, Way, Sun

“Conceit, arrogance and egotism are the essentials of patriotism. Let me illustrate. Patriotism assumes that our globe is divided into little spots, each one surrounded by an iron gate. Those who have had the fortune of being born on some particular spot consider themselves nobler, better, grander, more intelligent than those living beings inhabiting any other spot. It is, therefore, the duty of everyone living on that chosen spot to fight, kill and die in the attempt to impose his superiority upon all the others.
The inhabitants of the other spots reason in like manner, of course, with the result that from early infancy the mind of the child is provided with blood-curdling stories about the Germans, the French, the Italians, Russians, etc. When the child has reached manhood he is thoroughly saturated with the belief that he is chosen by the Lord himself to defend his country against the attack or invasion of any foreigner. It is for that purpose that we are clamoring for a greater army and navy, more battleships and ammunition.
An army and navy represent the people's toys.”

Emma Goldman (1868–1940) anarchist known for her political activism, writing, and speeches

What is Patriotism? (1908)

People, Intelligence, Fight, Country

“O Earth! all bathed with blood and tears, yet never
Hast thou ceased putting forth thy fruit and flowers;
And hast thou then no pity for mankind?
Can thy maternal breast receive again
Their dust, and yet not throb?”

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

Translations, From the French

Flowers, Tear, Maternity

“An examination of our terms, such as competition, rivalry, emulation, etc., reveals that the traditional perspective remains inscribed in the language. Competitors are fundamentally those who run or walk together, rivals who dwell on opposite banks of the same river, etc…The modern view of competition and conflict is the unusual and exceptional view, and our incomprehension is perhaps more problematic than the phenomenon of primitive prohibition. Primitive societies have never shared our conception of violence. For us, violence has a conceptual autonomy, a specificity that is utterly unknown to primitive societies. We tend to focus on the individual act, whereas primitive societies attach only limited importance to it and have essentially pragmatic reasons for refusing to isolate such an act from its context. This context is one of violence. What permits us to conceive abstractly of an act of violence and view it as an isolated crime is the power of a judicial institution that transcends all antagonists. If the transcendence of the judicial institution is no longer there, if the institution loses its efficacy or becomes incapable of commanding respect, the imitative and repetitious character of violence becomes manifest once more; the imitative character of violence is in fact most manifest in explicit violence, where it acquires a formal perfection it had not previously possessed. At the level of the blood feud, in fact, there is always only one act, murder, which is performed in the same way for the same reasons in vengeful imitation of the preceding murder. And this imitation propagates itself by degrees. It becomes a duty for distant relatives who had nothing to do with the original act, if in fact an original act can be identified; it surpasses limits in space and time and leaves destruction everywhere in its wake; it moves from generation to generation. In such cases, in its perfection and paroxysm mimesis becomes a chain reaction of vengeance, in which human beings are constrained to the monotonous repetition of homicide. Vengeance turns them into doubles.”

René Girard book Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World

Source: Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World (1978), p. 11-12.

Way, Distant, Time, Perfection

“Jabir reported that the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said, "Beware of injustice. Injustice will be darkness on the Day of Rising. Beware of avarice. Avarice destroyed those before you and prompted them to shed each other's blood and make lawful what was unlawful."”

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

Riyadh-as-Saliheen by Imam Al-Nawawi, volume 2, hadith number 203
Sunni Hadith
Variant: Jabir reported that the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said, "Beware of injustice. Injustice will be darkness on the Day of Rising. Beware of avarice. Avarice destroyed those before you and prompted them to shed each other's blood and make lawful what was unlawful."

Peace, Law

“It's because it's very European. And I'm Italian and it's very close to my culture and all the steppings for where all these legends took place, some places I'm very familiar with. And on the other hand, there's also something that's really special about Dracula & Array; which is the constant search for blood, which is enticing and sensual. And which is why The Count has three Brides.”

Silvia Colloca (1977) Singer, actress, author and TV cooking personality

An Interview with Dracula and his Brides (2004)

“Many of us have developed an attitude' one of "we cannot bear to be insulted, and we do not want to create any tension." I always say that if serving the religion in a peaceful and calm manner is all that is demanded of us, then Allah would have accepted such service from His Messenger, peace be upon him, or would have accepted such peaceful service from the Esteemed Companions. But we see that Allah made them go through stages of hardship and tension too. Did not the Holy Prophet, peace be upon him, endure tense moments? He waged jihad too. His Holy blood was spilled. Even his blessed teeth were martyred. How many of us have even had a stone thrown at us?; we have adopted the attitude: "One of my routine should not be disturbed; I should keep to my routine."”

Abdul Rashid Ghazi (1964–2007) Pakistani fundamentalist

Instead, we should be prepared for everything, and we should not surrender so easily.

Peace, Religion

“Giraldus was the youngest of four blood-brothers. And when the three others in their childish games used to build castles and cities and palaces in the sands or mud, as a prelude to their future life, he, as a like prelude, always devoted himself entirely to building churches and to constructing monasteries.”
Qui cum ex fratribus quatuor germanis pariter et uterinis natu minor existeret, tribus aliis nunc castra nunc oppida nunc palatia puerilibus, ut solet haec aetas, praeludiis in sabulo vel pulvere protrahentibus construentibus, modulo suo, solus hic simili praeludio semper ecclesias eligere et monasteria construere tota intentione satagebat.

Gerald of Wales (1146) Medieval clergyman and historian

De Rebus a Se Gestis (Autobiography), chapter 1; translation from James Bruce Ross and Mary Martin McLaughlin (eds.) The Portable Medieval Reader ([1949] 1977) p. 344.

Life, Game, Future

“Fee-fi-fo-fum,
I smell the blood of an Englishman,
Be he alive or be he dead
I'll have his bones to grind my bread.”

Joseph Jacobs book English Fairy Tales

said by the ogre or giant. Now rendered as I'll grind his bones to make my bread.
English Fairy Tales (1890), Preface to English Fairy Tales, Jack and the Beanstalk

Dead

“Life cannot be reconciled with the idea that back of the universe is a Supreme Being, all merciful and kind, and that he takes any account of the human beings and other forms of life that exist upon the earth. Whichever way man may look upon the earth, he is oppressed with the suffering incident to life. It would almost seem as though the earth had been created with malignity and hatred. If we look at what we are pleased to call the lower animals, we behold a universal carnage. We speak of the seemingly peaceful woods, but we need only look beneath the surface to be horrified by the misery of that underworld. Hidden in the grass and watching for its prey is the crawling snake which swiftly darts upon the toad or mouse and gradually swallows it alive; the hapless animal is crushed by the jaws and covered with slime, to be slowly digested in furnishing a meal. The snake knows nothing about sin or pain inflicted upon another; he automatically grabs insects and mice and frogs to preserve his life. The spider carefully weaves his web to catch the unwary fly, winds him into the fatal net until paralyzed and helpless, then drinks his blood and leaves him an empty shell. The hawk swoops down and snatches a chicken and carries it to its nest to feed its young. The wolf pounces on the lamb and tears it to shreds. The cat watches at the hole of the mouse until the mouse cautiously comes out, then with seeming fiendish glee he plays with it until tired of the game, then crushes it to death in his jaws. The beasts of the jungle roam by day and night to find their prey; the lion is endowed with strength of limb and fang to destroy and devour almost any animal that it can surprise or overtake. There is no place in the woods or air or sea where all life is not a carnage of death in terror and agony. Each animal is a hunter, and in turn is hunted, by day and night. No landscape is beautiful or day so balmy but the cry of suffering and sacrifice rends the air. When night settles down over the earth the slaughter is not abated. Some creatures are best at night, and the outcry of the dying and terrified is always on the wind. Almost all animals meet death by violence and through the most agonizing pain. With the whole animal creation there is nothing like a peaceful death. Nowhere in nature is there the slightest evidence of kindness, of consideration, or a feeling for the suffering and the weak, except in the narrow circle of brief family life.”

Clarence Darrow (1857–1938) American lawyer and leading member of the American Civil Liberties Union

Source: The Story of My Life (1932), p. 383

Life, Death, Pain, Family

“This is a righteous judgement of God upon these barbarous wretches, who have imbrued their hands in so much innocent blood.”

Oliver Cromwell (1599–1658) English military and political leader

After the Siege of Drogheda, where Cromwell had forbid his soldiers "to spare any that were in arms in the town" (1649)

God

“In my right hon. Friend's reply to the right hon. Lady the Leader of the Opposition, was he not rather unsympathetic, especially now that she appears to be the last pro-Marketeer in Britain? Is not this disturbance manifested by her use of the word "abrasiveness"? For the right hon. Lady to protest a dislike of abrasiveness is rather like Count Dracula professing a distaste for blood. Will my right hon. Friend give an undertaking to increase his abrasiveness until he rubs out altogether the common agricultural policy?”

Neil Kinnock (1942) British politician

Speech in the House of Commons http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1979/mar/15/tuc (15 March 1979).

Appearance

“[He] blanched her cheek and froze her youthful blood.”

Ludovico Ariosto book Orlando Furioso

Le agghiacciò il sangue e impallidille il volto.
Canto XLI, stanza 33 (tr. W. S. Rose)
Orlando Furioso (1532)

Youth

“A fearful thing stood at the cloister's end
And eyed him for a while, then 'gan to wend
Adown the cloisters, and began again
That rattling, and the moan like fiends in pain.
And as it came on towards him, with its teeth
The body of a slain goat did it tear,
The blood whereof in its hot jaws did seethe,
And on its tongue he saw the smoking hair;
Then his heart sank, and standing trembling there,
Throughout his mind wild thoughts and fearful ran:
"Some fiend she was," he said, "the bane of man."
Yet he abode her still, although his blood
Curdled within him: the thing dropped the goat,
And creeping on, came close to where he stood,
And raised its head to him and wrinkled throat.
Then he cried out and wildly at her smote,
Shutting his eyes, and turned and from the place
Ran swiftly, with a white and ghastly face.”

William Morris (1834–1896) author, designer, and craftsman

The Earthly Paradise (1868-70), The Lady of the Land

Pain, Fear, Tear, Heart

“Dust fanned in scraped puffs from the earth
Between his arms, and blood turned his face inside out,
To demonstrate its suppleness
Of veins, as he perfected his role.”

James Dickey (1923–1997) American writer

The Performance (l. 13–16).
The Whole Motion; Collected Poems, 1945-1992 (1992)

Perfection

“Once I saw the village butcher [in his youth, in Russia] slice the neck of a bird and drain the blood out of it. I wanted to cry out, but his joyful expression caught the sound in my throat... This cry, I always feel it there. When, as a I drew a crude portrait of my professor, I tried to rid myself of this cry, but in vain. When I painted the beef carcass it was still this cry that I wanted to liberate. I have still not succeeded.”

Chaim Soutine (1893–1943) painter

remark to his friend and biographer
Source: Soutine et son temps, Emile Szittya, La Bibliothèque des Arts, Paris, 1955, pp. 107-108; as quoted in Chaim Soutine, Catalogue Raisonné, eds. Maurice Tuchman, Esti Dunow, Klaus Perls, Benedikt Taschen Verlag, p. 16

Youth, Feeling, Bird, Painting

“Light breaks on secret lots,
On tips of thought where thoughts smell in the rain;
When logics die,
The secret of the soil grows through the eye,
And blood jumps in the sun;
Above the waste allotments the dawn halts.”

Dylan Thomas (1914–1953) Welsh poet and writer

Light Breaks Where No Sun Shines, st. 1 (1934), st. 5

Secret, Light, Sun

“The ones we choose to love become our anchor
when the hawser of the blood-tie's hacked, or frays.”

Tony Harrison (1937) British writer

v, line 409 (Newcastle: Bloodaxe, [1985] 1989).

Love

“Political liberty, the tranquility of a nation, nay, knowledge itself, are gifts on which destiny has laid a tax of blood!”

Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850) French writer

La liberté politique, la tranquillité d'une nation, la science même, sont des présents pour lesquels le destin prélève des impôts de sang!
About Catherine de' Medici (1842), Part III: The Two Dreams

Knowledge

“Free Trade! What is it? Why, breaking down the barriers that separate nations; those barriers, behind which nestle the feelings of pride, revenge, hatred, and jealousy, which every now and then burst their bounds, and deluge whole countries with blood; those feelings which nourish the poison of war and conquest, which assert that without conquest we can have no trade, which foster that lust for conquest and dominion which sends forth your warrior chiefs to scatter devastation through other lands, and then calls them back that they may be enthroned securely in your passions, but only to harass and oppress you at home.”

Richard Cobden (1804–1865) English manufacturer and Radical and Liberal statesman

Speech at Covent Garden (28 September 1843), quoted in John Bright and J. E. Thorold Rogers (eds.), Speeches on Questions of Public Policy by Richard Cobden, M.P. Volume I (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1908), p. 40.
1840s

War, Jealousy, Feeling, Home