Quotes about blue
page 9

Gloria Estefan photo
Maggie Stiefvater photo
Joan Miró photo
Truman Capote photo
Eric Clapton photo

“I had a Les Paul before Eric but I didn't have a Marshall. And when Eric got all of that together he was a delight to listen to. He really understood the blues.”

Eric Clapton (1945) English musician, singer, songwriter, and guitarist

Jimmy Page, quoted in [Paul, Du Noyer, 2003, The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Music, 1st, Flame Tree Publishing, Fulham, London, 175, ISBN 1-904041-96-5]
About

Henri Matisse photo
Dylan Moran photo
Mike Oldfield photo
Joseph Heller photo
Arthur Guirdham photo
Francis Marion Crawford photo
Andrew Lang photo
Steve Kilbey photo
Willie Dixon photo

“I am the blues
I am the blues
The whole world knows
I've been mistreated and misused.”

Willie Dixon (1915–1992) American blues musician

"I Am The Blues" (Hoochie Coochie Music/Arc Music, 1969), reported in I am the Blues: the Willie Dixon Story‎ (with Don Snowden, 1990), p. 1.

Galway Kinnell photo
Peter Greenaway photo
Maurice Glasman, Baron Glasman photo
Nastassja Kinski photo
Alexej von Jawlensky photo
Hans Reichenbach photo

“Whereas the conception of space and time as a four-dimensional manifold has been very fruitful for mathematical physicists, its effect in the field of epistemology has been only to confuse the issue. Calling time the fourth dimension gives it an air of mystery. One might think that time can now be conceived as a kind of space and try in vain to add visually a fourth dimension to the three dimensions of space. It is essential to guard against such a misunderstanding of mathematical concepts. If we add time to space as a fourth dimension it does not lose any of its peculiar character as time. …Musical tones can be ordered according to volume and pitch and are thus brought into a two dimensional manifold. Similarly colors can be determined by the three basic colors red, green and blue… Such an ordering does not change either tones or colors; it is merely a mathematical expression of something that we have known and visualized for a long time. Our schematization of time as a fourth dimension therefore does not imply any changes in the conception of time. …the space of visualization is only one of many possible forms that add content to the conceptual frame. We would therefore not call the representation of the tone manifold by a plane the visual representation of the two dimensional tone manifold.”

Hans Reichenbach (1891–1953) American philosopher

The Philosophy of Space and Time (1928, tr. 1957)

Henry Englefield photo
William Wordsworth photo
Arthur Schopenhauer photo
John Lubbock, 1st Baron Avebury photo
Silius Italicus photo

“When Hannibal's eyes were sated with the picture of all that valour, he saw next a marvellous sight—the sea suddenly flung upon the land with the mass of the rising deep, and no encircling shores, and the fields inundated by the invading waters. For, where Nereus rolls forth from his blue caverns and churns up the waters of Neptune from the bottom, the sea rushes forward in flood, and Ocean, opening his hidden springs, rushes on with furious waves. Then the water, as if stirred to the depths by the fierce trident, strives to cover the land with the swollen sea. But soon the water turns and glides back with ebbing tide; and then the ships, robbed of the sea, are stranded, and the sailors, lying on their benches, await the waters' return. It is the Moon that stirs this realm of wandering Cymothoe and troubles the deep; the Moon, driving her chariot through the sky, draws the sea this way and that, and Tethys follows with ebb and flow.”
Postquam oculos varia implevit virtutis imago, mira dehinc cernit: surgentis mole profundi injectum terris subitum mare nullaque circa litora et infuso stagnantis aequore campos. nam qua caeruleis Nereus evoluitur antris atque imo freta contorquet Neptunia fundo, proruptum exundat pelagus, caecosque relaxans Oceanus fontis torrentibus ingruit undis. tum uada, ceu saevo penitus permota tridenti, luctantur terris tumefactum imponere pontum. mox remeat gurges tractoque relabitur aestu, ac ratis erepto campis deserta profundo, et fusi transtris expectant aequora nautae. Cymothoes ea regna vagae pelagique labores Luna mouet, Luna, immissis per caerula bigis, fertque refertque fretum, sequiturque reciproca Tethys.

Postquam oculos varia implevit virtutis imago,
mira dehinc cernit: surgentis mole profundi
injectum terris subitum mare nullaque circa
litora et infuso stagnantis aequore campos.
nam qua caeruleis Nereus evoluitur antris
atque imo freta contorquet Neptunia fundo,
proruptum exundat pelagus, caecosque relaxans
Oceanus fontis torrentibus ingruit undis.
tum uada, ceu saevo penitus permota tridenti,
luctantur terris tumefactum imponere pontum.
mox remeat gurges tractoque relabitur aestu,
ac ratis erepto campis deserta profundo,
et fusi transtris expectant aequora nautae.
Cymothoes ea regna vagae pelagique labores
Luna mouet, Luna, immissis per caerula bigis,
fertque refertque fretum, sequiturque reciproca Tethys.
Book III, lines 45–60
Punica

Tim McGraw photo
Bob Dylan photo

“Well, God is in His heaven
And we all want what's his
But power and greed and corruptible seed
Seem to be all that there is
I'm gazing out the window
Of the St. James Hotel
And I know no one can sing the blues
Like Blind Willie McTell”

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

Song lyrics, The Bootleg Series Volumes 1-3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961-1991 (1991), Blind Willie McTell (recorded 1983)

Percy Bysshe Shelley photo
Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo
Reginald Heber photo

“With drooping bells of clearest blue
Thou didst attract my childish view,
Almost resembling
The azure butterflies that flew
Where on the heath thy blossoms grew
So lightly trembling.”

Reginald Heber (1783–1826) English clergyman

The Harebell reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 353.
Hymns

Stevie Ray Vaughan photo
Jean Tinguely photo

“They'll all pee blue for one week to ten days, for about the duration of the show. The first opening I've enjoyed!”

Jean Tinguely (1925–1991) Swiss painter and sculptor

Quote of Jean Tinguely (1958), cited in: Heidi E. Violand-Hobi, ‎Jean Tinguely (1995) Jean Tinguely: life and work. p. 10.
Quotes, 1950's

Thom Yorke photo
Peter Greenaway photo
Maggie Stiefvater photo
Annette Lu photo

“Only the blue sky, green land alliance can make Taiwan better.”

Annette Lu (1944) Taiwanese politician

Annette Lu (2006) cited in " Politicians of all stripes honor Chiang Wei-shui http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2006/08/06/2003322033" on Taipei Times, 6 August 2006.

Camille Paglia photo
Carole King photo

“My life has been a tapestry of rich and royal hue
An everlasting vision of the everchanging view
A wondrous woven magic in bits of blue and gold
A tapestry to feel and see, impossible to hold.”

Carole King (1942) Nasa

Tapestry ·  1981 performance https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiQshgKO6Co
Song lyrics, Tapestry (1971)

“The silence of a winter's night
brings memories I hold inside;
remembering a blue moonlight
upon the fallen snow.”

Enya (1961) Irish singer, songwriter, and musician

Song lyrics, Amarantine (2005)

Stephen Vincent Benét photo
Alan Bennett photo
Thomas Carlyle photo
John A. McDougall photo
Fred Astaire photo

“If I was black and blue, it was Gene. If I didn't have a scratch it was Fred.”

Fred Astaire (1899–1987) American dancer, singer, actor, choreographer and television presenter

Cyd Charisse on how her husband would know with whom she had danced, quoted in Aloff, Mindy. Dance Anecdotes: Stories from the Worlds of Ballet, Broadway, the Ballroom, and Modern Dance. Oxford University Press, 2006. p. 196 ISBN 0195054113.

Statius photo

“The towers shine in a larger blue, and the portals bloom with a mystic light. Silence was ordered and mute in terror fell the world. From on high he begins. His holy words have weight heavy and immutable and the Fates follow his voice.”
Radiant majore sereno culmina et arcano florentes lumine postes. postquam jussa quies siluitque exterritus orbis, incipit ex alto: grave et inmutabile sanctis pondus adest verbis, et vocem fata sequuntur.

Source: Thebaid, Book I, Line 209

James Macpherson photo
James Macpherson photo
Thomas Gainsborough photo
Konstantin Tsiolkovsky photo

“The blue distance, the mysterious Heavens, the example of birds and insects flying everywhere —are always beckoning Humanity to rise into the air.”

Konstantin Tsiolkovsky (1857–1935) Russian and Soviet rocket scientist and pioneer of the astronautic theory

from "The Successes of Air Balloons in the XIX Century", 1901 http://www.informatics.org/museum/tsilbio.html

Bei Dao photo
Richard Feynman photo
Markiplier photo

“Oh, if that blue bastard, is just stickin' around -" [find a candle stand, which startles him] *gasp* "…That's new!”

Markiplier (1989) American YouTuber and Internet personality

Video game commentary, Ao Oni (August 2013)

Alexander Calder photo

“[to Mondrian:] Maybe you should take all these red, yellow and blue elements off the canvas and let them hang in the air, so they can move. [Mondrian reacted: 'Well, I think my paintings are fast enough already..”

Alexander Calder (1898–1976) American artist

Quote (1930), from a studio-visit at Mondrian's place in Paris, as cited by by Mondrian's recent biographer Hans Janssen, of the Gemeentemuseum in The Hague; as cited by Alastair Sooke, in 'Mondrian - the Joy of Being Square'; BBC culture, 10 July 2017 http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20170710-mondrian-the-joy-of-being-square
1930s - 1950s

Steve Kilbey photo
Mike Oldfield photo
Paul Signac photo
Neil Young photo

“I gave to you, now, you give to me
I'd like to know what you learned.
The sky is blue and so is the sea
What is the color, when black is burned?”

Neil Young (1945) Canadian singer-songwriter

I Am a Child, from Last Time Around (1968)
Song lyrics, With Buffalo Springfield

George William Russell photo

“Its edges foamed with amethyst and rose,
Withers once more the old blue flower of day:
There where the ether like a diamond glows
Its petals fade away.”

George William Russell (1867–1935) Irish writer, editor, critic, poet, and artistic painter

The Nuts of Knowledge (1903)

Joanna Newsom photo

“While yonder, wild and blue,
the wild blue yonder looms.
'Till we are wracked with rheum,
by roads, by songs entombed.”

Joanna Newsom (1982) American musician

Swansea
The Milk-Eyed Mender (2004)

Marvin Gaye photo

“Woo ah, mercy mercy me.
Ah things ain't what they used to be, no no.
Where did all the blue skies go?”

Marvin Gaye (1939–1984) American singer-songwriter and musician

Mercy Mercy Me.
Song lyrics, What's Going On (1971)

Dave Matthews photo

“And when you wake, you will fly away, holding tight to the legs of all your angels. Goodbye, my love, into your blue, blue eyes.”

Dave Matthews (1967) American singer-songwriter, musician and actor

Baby Blue
Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King (2009)

Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo

“Never day-beam hath shone o'er
Lovelier or wilder shore!
Half was land, and half was sea
Where the eye could only see
The blue sky for boundary.”

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

(30th November 1822) Fragments in Rhyme V: the Happy Isle
7th December 1822) Fragments in Rhyme VI: The Painter's Love see The Improvisatrice (1824
14th December 1822) Fragments in Rhyme VII: Manmadin, The Indian Cupid. Floating down the Ganges see The Improvisatrice (1824
21st December 1822) Fragments in Rhyme IX: The Female Convict see The Improvisatrice (1824
The London Literary Gazette, 1821-1822

Irving Caesar photo

“Sometimes I'm happy
sometimes I'm blue
my disposition
depends on you.”

Irving Caesar (1895–1996) American composer and lyricist

"Sometimes I'm Happy".

Little Richard photo

“I came from a family where my people didn't like rhythm and blues. Bing Crosby - "Pennies from Heaven" - Ella Fitzgerald, was all I heard.”

Little Richard (1932) American pianist, singer and songwriter

quoted in Hamm (1979). Yesterdays, p. 391.
Middleton, Richard (1990/2002). Studying Popular Music. Philadelphia: Open University Press. .

Edward Lear photo

“Calico Pie,
The little Birds fly
Down to the calico tree,
Their wings were blue,
And they sang "Tilly-loo!"
Till away they flew,—
And they never came back to me!”

Edward Lear (1812–1888) British artist, illustrator, author and poet

Calico Pie http://www.nonsenselit.org/Lear/ns/calico.html, st. 1 (1871).

Willie Dixon photo
Robert Rauschenberg photo
August Macke photo
Gerald Durrell photo
August Macke photo
Otto Weininger photo
P.G. Wodehouse photo
Taylor Swift photo
Ray Charles photo

“Rhythm and blues used to be called race music. … This music was going on for years, but nobody paid any attention to it.”

Ray Charles (1930–2004) American musician

Pop Chronicles: Show 55 - Crammer: A lively cram course on the history of rock and some other things http://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc19838/m1/, interview recorded 3.8.1968 http://web.archive.org/web/20100116003442/http://www.library.unt.edu/music/special-collections/john-gilliland/index-to-interviews.

Joseph Stella photo
Camille Pissarro photo

“Never paint except with the three primary colors [red, blue, and yellow] and their derivatives.”

Camille Pissarro (1830–1903) French painter

Attributed to Pisarro, in Philip Ball (2001() Bright Earth: Art and the Invention of Color. p. 178
Advise to his students to lightening their palette and remove colours such as black, ocher and sienna
undated quotes

Aron Ra photo
Bob Dylan photo

“When I first heard Elvis's voice I just knew that I wasn't going to work for anybody and nobody was going to be my boss. He is the deity supreme of rock and roll religion as it exists in today's form. Hearing him for the first time was like busting out of jail. I think for a long time that freedom to me was Elvis singing 'Blue Moon of Kentucky.”

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

I thank God for Elvis.
US magazine (24 August 1987); on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of Elvis Presley's death, as reported in Bob Dylan: Performing Artist 1986–1990 and Beyond, Mind out of Time (2009)

Ayaan Hirsi Ali photo
Kent Hovind photo
Fernand Léger photo

“.. a yellow square, a red and blue avenue, an Eiffel tower with a camouflaged silhouette…. that would all be lit up at night, instead of fireworks. [a proposal to Trotsky of a 'polychrome Moscow', for the 1937 exhibition].”

Fernand Léger (1881–1955) French painter

Quote from Fernand Léger – The Later Years -, catalogue ed. Nicolas Serota, published by the Trustees of the Whitechapel Art gallery, London, Prestel Verlag, 1988; p. 60
Quotes of Fernand Leger, 1930's

Stevie Nicks photo
Billy Joel photo
Maurice Glasman, Baron Glasman photo
Fidel Castro photo

“You know my eyes are not very strong. So every day to make them stronger I force myself to look at the sun. I find it very hard. But do you know what I find harder? That is to look into the blue of your eyes.”

Fidel Castro (1926–2016) former First Secretary of the Communist Party and President of Cuba

Early in 1976, speaking to Margaret Trudeau, according to page 317 of Just Watch Me: The Life of Pierre Elliott Trudeau, 1968-2000 https://books.google.ca/books?id=ACC_G_kiR4cC&pg=PA317&lpg=PA317 by John English.

Bill Mollison photo
Nathalia Crane photo
Georges Seurat photo

“.. the flag is green with a red spot in the center; above, the blue of the sky, the orange-tinted white of the walls, and the orange-grey of the clouds.”

Georges Seurat (1859–1891) French painter

short notation, 1881: from 'Notes inedites de Seurat sur Delacroix', in 'Bulletin de la Vie Artistique', April 1922; as quoted by John Rewald, in Georges Seurat', a monograph https://ia800607.us.archive.org/23/items/georges00rewa/georges00rewa.pdf; Wittenborn and Compagny, New York, 1943. p. 6 - note 9
Seurat studied carefully the paintings of Eugene Delacroix, and wrote in 1881 about Delacroix's painting 'The Fanatics of Tangier' https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a0/Eug%C3%A8ne_Delacroix_-_The_Fanatics_of_Tangier_-_WGA06195.jpg this notation
Quotes, 1881 - 1890

José Mourinho photo

“If I wanted to have an easy job I would have stayed at Porto. Beautiful blue chair, the UEFA Champions League trophy, God, and after God, me.”

José Mourinho (1963) Portuguese association football player and manager

http://www.fifa.com/worldfootball/news/newsid=1033132.html
2004

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner photo

“There was such a wonderful setting of the moon this morning, the yellow moon against little pink clouds, and the mountains a pure deep blue [viewed from his Swiss farmhouse], quite glorious, I would so have liked to paint. But it was cold, even my window was frozen, although I had kept the fire in all night.”

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880–1938) German painter, sculptor, engraver and printmaker

In a letter from Frauenkirch, Jan. 1919; as quoted in Expressionism, de:Wolf-Dieter Dube; Praeger Publishers, New York, 1973, p. 48
Some time later Kirchner would made a colored wood-cut: 'Moonlit Winter Night' https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/25/Kirchner_-_Wintermondnacht.jpg
1916 - 1919

Dashiell Hammett photo
Steve Jobs photo

“It is hard to think that a $2 billion company with 4,300-plus people couldn't compete with six people in blue jeans.”

Steve Jobs (1955–2011) American entrepreneur and co-founder of Apple Inc.

On Apple's lawsuit against him, following his resignation to form NeXT, as quoted in Newsweek (30 September 1985)
1980s

Jean Metzinger photo