Quotes about calm
page 5

“It is commonly observed, that when two Englishmen meet, their first talk is of the weather; they are in haste to tell each other, what each must already know, that it is hot or cold, bright or cloudy, windy or calm.”

Samuel Johnson The Idler

No. 11 (June 24, 1758)
The Idler (1758–1760)

Weather

“We are blessed with a spirit that is one with the spirit of the universe. This spirit is called "reiseishin". The moon is clearly reflected in the water when the water is calm. In the same way when our mind and body are unified and calm, our "reiseishin" manifests itself completely. Once this happens all suffering and wicked desires fall away, and the universal spirit of love and protection for all things appears in us. Let us strive to realise our "reiseishin".”

Koichi Tohei (1920–2011) Japanese aikidoka

17 : Reiseishin - the universal mind
Ki Sayings (2003)

Love, Way, Suffering, Universe

“Every morning I speak to my conscience and the dialogue calms me down. I look at the country, read the newspaper, and think: 'All is becoming a reality little by little, piece by piece'. To be truthful, I should have had the copyright to it. Justice, TV, public order. I wrote about this 30 years ago…. Berlusconi is an extraordinary man, a man of action. This is what Italy needs: not a man of words, but a man of action.”

Licio Gelli (1919–2015) Italian financier, liaison with Nazi Germany, P2 grandmaster, involved in many scandals

Truth, Justice, Thinking, Reality

“In order to win victory now, we want the vote of every Republican — of every Grant Republican, and every anti-Grant Republican, in America — of every Blaine man and every anti-Blaine man. The vote of every follower of every candidate is needed to make success certain. Therefore I say, gentlemen and brethren, we are here to take calm counsel together, and inquire what we shall do.”

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

1880s, Speech Nominating John Sherman for President (1880)

Success, Victory

“The clarity of Socrates' situation is remarkable. … his exit is wonderfully seductive. It is calm, clear, convincing. Friends are present, wise words are said, the ethical unfolding of life is tied up in a neat package. And then he slips away, slowly becoming stone-cold from the feet up. It is our fantasy of the normal death, with the addition of social and prophetic implications, to say nothing of heroic proportions. Again, most of us will likely drop dead on a subway platform, in the middle of an orgasm or straining on a toilet seat early in the morning. The real tragedy of death may be just how often it is comic.”

John Ralston Saul (1947) Canadian author and essayist

On Equilibrium (2001)

Life, Death, Dead

“Therefore we should not try to alter circumstances but to adapt ourselves to them as they really are, just as sailors do. They don't try to change the winds or the sea but ensure that they are always ready to adapt themselves to conditions. In a flat calm they use the oars; with a following breeze they hoist full sail; in a head wind they shorten sail or heave to. Adapt yourself to circumstances in the same way.”

Bion of Borysthenes (-325–-246 BC) ancient greek philosopher

As quoted by Teles of Megara, fr. 2, On Self-Sufficiency

Way, Change, Sea

“They talked quietly, lying on their backs and letting the words float up to the ceiling as though they were talking to themselves. By reason of their calmness they could tell each other everything without shame, without its sounding like a confession. Nor were they surprised at what they found out about each other.”

Stig Dagerman book A Burnt Child

Source: A Burnt Child (1948), p. 191

Lying

“And hie him home, at evening's close,
To sweet repast and calm repose.”

Thomas Gray (1716–1771) English poet, historian

Source: Ode on the Pleasure Arising from Vicissitude http://www.thomasgray.org/cgi-bin/display.cgi?text=oopv (1754), Line 87

Home

“Peace, peace is what I seek and public calm,
Endless extinction of unhappy hates.”

Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) English poet and cultural critic who worked as an inspector of schools

"Merope" (1858), line 100

Hate, Peace

“I see a face of love,
Fair as sweet music when my heart was strong:
Yea — art thou come again to me, great Song?"
The face bent over him like silver night
In long-remembered summers; that calm light
Of days which shine in firmaments of thought,
That past unchangeable, from change still wrought.”

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

The Legend of Jubal (1869)

Love, Art, Music, Light

“Breathe out, so that your breath travels infinitely to the ends of the universe: breathe in, so that your breath reaches your one point and continues infinitely there. The ki breathing methods are an important way of unifying mind and body. At night when all is quiet and calm, do this alone, and you will feel that you are the universe and that the universe is you. It will lead you to supreme ecstasy of being one with the universe. At this moment the life power that is rightfully yours is fully activated.”

Koichi Tohei (1920–2011) Japanese aikidoka

15 : Ki breathing exercises
Ki Sayings (2003)

Life, Way, Travel, Feeling

“He felt neither guilt nor distress at the pleasure with which he was now filled by the proximity of this young creature, and when he discovered in himself even physical symptoms of his inclination he did not take fright, but continued cheerfully and serenely to see Nick whenever the ordinary run of his duties suggested it, congratulating himself upon the newly achieved solidity and rational calm of his spiritual life.”

Iris Murdoch book The Bell

The Bell (1958) p. 91

Life, Pleasure

“I told you so. Seems like I'm out here a lot saying that to you people, right? I know it seems like a lot, but the truth is i said that i would beat Jeff, and i did. I told you so. I said that i would get rid of Jeff Hardy FOREVER, and i did. I told you so. And then i said i would make The Undertaker tap out to the Anaconda Vice, and you laughed! But then i did just that. And contrary to what you people believe, i didn't come out here to brag about becoming the first and ONLY man in history to make the Phenom, The Undertaker, tap out. I came out here to confront The Undertaker. I came out here to confront The Undertaker in MY ring, or my yard, if you will. I came out here to stick MY World Heavyweight Championship in his face, and look him in the eye, and say to him, I TOLD YOU SO! But, of course, he's conveniently not here right now, so instead, i think i'll address all of you people. It's come to my attention that you people think I have been preaching to you. Alright, we'll call a space a spade. The truth is, YES i have. Because you people need a good preaching to. You people need somebody you can look up to, you need a leader who isn't morally corrupt, and you need someone that's righteous, not self-righteous. And i know what your all gonna do next, your gonna do exactly what your hero, the Undertaker, did, your gonna give up! Hell, by the looks at half of you, you already have. I mean, what kind of life is it that you live? What kind of existence do you have where you wake up in the morning and you have to pop a pill to help crawl out of bed? And then, then you ravage your body with pitchers of beer, and that's supposed to somehow heal your broken self-worth. And then you just make excuses about inhaling poison into your lungs just to calm your nerves. And then, at the end of your sad, pathetic, lonely day, your in need of another pill to make you forget everything. You need a pill to help you sleep. (The crowd boos as Punk mouths "you make me sick") You are all just a legion of inebriated zombies, waiting in line at the pharmacy with your hand out, begging and pleading for that newest anti-depressant that you think is going to put an artificial smile on your face. You scratch and you claw for scapegoats for all of your inadequacies, and believe me, you have a LOT of inadequacies. And don't tell me that you self medicate yourself to forget about it all, don't tell me you don't self medicate to hide from all your inadequacies, don't tell me you don't do it. Because if you do, well then your a liar too. Your lying to yourself, your lying to yourselves right now. Your lying to the person next to you, you go home and you lie to your family, and it's insulting because right now your lying to ME. And i can see right through all of you people and your lies, because i am not a liar. I am a man who means what he says and says what he means. What i am is a prophet, i am the choice of a new generation, i am a champion that everybody can finally be proud of, i am the first and only straight-edge World Heavyweight Champion in history. And if your not straight-edge like me, well, that just means i'm better than you!”

Phil Brooks (1978) American professional wrestler and mixed martial artist

September 18, 2009
Friday Night SmackDown

Life, People, Truth, Lie

“And join with thee, calm Peace and Quiet,
Spare Fast, that oft with gods doth diet.”

John Milton (1608–1674) English epic poet

Source: Il Penseroso (1631), Line 45

God, Peace

“A consistent Christian may not have rapture; he has that which is much better than rapture — calmness — God's serene and perpetual presence.”

Frederick William Robertson (1816–1853) British writer and theologian

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 278.

God

“Come across as very calm, mental state is Zen like. Always had a lot of heart, never been the tin type”

Lupe Fiasco (1982) rapper

"Go To Sleep"
Albums, Food & Liquor II: The Great American Rap Album (2012)

Heart

“There is a Polish countess here, who likes me much. She has been very handsome, still is, in the style of the full-blown rose. She is a widow, very rich, one of the emancipated women, naturally vivacious, and with talent. This woman envies me; she says, "How happy you are; so free, so serene, so attractive, so self-possessed!" I say not a word, but I do not look on myself as particularly enviable. A little money would have made me much more so; a little money would have enabled me to come here long ago, and find those that belong to me, or at least try my experiments; then my health would never have sunk, nor the best years of my life been wasted in useless friction. Had I money now, — could I only remain, take a faithful servant, and live alone, and still see those I love when it is best, that would suit me. It seems to me, very soon I shall be calmed, and begin to enjoy.”

Margaret Fuller (1810–1850) American feminist, poet, author, and activist

Letter (17 November 1847).
Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli (1852)

Love, Life, Women, Money

“Calm was the day, and through the trembling air
Sweet-breathing Zephyrus did softly play—
A gentle spirit, that lightly did delay
Hot Titan's beams, which then did glister fair”

Edmund Spenser (1552–1599) English poet

Source: Prothalamion (1596), Line 1

“Mr. Speaker, you have no idea how great this feels to be great back here at work in people’s House. As you can imagine, these last 3 1/2 months have been pretty challenging times for me and my family. But, if you look at the outpouring of love — my gosh Jennifer and I have been overwhelmed with the outpouring — It’s given us the strength to get through all of this. And get to this point today; it starts with God. When I was laying out on that ball field, the first thing I did once I was down and couldn’t move anymore, I started to pray. And tell you, it gave me an unbelievable sense of calm knowing at that point it’s in God’s hands. I prayed for specific things, and I’ll tell you, pretty much every one of those prayers was answered. They were some pretty challenging prayers I was putting in God’s hands, but he really did deliver for me and my family. And it just gives you that renewed faith and understanding that the power of prayer is something you cannot under estimate. So I’m a living example that miracles really do happen.”

Steve Scalise (1965) American politician

Love, God, People, Family

“If I could calm or restrain you
for the sake of pity
save the pistol
save the cynic's tongue
save the cool white stare
treat me to an honest face sometime”

Natalie Merchant (1963) American singer-songwriter

"Scorpio Rising"
Song lyrics, The Wishing Chair (1985)

“.. the flat surface of a perfectly calm ocean [which] disturbs us.... by all the unknown that is hidden in the depth.”

Giorgio de Chirico (1888–1978) Italian artist

Quote of De Chirico, April/May 1919; as quoted in 'Giorgio de Chirico', MoMa online https://www.moma.org/artists/1106#fnref1 <br class="br">De Chirico compared the metaphysical work of art to this image of a calm ocean <br class="br">1908 - 1920

“Sam stood in the center of the church, listening for the presence of God. It was a hot place. The air was blue with floating radioisotopes. She glanced up at the clouds and they staggered by as if the walls were falling in on her. She looked away quickly. The air flowed around her, calm and peaceful and blue. But there was no divine presence.”

Michael Swanwick (1950) American science fiction author

Source: In the Drift (1985), Chapter 3, “Boneseeker” (pp. 99-100)

God, Peace

“I think of the whole of the city, the people who inhabit its halls, who sleep now and breathe its recycled air and whose activities by day animate this strip of land on the rim of the desert, and I remember — because this thought is always a memory — that they will all one day be gone, that everyone of them will be taken outside and pushed into the sand, that in a hundred years, or two hundred years, to be certain, every human being here, every lover and loser, every captain of industry and every hotel cleaner, every mother and father and every child will be no more and that these buildings will stand, not all of them, but enough will persevere without them. Its a thought that stills me, that brings a moment of calm. And I walk and walk, and amid the concrete, steel and glass, under lights burning brighter than the noonday sun, it is the knot of anxiety, always tightening and turning, for which, above all else, I resent her.”

Zia Haider Rahman British novelist

In The Light of what We Know (2014)

People, Lovers, Thinking, Sleep

“I never have to search for subjects, they come to offer themselves - the right form is not always there immediately and that is why it is good to draw those small sketches beforehand. Otherwise it will become too wild, the work demands great calmness and if I am bound to time - for example when Greet [his wife] thinks that I should come home earlier - [then] it starts thundering, because peace has disappeared.”

Hendrik Werkman (1882–1945) Dutch artist

version in original Dutch (origineel citaat van Hendrik Werkman, in het Nederlands): Onderwerpen behoef ik nooit te zoeken die komen zichzelf aanbieden, de goede vorm niet altijd dadelijk en daarom is het goed vooraf die kleine schetsjes te maken. Anders wordt het te wild, het werk eischt een groote kalmte en als ik aan tijd gebonden ben, bijv. als Greet [zijn vrouw] vindt dat ik vroeger thuis moet komen [dan] is het donderen want de rust is zoek.
Quote in a letter to nl:Paul Guermonprez, 15 July 1942; as cited in H. N. Werkman - Leven & Werk - 1882-1945, ed. A. de Vries, J. van der Spek, D. Sijens, M. Jansen; WBooks, Groninger Museum / Stichting Werkman, 2015 (transl: Fons Heijnsbroek), p. 176
1940's

Peace, Home, Search, Thinking

“To tell the truth, peasant subjects suit my nature best, for I must confess, at the risk of your taking me to be a Socialist, that the human side is what touches me most in art... The joyous side never shows itself to me; I know not if it exists, but I have never seen it. The gayest thing I know is the calm, the silence, which are so delicious, both in the forest and in the cultivated fields, whether the soil is good for culture or not. You will confess that it always gives you a very dreamy sensation, and that the dream is a sad one, although often very delicious.”

Jean-François Millet (1814–1875) French painter

In his letter to fr:Alfred_Sensier, Barbizon, February 1850; as quoted in Prints & drawings Europe 1500–1900 - catalogue for the exhibition 'European prints & drawings: 1500 - 1900', ed. Peter Raissis; Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney 2014, pp. 136-137
1835 - 1850

Truth, Sadness, Dreams, Art

“The presence of God calms the soul, and gives it quiet and repose.”

François Fénelon (1651–1715) Catholic bishop

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 276.

God, Soul

“For a wholesome collaboration of the sexes in professional life will be possible only if both achieve a calm and objective awareness of their nature and draw practical conclusions from it.”

Edith Stein (1891–1942) Jewish-German nun, theologian and philosopher

Essays on Woman (1996), The Ethos of Woman's Professions (1930)

Life, Sex, Nature, Drawing

“64. The proof of apatheia is had when the spirit begins to see its own light, when it remains in a state of tranquility in the presence of the images it has during sleep and when it maintains its calm as it beholds the affairs of life.”

Evagrius Ponticus (345–399) Christian monk

The Praktikos

Life, Sleep, Light

“"Stay calm, sir," I cried. "Don't excite yourself, it could mean death." He took me at my word and instantly fell inert. I didn't know whether he was obeying me or had died.”

Tom Baker (1934) English actor

While working as a hospital orderly.

Death

“I understand your anger and outrage, I understand your pain. And yet in the self-interest of Gujarat, and to ensure that we don’t jeopardize the future of Gujarat, that Gujarat doesn’t get a blot on its face [or] carry a stigma connected with these times all the 5 crore Gujaratis need to keep calm and exercise self-restraint.”

Narendra Modi (1950) Prime Minister of India

2002, "When select phrases are lifted and distorted out of context", 2002

Pain, Exercises, Understanding, Time

“And through it all, calm and impassive, leaning on his elbow and gazing down, Wolf Larsen seemed lost in a great curiosity. This wild stirring of yeasty life, this terrific revolt and defiance of matter that moved, perplexed and interested him.”

Jack London book The Sea-Wolf

Source: The Sea-Wolf (1904), Chapter Twelve

Life, Wolf

“After ten years he has finally let free a wrath that would cower Satan himself. How can any man possibly calm the fury he feels towards his persecutors.”

Mark Waid (1962) American comics writer

The Spectre, of Superman
Kingdom Come (1996)

Feeling

“Though to us — the toilers — it is night still, to Him — the Master who watcheth our labor, and to them — our fellows whose labor is done — "there is light with a clear sky." Though to us, down below, there is but the deafening roar, the shriek of discord, the wail of pain, blent in one jargon of strange sounds which have no chime; to them, above in the high, calm silence, there are heard only the striking of the hour which tells of the sure speed of time, and the voice of the joy-bells already ringing for the world's great bridal.”

William Morley Punshon (1824–1881) English Nonconformist minister

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 114.

Pain, World, Light, Silence

“I purpose now, while the impression is more pure and clear within me, to mark down the main things I can recollect of my father. To myself, if I live to after-years, it may be instructive and interesting, as the past grows ever holier the farther we leave it. My mind is calm enough to do it deliberately, and to do it truly. The thought of that pale earnest face which even now lies stiffened into death in that bed at Scotsbrig, with the Infinite all of worlds looking down on it, will certainly impel me. It is good to know how a true spirit will vindicate itself with truth and freedom through what obstructions soever; how the acorn cast carelessly into the wilder-ness will make room for itself and grow to be an oak. This is one of the cases belonging to that class, "the lives of remarkable men," in which it has been said, "paper and ink should least of all be spared." I call a man remarkable who becomes a true workman in this vineyard of the Highest. Be his work that of palace-building and kingdom-founding, or only of delving and ditching, to me it is no matter, or next to none. All human work is transitory, small in itself, contemptible. Only the worker thereof, and the spirit that dwelt in him, is significant. I proceed without order, or almost any forethought, anxious only to save what I have left and mark it as it lies in me.”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

1880s, Reminiscences (1881)

Death, Men, Truth, World

“Temporary safety is not the same as long-term security. A false sense of security is like the calm before the storm.”

Newton Lee American computer scientist

Counterterrorism and Cybersecurity: Total Information Awareness (2nd Edition), 2015

Sense, Falseness

“Practise silence, for the voice of God can be heard in the region of your heart only when the tongue and the inner storm are stilled, and the waves (of the mind) are calmed. There will be no temptation for others to shout when you talk to them in whispers. Set the level of the tone yourself: as low as possible, as high as necessary to reach the outermost boundary of the circle you are addressing. Conserve sound, since it is the treasure of the element ether (Akasa), an emanation from God Himself. Reason can prevail only when the arguments are advanced without the whipping up of sound. Silence is the speech of the spiritual seeker. Soft speech is the expression of genuine love. Hate screeches; fear squeals; conceit trumpets; but love sings lullabies, it soothes, it applies balm. Practise the vocabulary of love; unlearn the language of hate and contempt.”

Sathya Sai Baba (1926–2011) Indian guru

"Divine Discourse" (19 February 1970)

Love, God, Hate, Fear

“It is not in the calm and measured paths of to day that we see the more bold and pronounced characters, whose outlines have been rough-hewn by the strong hand of necessity; yet to such troubled times often belong the development of our noblest and best qualities — the stormy gulf of Ormus throws up the finest pearls. It is not in the season of tranquility that we know aught of the generous devotion, the fertility of resource, and the forgetfulness of self often shown in the hour of trial. When the French revolution broke out, how many, only accustomed to indolence, luxury, and custom, showed that "there was iron in the rose;" and, whether at the call of duty or of affection, were prepared to bear even to the uttermost, and to exert a fortitude till then undreamed of.”

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

Literary Remains

Strong, Time, Forgetting, Season

“But the indication of the strength of our system was moral as well as physical. 'You cannot stand the strain of a civil war and of party spirit combined', said the skeptics. 'You will end in anarchy at the election'. I knew those who apprehended revolution and provisional governments as November approached. In hushed expectation election day dawned. You remember the old story of an agreement of everybody in the world to shout all together at the same moment upon a certain day, and make a noise that would be heard to the stars. The hour came; and it was the most silent moment ever known. The sole sound was the thin, weak cry of one deaf old woman. Everybody else in the world was listening for the prodigious noise. So the Great Election passed in perfect peace. The sun of the ninth of November rose, not upon a convulsed nation tumbling into anarchy, but standing calm, strong, and erect upon its two feet of Union and Liberty, and somewhere upon the ground the tip-end of the tail of a copperhead snake sneaking into his hole.”

George William Curtis (1824–1892) American writer

1860s, The Good Fight (1865)

War, World, Peace, Star

“What we need is an enthusiastic but calm state of mind, and intense but orderly work.”

Mao Zedong (1893–1976) Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China

"Problems of Strategy in China's Revolutionary War" https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/works/red-book/ch22.htm, (December 1936), Selected Works, Vol. I, p. 211.

“A mind of a certain size can feel only exasperation toward a city. Nothing can drive me more fully into despair. The walls first of all, and even then all the rest is only so many horrid images of selfishness, mistrust, stupidity, and narrow-mindedness. No need to memorize the Napoleonic code. Just look at a city and you have it. Each time I come back from the country, just as I am starting to congratulate myself on my calmness, there breaks out a furor, a rage… And I come upon my mark, homo sapiens, the acquisitive wolf. Cities, architectures, how I loathe you! Great surfaces of vaults, vaults cemented into the earth, vaults set out in compartments, forming vaults to eat in, vaults for sex, vaults on the watch, ready to open fire. How sad, sad…”

Henri Michaux (1899–1984) painter, poet, writer

Ecuador (1929)

Stupidity, Sadness, Sex, Feeling

“All is so calm and chaste, so like a dream.
That looking at this masterpiece of God, I ask myself
Where is there a painter, an artist so supreme,So profoundly wise as to unfurl
A canvas with a more arresting scene,
More delicate and beautiful in this World?”

Florbela Espanca (1894–1930) Portuguese poet

Tudo é tranquilo e casto e sonhador...
Olhando esta paisagem que é uma tela
De Deus, eu penso então: Onde há pintor<p>Onde há artista de saber profundo,
Que possa imaginar coisa mais bela,
Mais delicada e linda neste Mundo?
Juvenilia: versos inéditos de Florbela Espanca (1946), p. 56
Translated by John D. Godinho
Juvenília (1931), No meu Alentejo

God, World, Beauty, Dreams

“Many things are said to be passed on. Sleepiness can be passed on, and yawning can be passed on. Time can be passed on also.
In large-scale strategy, when the enemy is agitated and shows an inclination to rush, do not mind in the least. Make a show of complete calmness, and the enemy will be taken by this and will become relaxed. When you see that this spirit has been passed on, you can bring about the enemy's defeat by attacking strongly with a Void spirit.”

Miyamoto Musashi (1584–1645) Japanese martial artist, writer, artist

Go Rin No Sho (1645), The Fire Book

Time

“If some grave sire appears, amid the strife,
In morals strict, and innocence of life,
All stand attentive, while the sage controuls
Their wrath, and calms the tempest of their souls.”

Christopher Pitt (1699–1748) English poet

Book I, line 206
The Æneid of Virgil (1740)

Life, Soul, Appearance

“As compassion deepens, we find ourselves developing a nobility of the heart. Increasingly, and often to our surprise, we respond to difficult situations with calmness, clarity and directness. A quiet fearlessness or confidence is present as we no longer fear that we will compromise our own integrity. We find, too, a joy, a joy which arises from the knowledge that our every act is meaningful and helpful to the world.”

Ken McLeod (1948) Canadian lama

Awakening Compassion http://www.unfetteredmind.org/awakening-compassion. Unfettered Mind http://www.unfetteredmind.org. (Topic: Practice)

World, Fear, Confidence, Knowledge

“There was about Alexandra something of the impervious calm of the fatalist, always disconcerting to very young people, who cannot feel that the heart lives at all unless it is still at the mercy of storms; unless its strings can scream to the touch of pain.”

Willa Cather book O Pioneers!

Part IV, Chapter 1 : "The White Mulberry Tree"
O Pioneers! (1913)

Pain, People, Feeling, Heart

“It may be that even a calm, neutral Finn cannot always hide all his emotions and feelings.”

Olli Rehn (1962) Finnish politician

On participating as a European commissioner in negotiating Turkey's membership during the British presidency of the European Union, 2005, quoted in Edward Stourton's Inside the British Presidency http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/news/insidebritishpresidency.shtml, BBC Radio 4, (27 February 2006)

Feeling

“I believe we should extend our care and concern to all living creatures with whom we share this planet. … [Animals] give me a window into a world that is different from our own, but every bit as meaningful. … I can’t imagine what life would be like without animals. They bring me happiness and a sense of calm and peace.”

Alyssa Milano (1972) American actress, singer, producer

"Alyssa Milano on Pets and Best Friends", interview with Parade (24 June 2013) https://parade.com/24465/michelechollow/alyssa-milano-on-pets-and-best-friends/.

Life, Happiness, World, Peace

“The cold heart will burst
If mistrusted first
And a calm heart will break
When given a shake”

Leslie Feist (1976) Canadian musician

"How My Heart Behaves"
The Reminder (2007)

Heart

“Such a stupid act. Sometimes heroics revolted him; they seemed like an insult to the soldier who weighed the risks of the situation and made calm, cunning decisions based on experience and imagination, the sort of unshowy soldiering that didn’t win medals but wars.”

Iain Banks Culture series

Source: Culture series, Use of Weapons (1990), Chapter VIII (p. 183).

War, Stupidity, Imagination, Decision

“This violence is a calm that disturbs you.”

Jean Genet book The Thief's Journal

The Thief's Journal (1949)

“An unbiased reader, on opening one of their [Fichte’s, Schelling’s or Hegel’s] books and then asking himself whether this is the tone of a thinker wanting to instruct or that of a charlatan wanting to impress, cannot be five minutes in any doubt. … The tone of calm investigation, which had characterized all previous philosophy, is exchanged for that of unshakeable certainty, such as is peculiar to charlatanry of every kind and at all times. … From every page and every line, there speaks an endeavor to beguile and deceive the reader, first by producing an effect to dumbfound him, then by incomprehensible phrases and even sheer nonsense to stun and stupefy him, and again by audacity of assertion to puzzle him, in short, to throw dust in his eyes and mystify him as much as possible.”

Arthur Schopenhauer book Parerga and Paralipomena

E. Payne, trans. (1974) Vol. 1, p. 23
Parerga and Paralipomena (1851), Sketch of a History of the Doctrine of the Ideal and the Real

Books, Time

“Women, to be very attractive to all sorts of different people, must have great readiness of sympathy. Many have it naturally, and many work hard in acquiring a good imitation of it. In the first case it is against the nature of such persons to be monopolized for more than a very short time; in the second all their trouble would be thrown away if they allowed themselves to be monopolized. Once in their lives, indeed, they will be, and ought to be, and that monopoly lasts, or should last for ever; but instead of destroying in them that which was their great charm, it only deepens and widens it, and the sympathy which was before fitful, and, perhaps, wayward, flows on in a calm and healthy stream, blessing and cheering all who come within reach of its exhilarating and life-giving waters.”

Thomas Hughes book Tom Brown at Oxford

Source: Tom Brown at Oxford (1861), Ch. 27

Life, Women, People, Nature

“These Disciplines [mathematics] serve to inure and corroborate the Mind to a constant Diligence in Study; to undergo the Trouble of an attentive Meditation, and cheerfully contend with such Difficulties as lie in the Way. They wholly deliver us from a credulous Simplicity, most strongly fortify us against the Vanity of Scepticism, effectually restrain from a rash Presumption, most easily incline us to a due Assent, perfectly subject us to the Government of right Reason, and inspire us with Resolution to wrestle against the unjust Tyranny of false Prejudices. If the Fancy be unstable and fluctuating, it is to be poised by this Ballast, and steadied by this Anchor, if the Wit be blunt it is sharpened upon this Whetstone; if luxuriant it is pared by this Knife; if headstrong it is restrained by this Bridle; and if dull it is roused by this Spur. The Steps are guided by no Lamp more clearly through the dark Mazes of Nature, by no Thread more surely through the intricate Labyrinths of Philosophy, nor lastly is the Bottom of Truth sounded more happily by any other Line. I will not mention how plentiful a Stock of Knowledge the Mind is furnished from these, with what wholesome Food it is nourished, and what sincere Pleasure it enjoys. But if I speak farther, I shall neither be the only Person, nor the first, who affirms it; that while the Mind is abstracted and elevated from sensible Matter, distinctly views pure Forms, conceives the Beauty of Ideas, and investigates the Harmony of Proportions; the Manners themselves are sensibly corrected and improved, the Affections composed and rectified, the Fancy calmed and settled, and the Understanding raised and excited to more divine Contemplation. All which I might defend by Authority, and confirm by the Suffrages of the greatest Philosophers.”

Isaac Barrow (1630–1677) English Christian theologian, and mathematician

Source: Mathematical Lectures (1734), p. 31: Prefatory Oration

Pleasure, Truth, Lie, Food

“Oh! for a closer walk with God,
A calm and heav'nly frame;
A light to shine upon the road
That leads me to the Lamb!”

William Cowper (1731–1800) (1731–1800) English poet and hymnodist

No. 1, "Walking With God".
Olney Hymns (1779)

God, Light

“There's no doubt you smoke to calm yourself. I know I do. That's my decision about how I keep calm. I prefer that to Prozac. In fact I think it's healthier. I couldn't go to another New York party where they're all drinking water and on Prozac and telling you off for smoking.”

David Hockney (1937) British artist

Interview with Marion Finlay, "Hockney on … politics, pleasure, and smoking in public places," FOREST Online (28 July 2004)
2000s

Drink, Thinking, Decision, Water

“Gaiety of tone is the luminous dominant, of tint, the warm dominant, of line, lines above the horizontal
Calmness of tone is the equality of dark and light; of tint, of warm and cool, and the horizontal for line.
Sadness of tone is the dark dominant; of tint, the cool dominant, and of line, downward directions.”

Georges Seurat (1859–1891) French painter

Quotes, 1881 - 1890, Letter to Maurice Beaubourg', August 1890

Sadness, Light

“time in an allegory of itself imparts to us lessons of wisdom which the moment they are formulated are immediately destroyed by the merest flickers of light or shadow which are nothing more than time in its incarnations and disincarnations which are the phrases that I am writing on this paper and that disappears as I read them:
they are not the sensations, the perceptions, the mental images, and the thoughts which flare up and die away here, now, as I write or as I read what I write: they are not what I see or what I have seen, they are the reverse of what is seen and of the power of sight—but they are not the invisible: they are the unsaid residuum;
they are not the other side of reality but, rather, the other side of language, what we have on the tip of our tongue that vanishes before it is said, the other side that cannot be named because it is the opposite of a name:
what is not said is not this or that which we leave unsaid, nor is it neither-this-nor-that: it is not the tree that I say I see but the sensation that I feel on sensing that I see it at the moment when I am just about to say that I see it, an insubstantial but real conjunction of vibrations and sounds and meanings that on being combined suggest the configuration of a green-bronze-black-woody-leafy-sonorous-silent presence;
no, it is not that either, if it is not a name it surely cannot be the description of a name or the description of the sensation of the name or the name of the sensation:
a tree is not the name tree, nor is it the sensation of tree: it is the sensation of a perception of tree that dies away at the very moment of the perception of the sensation of tree;
names, as we already know, are empty, but what we did not know, or if we did know, had forgotten, is that sensations are perceptions of sensations that die away, sensations that vanish on becoming perceptions, since if they were not perceptions, how would we know that they are sensations?;
sensations that are not perceptions are not sensations, perceptions that are not names—what are they?
if you didn’t know it before, you know now: everything is empty;
and the moment I say everything-is-empty, I am aware that I am falling into a trap: if everything is empty, this everything-is-empty is empty too;
no, it is full, full to overflowing, everything-is-empty is replete with itself, what we touch and see and taste and smell and think, the realities that we invent and the realities that touch us, look at us, hear us, and invent us, everything that we weave and unweave and everything that weaves and unweaves us, momentary appearances and disappearances, each one different and unique, is always the same full reality, always the same fabric that is woven as it is unwoven: even total emptiness and utter privation are plenitude (perhaps they are the apogee, the acme, the consummation and the calm of plenitude), everything is full to the brim, everything is real, all these invented realities and all these very real inventions are full of themselves, each and every one of them, replete with their own reality;
and the moment I say this, they empty themselves: things empty themselves and names fill themselves, they are no longer empty, names are plethoras, they are donors, they are full to bursting with blood, milk, semen, sap, they are swollen with minutes, hours, centuries, pregnant with meanings and significations and signals, they are the secret signs that time makes to itself, names suck the marrow from things, things die on this page but names increase and multiply, things die in order that names may live:”

Octavio Paz (1914–1998) Mexican writer laureated with the 1990 Nobel Prize for Literature

Source: The Monkey Grammarian (1974), Ch. 9

Wisdom, Secret, Feeling, Thinking

“A mellow understanding of life and of human nature is, and always has been, the Chinese ideal of character, and from that understanding other qualities are derived, such as pacifism, contentment, calm and strength of endurance which distinguish the Chinese character.”

Lin Yutang (1895–1976) Chinese writer

Source: My Country and My People (1935), p. 43

Life, Understanding, Nature

“I was happy enough; I knew that during the night the whole city might go up in flames and all its people be killed, but the ravines, houses, and footpaths would wake in the morning calm and unchanged.”

Cesare Pavese (1908–1950) Italian poet, novelist, literary critic, and translator

Source: The house on the hill (1949), Chapter 1, p. 63

Happiness, People, Housing, Night

“I started crying again, my voice ragged. He told me to calm down. He told me it was going to be all right. And then, he told he'd be there soon.”

Sarah Dessen (1970) American writer

What Happened To Goodbye (2011)

Cry

“So his life has flowed
From its mysterious urn a sacred stream,
In whose calm depth the beautiful and pure
Alone are mirrored; which, though shapes of ill
May hover round its surface, glides in light,
And takes no shadow from them.”

Thomas Noon Talfourd (1795–1854) British politician

Act i. Sc. 1.
Ion (1835)

Life, Beauty, Light

“In back of the outward calm … a small terrified voice cries out: “I need it. I have to have it or…” The end of the sentence is lost in chaos. The need is so strong that an illusion is created that it must be fulfilled, or the very existence of the self is threatened.”

Sam Keen (1931) author, professor, and philosopher

Source: The Passionate Life (1983), p. 139

Strong

“A word in season spoken
May calm the troubled breast.”

Charles Jefferys (1807–1865) British music publisher

A Word in Season, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Season

“When that feeling of meaninglessness sets in,
Go blowing my mind on God:
The light in the dark, with the neon arms,
The meek He seeks, the beast He calms,
The head of the good soul department.”

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

Song lyrics, Lionheart (1978)

God, Feeling, Soul, Light

“It’s too late for someone to steal this story now, I suppose. I intended Doom to return to Latvaria and absolutely freak out when he discovered what his robots had done to Kristoff. Basically—he’d need a whole lot of new robots by the time he calmed down. And then he would devote a whole lot of time and energy to restoring Kristoff.”

John Byrne (1950) American author and artist of comic books

I had not decided if he would be successful. Part of my brain wanted him to realize he needed the help of the other smartest guy on the planet—and there was no way he could ever go there!
2007
http://www.byrnerobotics.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=22307&PN=2&totPosts=21
Revealing his aborted plans for a character named Kristoff he created in 'Fantastic Four

Time

“Oh real as in dream all this; and then a hand on mine is laid:
The wave of phantom time withdraws; and that young Babylonian maid,
One drop of beauty left behind from all the flowing of that tide,
Is looking with the self-same eyes, and here in Ireland by my side.
Oh, light our life in Babylon, but Babylon has taken wings,
While we are in the calm and proud procession of eternal things.”

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

The Nuts of Knowledge (1903)

Life, Beauty, Dreams, Light

“All Christian missionaries say that Jesus was a very calm and peace loving person. But in reality he was a hot-tempered persons destitute of knowledge and who behaved like a wild savage. This shows that Jesus was neither the son of God, nor had he any miraculous powers. He did not possess the power to forgive sins. The righteous people do not stand in need of any mediator like Jesus. Jesus came to spread discord which is going on everywhere in the world. Therefore, it is evident that the hoax of Christ’s being the Son of God, the knower of the past and the future, the forgiver of sin, has been set up falsely by his disciples. In reality, he was a very ordinary ignorant man, neither learned nor a yogi.”

Dayanand Saraswati (1824–1883) founder of the Arya Samaj, a Hindu reform movement

"Hindu Nationalists of Modern India" by Jose Kuruvachira, p. 20

Love, God, People, World

“I think classical music is a great, beautiful art as long as people recognize it. But first we need to calm down and listen to it with heart. In this technologically advanced time, too many things are drawing peoples' attention. Sometimes we need to slow down, look back and feel the beauty of art and life.”

Lang Lang (1982) Chinese pianist

huffingtonpost.com http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/26/lang-lang_n_1912686.html.

Life, People, Beauty, Art

“Philips, whose touch harmonious could remove
The pangs of guilty power and hapless love!
Rest here, distress'd by poverty no more;
Here find that calm thou gav'st so oft before;
Sleep undisturb'd within this peaceful shrine,
Till angels wake thee with a note like thine!”

Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer

Epitaph on Claudius Philips, the Musician
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Love, Peace, Angels, Sleep

“The storm is here. From the clash of these two winds the storm will be born, its time has arrived. Now the wind from above rules, but the wind from below is coming…. The prophecy is here. When the storm calms, when rain and fire again leave the country in peace, the world will no longer be the world but something better.”

Subcomandante Marcos (1957) Mexican activist

" Chiapas: The Southeast in Two Winds http://struggle.ws/mexico/ezln/marcos_se_2_wind.html" (August 1992)

World, Peace, Time, Country

“Trust Christ! and a great benediction of tranquil repose comes down upon the calm mind and the tranquil heart.”

Alexander Maclaren (1826–1910) British minister

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 589.

Heart, Christ

“Around thee and above,
Deep is the air and dark, substantial, black,
An ebon mass; methinks thou piercest it,
As with a wedge! But when I look again,
It is thine own calm home, thy crystal shrine,
Thy habitation from eternity!”

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) English poet, literary critic and philosopher

St. 1
"Hymn in the Vale of Chamouni" (1802)

Home

“In your calm bosom have made their dwelling a dignity that charms and virtue gay yet weighty. Not for you lazy repose or unjust power or vaulting ambition, but a middle way leading through the Good and the Pleasant. Of stainless faith and a stranger to passion, private while ordering your life for all to see, a despiser too of gold yet none better at displaying your wealth to advantage and letting the light in upon your riches.”
Tu cujus placido posuere in pectore sedem blandus honos hilarisque tamen cum pondere virtus, cui nec pigra quies nec iniqua potentia nec spes improba, sed medius per honesta et dulcia limes, incorrupte fidem nullosque experte tumultus et secrete, palam quod digeris ordine vitam, idem auri facilis contemptor et optimus idem comere divitias opibusque immittere lucem.

Statius Silvae

iii, line 64
Silvae, Book II

Life, Faith, Way, Light

“The great source of both the misery and disorders of human life, seems to arise from over-rating the difference between one permanent situation and another. Avarice over-rates the difference between poverty and riches: ambition, that between a private and a public station: vain-glory, that between obscurity and extensive reputation. The person under the influence of any of those extravagant passions, is not only miserable in his actual situation, but is often disposed to disturb the peace of society, in order to arrive at that which he so foolishly admires. The slightest observation, however, might satisfy him, that, in all the ordinary situations of human life, a well-disposed mind may be equally calm, equally cheerful, and equally contented. Some of those situations may, no doubt, deserve to be preferred to others: but none of them can deserve to be pursued with that passionate ardour which drives us to violate the rules either of prudence or of justice; or to corrupt the future tranquillity of our minds, either by shame from the remembrance of our own folly, or by remorse from the horror of our own injustice.”

Adam Smith book The Theory of Moral Sentiments

Chap. III.
The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759), Part III

Life, Peace, Justice, Passion

“Yes, solitude amid her depths has many a hidden balm
Guarded for those who leave her not, to strengthen and to calm.”

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

Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1835 (1834), 'Chapter House, Furness Abbey' translation from an epistle of St. Beuve to A. Fontenay. (Presumably Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve)
Translations, From the French

Solitude

“A lethargy of sleep,
Most like to death, so calm, so deep.”

John Conington (1825–1869) British classical scholar

Source: Translations, The Aeneid of Virgil (1866), Book VI, p. 209

Death, Sleep

“All the wild world is beautiful, and it matters but little where we go, to highlands or lowlands, woods or plains, on the sea or land or down among the crystals of waves or high in a balloon in the sky; through all the climates, hot or cold, storms and calms, everywhere and always we are in God's eternal beauty and love. So universally true is this, the spot where we chance to be always seems the best.”

John Muir (1838–1914) Scottish-born American naturalist and author

June 1890, page 299
John of the Mountains, 1938

Love, God, World, Beauty

“Whenever Richard Cory went down town,
We people on the pavement looked at him:
He was a gentleman from sole to crown,
Clean favored, and imperially slim.
And he was always quietly arrayed,
And he was always human when he talked;
But still he fluttered pulses when he said,
"Good-morning," and he glittered when he walked.
And he was rich—yes, richer than a king—
And admirably schooled in every grace:
In fine, we thought that he was everything
To make us wish that we were in his place.
So on we worked, and waited for the light,
And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;
And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,
Went home and put a bullet through his head.”

Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869–1935) American poet

Children of the Night (1910).

People, School, Home, Light

“I'm not a teetotaler. People know that I like to have my drinks. Specially when I go to work. I don't like to get drunk. I don't go out drunk. I never would, for respect to the audience. But sometimes I have a drink. I am a very nervous person, extremely nervous. So to calm me down, I like having a drink before going on stage.”

Alejandro Fernández (1971) Mexican singer

Television interview (air date should be found) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_X8Oq_AQVPo.

People, Drink, Personality

“But it is one thing to keep your adversaries or your "near-peer" competitors off balance with strategic unpredictability and quite another to keep the American people themselves similarly at a loss as to what exactly is going on, which is now a daily occurrence, to say nothing at all about the vexation on the part of many of our traditional allies all over the world. I began writing this book after returning from a trip to Mexico City on a one-senator diplomatic mission to calm and reassure the nation to our south- a vitally important friend and trading partner- that all will be well, that America is still America. But is it?”

Jeff Flake (1962) American politician

Source: Conscience of a Conservative (2017), p. 6

People, Books, World, Loss

“Women are supposed to be very calm generally; but women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for their faculties and a field for their efforts as much as their brothers do; they suffer from too rigid a restraint, too absolute a stagnation, precisely as men would suffer; and it is narrow-minded in their more privileged fellow-creatures to say that they ought to confine themselves to making puddings and knitting stockings, to playing on the piano and embroidering bags. It is thoughtless to condemn them, or laugh at them, if they seek to do more or learn more than custom has pronounced necessary for their sex.”

Charlotte Brontë book Jane Eyre

Jane (Ch. 12)
Jane Eyre (1847)

Women, Men, Sex, Feeling

“Eternities before the first-born day,
Or ere the first sun fledged his wings of flame,
Calm Night, the everlasting and the same,
A brooding mother over chaos lay.”

James Weldon Johnson (1871–1938) writer and activist

Mother Night, st. 1.
Fifty Years and Other Poems (1917)

Sun, Night

“I was the only calm one in the house. You see I’ve been shot at by experts.”

Harry Truman (1884–1972) American politician, 33rd president of the United States (in office from 1945 to 1953)

Comment on his World War I experience after an assassination attempt on (1 November 1950) as quoted in Bess W. Truman (1986) by Margaret Truman

Housing

“You know there is the Fudesaki. What do you think of it? The seventeen parts of the Fudesaki were not completed in a short while. God spoke into my ears, saying, ‘Do not look at any writings, even the charge book from a bean curd shop.’ I wondered why. Then God said, ‘Brush, brush, take up the brush.’ I took the brush up for the first time at New Year’s when I became seventy-two years old. And when I took the brush up, My hand moved by itself. From heaven, God did it. After what was to be done was finished, My hand became numb and it could not be moved. God said, ‘Calm Your mind, and read this. If You find something You cannot understand, ask Me.’ I added brush strokes when I found something I could not understand. That is the Fudesaki.”

Nakayama Miki (1798–1887) Founder of Tenrikyo

Anecdotes of Oyasama, Foundress of Tenrikyo, from Anecdote 22, "Writing the Ofudesaki," p. 16.
Anecdotes of Oyasama

God, Books, Understanding, Thinking

“I have long been baffled as to why people said my preference over Obama was some kind of shift to the ideological left. Nope. Against a radical right, reckless, populist insurgency, Obama is the conservative option, dealing with emergent problems with pragmatic calm and modest innovation. He seeks as a good Oakeshottian would to reform the country's policies in order to regain the country's past virtues. What could possibly be more conservative than that?”

Andrew Sullivan (1963) Journalist, writer, blogger

"America's Tory President", The Daily Dish (24 August 2012) http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2012/08/24/americas-tory-president/

People, Problem, Past, Country

“The sea raises you to your feet. And dead calm.
Strands of light hold your hand. Now you have left
this shore. Now you are in the wind of an invisible sail.”

Mirkka Rekola (1931–2014) Finnish writer

Mirkka Rekola, Kuka lukee kanssasi (Who is Reading with You), 1990; Translated by Sari Hantula. Quoted at Mirkka Rekola http://www.electricverses.net/sakeet.php?poet=22&poem=645&language=3, at electricverses.net, accessed 20-03-2017.

Light, Sea, Dead

“Leave the earth to the strong and athletic,
And the sea to adventure upon.
But the sun and the sand
No contractor can copy;
We lie in the land
Of the lotus and poppy;
We vegetate, calm and aesthetic,
On the beach, on the sand, in the sun.”

Ogden Nash (1902–1971) American poet

Many Long Years Ago (1945), Pretty Halcyon Days

Lie, Strong, Sun, Sea

“How many murders, suicides, robberies, criminal assaults, holdups, burglaries and deeds of maniacal insanity it causes each year, especially among the young, can only be conjectured…No one knows, when he places a marijuana cigarette to his lips, whether he will become a joyous reveller in a musical heaven, a mad insensate, a calm philosopher, or a murderer…”

Harry J. Anslinger (1892–1975) 1st Commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics

"Marijuana — Assassin of Youth" in The American Magazine, Vol. 24 (July 1937), p. 18

Music, Suicide, Marijuana, Madness

“Which is the best,—
Beauty and glory, in a southern clime,
Mingled with thunder, tempest; or the calm
Of skies that scarcely change, which, at the least,
If much of shine they have not, have no storms?”

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

Erinna
The Golden Violet (1827)
Variant: Which is the best,—
Beauty and glory, in a southern clime,
Mingled with thunder, tempest; or the calm
Of skies that scarcely change, which, at the least,
If much of shine they have not, have no storms?

Beauty, Passion, Change

“At night I sit in my chamber and read the Bible. Far in the distance roars the sea. Then I lie down and think for a long time about the calm and pale man from Nazareth.”

Joseph Goebbels (1897–1945) Nazi politician and Propaganda Minister

Abends sitze ich auf meinem Zimmer und lese die Bibel. In der Ferne braust das Meer. Dann liege ich noch lange wach und denke an den stillen, bleichen Mann von Nazareth.
Michael: a German fate in diary notes (1926)

Lie, Thinking, Time, Reading

“It is not because I pursue a smooth life. But for the calm acceptance of impermanence, and be calm
and confident like a king in any adverse circumstances.”

Richard Gombrich (1937) British Indologist

"When I say I'm a Buddhist"[citation needed]

Life, Confidence

“Down swept the gathered waters over rocks
Which broke at times the column's foaming line;
Darkening amid the snow-white froth, it swept
Like an all conquering army, and an arch
Of sparkling hues that in the sunbeams played
Seemed to unite it with the sky which hung
Above all calmness and repose :”

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

(16th February 1822) Poetic Sketches, No.6
The London Literary Gazette, 1821-1822

Water, Time