Quotes about blue
page 4

Stuart Merrill photo

“Incense smokes, and love takes care,
In her blue bed the virgin died;
The fire broods, the day falls,
The Angel, sisters, knocks on the door.”

Stuart Merrill (1863–1915) American poet, who wrote mostly in the French language

Fume l'encens, veille l'amour,
Dans son lit bleu la vierge est morte;
Couve le feu, tombe le jour,
L'Ange, mes soeurs, frappe à la porte.
"La Mystérieuse Chanson"

Robert E. Howard photo
Joanna Newsom photo
Arthur C. Clarke photo
Kage Baker photo
James Dickey photo

“I have just come down from my father.
Higher and higher he lies
Above me in a blue light
Shed by a tinted window.”

James Dickey (1923–1997) American writer

The Hospital Window (l. 1–4).
The Whole Motion; Collected Poems, 1945-1992 (1992)

Neal Stephenson photo
Maggie Stiefvater photo
Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo
Dennis Skinner photo
Joseph Addison photo

“The spacious firmament on high,
With all the blue ethereal sky,
And spangled heavens, a shining frame,
Their great Original proclaim.”

Joseph Addison (1672–1719) politician, writer and playwright

No. 465, Ode (23 August 1712).
Also in The Polite Arts (1749), Chap. XXI. "Of Lyrick Poetry."
The Spectator (1711–1714)

Frithjof Schuon photo
William Hogarth photo
Fats Domino photo

“Blue Monday how I hate Blue Monday
Got to work like a slave all day
Here come Tuesday, oh hard Tuesday
I'm so tired got no time to play”

Fats Domino (1928–2017) American R&B musician

Blue Monday (1954); the lyrics to the song are by Dave Bartholomew, with Domino later credited as co-writer for his musical revisions to the song in 1956.
Misattributed

Joe Strummer photo
Langston Hughes photo
Bob Seger photo
Samuel Beckett photo
Umberto Boccioni photo

“It will be readily admitted that brown tints have never coursed beneath our skin; it will be discovered that yellow shines forth in our flesh, that red blazes, and that green, blue and violet dance upon it with untold charms, voluptuous and caressing.”

Umberto Boccioni (1882–1916) Italian painter and sculptor

As quoted in Futurism, ed. Didier Ottinger; Centre Pompidou / 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008, p. 136.
1910, Manifesto of Futurist Painters,' April 1910

Lucian Freud photo
Nicholas Sparks photo
Neal Stephenson photo
Robinson Jeffers photo
Caspar David Friedrich photo

“Gently rising hills block the view into the distance; line the wishes and desires of the children, who enjoy the blissful moments of the present without wanting to know what lies beyond. Bushes in bloom, nourishing herbs, and sweet-smelling flowers surround the quiet clear stream in which the pure blue of the cloudless sky is reflected like the glorious image of God in the souls of the children... There is no stone to be seen here, no withered branch, no fallen leaves. The whole of nature breathes, peace, joy, innocence and life.”

Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840) Swedish painter

Quote from Friedrich's Diary entry, written Aug. 1803 at Loschwitz; as cited in Religious Symbolism in Caspar David Friedrich, by Colin J. Bailey https://www.escholar.manchester.ac.uk/api/datastream?publicationPid=uk-ac-man-scw:1m2225&datastreamId=POST-PEER-REVIEW-PUBLISHERS-DOCUMENT.PDF, paper; Oct. 1988 - Edinburgh College of Art, pp. 11-12
Friedrich is describing here his first composition of the painting 'Spring', 1803 (a later version he painted in 1808, viewed and described then by Gotthilf Heinrich von Schubert)
1794 - 1840

Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo
Robert Silverberg photo
Wallace Stevens photo
Richard Brautigan photo
William Carlos Williams photo

“My first poem was a bolt from the blue … it broke a spell of disillusion and suicidal despondence. … it filled me with soul satisfying joy.”

The Autobiography of William Carlos Williams (1951) [W. W. Norton & Co., 1967, ISBN 978-0811202268]
General sources

Conor Oberst photo

“I found a liquid cure
for my landlocked blues”

Conor Oberst (1980) American musician

I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning (2005)

Akira Toriyama photo
Park Benjamin, Sr. photo
Edvard Munch photo

“I was walking along a path with two friends — the sun was setting — suddenly the sky turned blood red — I paused, feeling exhausted, and leaned on the fence — there was blood and tongues of fire above the blue-black fjord and the city — my friends walked on, and I stood there trembling with anxiety — and I sensed an infinite scream passing through nature.”

Edvard Munch (1863–1944) Norwegian painter and printmaker

Quote of an entry in his Diary (22 January 1892), on the experience which inspired his famous painting, '(The Scream)' ('Shrik'), originally titled: 'Der Schrei der Natur' ('The Cry of Nature')
1880 - 1895

George Eliot photo

“Knightly love is blent with reverence
As heavenly air is blent with heavenly blue.”

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

Book 1
The Spanish Gypsy (1868)

Philip K. Dick photo
Fran Lebowitz photo
Anne Rice photo
E. B. White photo

“I am always humbled by the infinite ingenuity of the lord, who can make a red barn cast a blue shadow.”

E. B. White (1899–1985) American writer

A Winter Diary: January, 1941 http://books.google.com/books?id=Kq7WAAAAMAAJ&q=%22I+am+always+humbled+by+the+infinite+ingenuity+of+the+lord+who+can+make+a+red+barn+cast+a+blue+shadow%22&g=PA170#v=onepage
One Man's Meat (1942)

Mike Oldfield photo
Caspar David Friedrich photo

“Through the gloomy clouds break / Blue sky, sunshine, / On the heights and in the valley / Sing the lark and the nightingale
God, I thank you that I live / Not forever in this world / Strengthen me that my soul rise / Upward toward your firmament.”

Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840) Swedish painter

some poetry lines of Friedrich, c. 1802-05; as cited by C. D. Eberlein in C. D. Friedrich Bekenntnisse, p 57; as quoted & translated by Linda Siegel in Caspar David Friedrich and the Age of German Romanticism, Boston Branden Press Publishers, 1978, p. 48
1794 - 1840

Martin Luther King, Jr. photo

“And I say to you this morning in conclusion that I'm not going to put my ultimate faith in things. I'm not going to put my ultimate faith in gadgets and contrivances. As a young man with most of my life ahead of me, I decided early to give my life to something eternal and absolute. Not to these little gods that are here today and gone tomorrow, but to God who is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Not in the little gods that can be with us in a few moments of prosperity, but in the God who walks with us through the valley of the shadow of death, and causes us to fear no evil. That's the God. Not in the god that can give us a few Cadillac cars and Buick convertibles, as nice as they are, that are in style today and out of style three years from now, but the God who threw up the stars to bedeck the heavens like swinging lanterns of eternity. Not in the god that can throw up a few skyscraping buildings, but the God who threw up the gigantic mountains, kissing the sky, as if to bathe their peaks in the lofty blues. Not in the god that can give us a few televisions and radios, but the God who threw up that great cosmic light that gets up early in the morning in the eastern horizon, (who paints its technicolor across the blue—something that man could never make. I'm not going to put my ultimate faith in the little gods that can be destroyed in an atomic age, but the God who has been our help in ages past, and our hope for years to come, and our shelter in the time of storm, and our eternal home. That's the God that I'm putting my ultimate faith in.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1950s, Rediscovering Lost Values (1954)

Yves Klein photo
Errol Morris photo
Marc Chagall photo
Tim McGraw photo
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi photo
Greg Egan photo
Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo
Gillian Anderson photo
John Dos Passos photo
Maneka Gandhi photo

“Let me clarify at the outset that this decision to permit hunting of wild boars and blue bull in the wild is not taken for the sake of farmers, but to benefit those private forest lodge operators who have clients from Middle East and other countries.”

Maneka Gandhi (1956) Indian politician and activist

Criticising Madhya Pradesh government's move to simply hunting rules, as quoted in "Maneka miffed with MP govt's move to simplify hunting rules" http://www.firstpost.com/india/maneka-miffed-with-mp-govts-move-to-simplify-hunting-rules-188695.html, First Post (20 January 2012)
2011-present

Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo
Calvin Coolidge photo
George W. Bush photo

“Barack and Michelle Obama arrived on the North Portico just before 10:00 a. m. Laura and I had invited them for a cup of coffee in the Blue Room, just as Bill and Hillary Clinton had done for us eight years earlier. The Obamas were in good spirits and excited about the journey ahead. Meanwhile, in the Situation Room, homeland security aides from both our teams monitored intelligence on a terrorist threat to Washington. It was a stark reminder that evil men still want to harm our country, no matter who is serving as president. After our visit, we climbed into the motorcade for the trip up Pennsylvania Avenue. I thought back to the drive I'd made with Bill Clinton eight years earlier. That day in January 2001, I could never have imagined what would unfold over my time in office. I knew some of the decisions I had made were not popular with many of my fellow citizens. But I felt satisfied that I had been willing to make the hard decisions, and I had always done what I believed was right. At the Capitol, Laura and I took our seats for the Inauguration. I marveled at the peaceful transition of power, one of the defining features of our democracy. The audience was riveted with anticipation for he swearing-in. Barack Obama had campaigned on hope, and that was what he had given many Americans. For our new president, the Inauguration was a thrilling beginning. For Laura and me, it was an end. It was another president's turn, and I was ready to go home.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

Source: 2010s, 2010, Decision Points (November 2010), p. 474

Smokey Robinson photo
Anni-Frid Lyngstad photo

“So don't tell me the story of your life
I'd rather watch the movie
Your Hollywood smile is not enough
You're giving me the blues
So when are you going to understand
I'm not the woman to make you a man”

Anni-Frid Lyngstad (1945) Swedish female singer

That's Tough (Non-album single credited to Lyngstad, Hans Fredriksson, and Kirsty MacColl), from Shine (1984)
Lyrics, Shine (1984)

James A. Garfield photo

“Comrades of the 'Boys in Blue' and fellow-citizens of New York. I cannot look upon this great assemblage and these old veterans that have marched past us, and listen to the words of welcome from our comrade who has just spoken, without remembering how great a thing it is to live in this Union and be a part of it. [Applause. ] This is New York; and yonder, toward the Battery, more than a hundred years ago, a young student of Columbia College was arguing the ideas of the American Revolution and American union against the un-American loyalty to monarchy, of his college president and professors. By and by, he went into the patriot army, was placed on the staff of Washington, [cheers] to fight the battles of his country, [cheers] and while in camp, before he was twenty-one years old, upon a drum-head he wrote a letter which contained every germ of the Constitution of the United States. [Applause. ] That student, soldier, statesman, and great leader of thought, Alexander Hamilton, of New York, made this Republic glorious by his thinking, and left his lasting impress upon this the foremost State of the Union. [Applause. ] And here on this island, the scene of his early triumphs, we gather tonight, soldiers of the new war, representing the same ideas of union, having added strength and glory to the monument reared by the heroes of the Revolution.”

James A. Garfield (1831–1881) American politician, 20th President of the United States (in office in 1881)

1880s, Speech to the 'Boys in Blue' (1880)

Theo van Doesburg photo
Paul LePage photo

“Look, the bad guy is the bad guy, I don't care what color he is, when you go to war, if you know the enemy and the enemy dresses in red and you dress in blue, then you shoot at red. … You shoot at the enemy. You try to identify the enemy and the enemy right now, the overwhelming majority of people coming in, are people of color or people of Hispanic origin.”

Paul LePage (1948) American businessman, Republican Party politician, and the 74th Governor of Maine

In a State House press conference. http://www.pressherald.com/2016/08/26/house-democrats-condemn-lepage-attack-on-westbrook-legislator/ (August 26, 2016)

Hans Christian Andersen photo
Will Cuppy photo
Booker T. Washington photo

“After making careful inquiry I can not find a half a dozen cases of a man or woman who has completed a full course of education in any of our reputable institutions like Hampton, Tuskegee, Fiske, or Atlanta, who are imprisoned. The records of the South show that 90 percent of the colored people imprisoned are without knowledge of trades and 61 percent are illiterate. But it has been said that the negro proves economically valueless in proportion as he is educated. Let us see. All will agree that the negro in Virginia, for example, began life forty years ago in complete poverty, scarcely owning clothing or a day's food. The reports of the State auditor show the negro today owns at least one twenty-sixth of the real estate in that Commonwealth exclusive of his holdings in towns and cities, and that in the counties east of the Blue Ridge Mountains he owns one-sixteenth. In Middlesex County he owns one-sixth: in Hanover, one-fourth. In Georgia the official records show that, largely through the influence of educated men and women from Atlanta schools and others, the negroes added last year $1,526,000 to their taxable property, making the total amount upon which they pay taxes in that State alone $16,700,000. Few people realize under the most difficult and trying circumstances, during the last forty years, it has been the educated negro who counseled patience, self-control, and thus averted a war of races. Every negro going out of our institutions properly educated becomes a link in the chain that shall forever bind the two races together in all essentials of life.”

Booker T. Washington (1856–1915) African-American educator, author, orator, and advisor

Speech in New York (12 February 1904), as quoted in speech by Edward de Veaux Morrell in the House of Representatives https://cdn.loc.gov/service/rbc/lcrbmrp/t2609/t2609.pdf (4 April 1904)
1900s

Edvard Munch photo
Ernst Gombrich photo
Stephen King photo
Ivan Kostov Nikolov photo
Daniel Handler photo
Tanith Lee photo
Mike Oldfield photo
Alfred Horsley Hinton photo
Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo
Jacques-Yves Cousteau photo
Bill Engvall photo
Wassily Kandinsky photo

“First I will make different color tests: I will study the dark – deep blue, deep violet, deep dirty green, etc. Often I see the colors before my eyes. Sometimes I imitate with my lips the deep sounds of the trumpet – then I see various deep mixtures which the word is uncapable od conceiving and which the palette can only feebly reproduce.”

Wassily Kandinsky (1866–1944) Russian painter

Quote in Kandinsky's letter to Gabriele Münter, 1915; as cited in Schönberg and Kandinsky: An Historic Encounter, by Klaus Kropfinger; edited by Konrad Boehmer; published by Routledge (imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informal company), 2003, p. 16 note 54
1910 - 1915

Margaret Thatcher photo
Lorenz Hart photo
Robert Graves photo
Liam Hemsworth photo
Elton John photo

“And I guess that's why they call it the blues.
Time on my hands could be time spent with you,
Laughing like children, living like lovers,
Rolling like thunder under the covers.
And I guess that's why they call it the blues.”

Elton John (1947) English rock singer-songwriter, composer and pianist

I Guess That's Why They Call It the Blues
Song lyrics, Too Low for Zero (1983)

“Where the blue of the night
Meets the gold of the day,
Someone waits for me.

And the gold of her hair
crowns the blue of her eyes
like a halo tenderly.”

Roy Turk (1892–1934) American songwriter

Song Where the Blue of the Night (Meets the Gold of the Day) http://www.lyrics007.com/Bing%20Crosby%20Lyrics/Where%20The%20Blue%20Of%20The%20Night%20Meets%20The%20Gold%20Of%20The%20Day%20Lyrics.html

Richard Henry Dana Jr. photo
Ursula K. Le Guin photo
Hans Arp photo

“These collages were static symmetrical constructions, portico's with pathetic vegetation, the gateway to the realm of dreams. They were done with colored paper in black, orange or blue dye plates. Although cubist painting interested me very much, not a trace of their influence was to be found in my collages.”

Hans Arp (1886–1966) Alsatian, sculptor, painter, poet and abstract artist

Source: 1960s, Jours effeuillés: Poèmes, essaies, souvenirs (1966), p. 420 - quote on his early collages, Hans Arp made ca. 1914.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo
Pete Doherty photo

“I fall in love with Britain every day, with bridges, buses, blue skies… but it’s a brutal world, man.”

Pete Doherty (1979) English musician, writer, actor, poet and artist

Metro, August 25, 2006
Britain

Bel Kaufmanová photo
Alexander Rodchenko photo

“I reduced painting to its logical conclusion and exhibited three canvases: red, blue and yellow. I affirmed: it's all over. Basic colors. Every plane is a plane and there is to be no representation.”

Alexander Rodchenko (1891–1956) Russian artist and photographer

Quote in: 'The Death of Painting'; from the MoMA-website: Interactives: texts https://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/1998/rodchenko/texts/death_of_painting.html
Rodchenko is looking back: in 1921 he executed what were arguably some of the first true monochromes (artworks of one color; source, Wikipedia:Rodchenko)

Eamon Gilmore photo

“Running around like a blue-behind bluebottle waving slogans.”

Eamon Gilmore (1955) Irish politician

Slogan waver Eamon Gilmore on Richard Boyd Barrett's suggestion that the government's 12.5 per cent corporation tax is not being effectively implemented. The Irish Times http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2012/1129/breaking31.html

Bob Dylan photo

“Oh Mama, can this really be the end? To be stuck inside of Mobile with the Memphis blues again?”

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

Song lyrics, Blonde on Blonde (1966), Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again

Sylvia Plath photo
Roy Blount Jr. photo
W. S. Gilbert photo

“It's true I've got no shirts to wear,
It's true my butcher's bill is due,
It's true my prospects all look blue,
But don't let that unsettle you!
Never you mind!
Roll on!”

W. S. Gilbert (1836–1911) English librettist of the Gilbert & Sullivan duo

It rolls on.
To the Terrestrial Globe.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Paula Modersohn-Becker photo

“Today I painted my first plain air portrait at the clay pit, a little blond and blue-eyed girl. The way the little thing stood in the yellow sand was simply beautiful – a bright and shimmering thing to see. It made my heart leap. Painting people is indeed more beautiful than painting a landscape. I suppose you can notice that I am dead-tired, after this long day of hard work, cant you? But inside I am so peaceful and happy..”

Paula Modersohn-Becker (1876–1907) German artist

in a letter to her mother, from Worpswede, August 1897; as quoted in Paula Modersohn-Becker, The Letters and Journals by Paula Modersohn-Becker, eds. Günter Busch, Liselotte von Reinken, Arthur S. Wensinger, Carole Clew Hoey - Northwestern University Press, 1998, p. 79
1897