Quotes about chorus (83 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

“What I do when I write is that I'll do a raggedy, rough version just to hear the chorus, just to see how much I like the chorus. If it works for me that way when it's raggedy, then I'll know it will just work… Listen to that, that's at home. Janet, Randy, Me… Janet and I are going "Whoo, Whoo… Whoo, Whoo…" I do that same process with every song. It's the melody, it's the melody that's most important, If the melody can sell me, then I'll go to the next step. The idea is to transcribe from what's in your mentality onto tape. If you take a song like "Billie Jean," Where the bass line is the prominent, dominant piece, the protagonist of the song, the main driving riff that you hear, getting the character of the riff to be just the way you want it to be, that takes a lot of time. Listen, you're hearing four basses on there, doing four different personalities, and that's what gives it character, but it takes a lot of work.”

Michael Jackson (1958–2009) American singer, songwriter and dancer

On listening to an early version of Billie Jean on an iPhone
Ebony interview (2007)

Way , Home , Idea , Time

“Only man can be hateful or ugly, because he possesses a free will to cut himself off from the chorus of praise. It often seems that he will succeed in drowning out this chorus with his cannon thunder, curses, and blasphemy. But it has become clear to me this spring that he cannot.”

Sophie Scholl (1921–1943) White Rose member

As quoted in O<sub>2</sub> : Breathing New Life Into Faith (2008) by Richard Dahlstrom, p. 223; this source is disputed as it does not cite an original document for the quote.
Disputed
Context: Isn't it bewildering … that everything is so beautiful, despite all the horrors that exist? Lately I've noticed something grand and mysterious peering into my sheer joy in all that is lovely — the sense of a Creator whom innocent creation worships with its beauty. Only man can be hateful or ugly, because he possesses a free will to cut himself off from the chorus of praise. It often seems that he will succeed in drowning out this chorus with his cannon thunder, curses, and blasphemy. But it has become clear to me this spring that he cannot. And so I must try to throw myself on the side of the victor.

Hate , Spring

“He, that noble prize possessing—
He that boasts a friend that's true,
He whom woman's love is blessing,
Let him join the chorus too!”

Friedrich Schiller Ode to Joy

Stanza 3
An die Freude (Ode to Joy; or Hymn to Joy) (1785)

Love

“Joy from truth's own glass of fire
Sweetly on the searcher smiles;
Lest on virtue's steeps he tire,
Joy the tedious path beguiles.
High on faith's bright hill before us,
See her banner proudly wave!
Joy, too, swells the angels' chorus,—
Bursts the bondage of the grave!”

Friedrich Schiller Ode to Joy

Stanza 5
An die Freude (Ode to Joy; or Hymn to Joy) (1785)

Truth , Faith , Smile , Angels

“Chorus: Let not thy love to man o'erleap the bounds
Of reason, nor neglect thy wretched state:
So my fond hope suggests thou shalt be free
From these base chains, nor less in power than Jove.
Prometheus: Not thus — it is not in the Fates that thus
These things should end; crush'd with a thousand wrongs,
A thousand woes, I shall escape these chains.
Necessity is stronger far than art.
Chorus: Who then is ruler of necessity?
Prometheus: The triple Fates and unforgetting Furies.
Chorus: Must Jove then yield to their superior power?
Prometheus: He no way shall escape his destined fate.
Chorus: What, but eternal empire, is his fate?
Prometheus: Thou mayst not know this now: forbear to inquire.
Chorus: Is it of moment what thou keep'st thus close?
Prometheus: No more of this discourse; it is not time
Now to disclose that which requires the seal
Of strictest secresy; by guarding which I shall escape the misery of these chains.”

Aeschylus Prometheus Bound

Source: Prometheus Bound, lines 510–524, as translated by R. Potter (1860)

Love , Fate , Hope , Art

“All Heaven shall echo with their hymns divine,
And God himself with pleasure see
The whole creation in a chorus join.”

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

Context: When time itself shall be no more,
And all things in confusion hurl'd,
Music shall then exert it's power,
And sound survive the ruins of the world:
Then saints and angels shall agree
In one eternal jubilee:
All Heaven shall echo with their hymns divine,
And God himself with pleasure see
The whole creation in a chorus join.

Song for St. Cecilia's Day (1692).

God , Pleasure

“I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

1860s, First Inaugural Address (1861)

Angels , Nature , Memory , Passion

“Man, if thou art aught, strive to walk alone and hold converse with yourself, instead of skulking in the chorus! at length think; look around thee; bestir thyself, that thou mayest know who thou art!”

Epictetus (50–138) philosopher from Ancient Greece

Golden Sayings of Epictetus
Context: Even as bad actors cannot sing alone, but only in chorus: so some cannot walk alone. Man, if thou art aught, strive to walk alone and hold converse with yourself, instead of skulking in the chorus! at length think; look around thee; bestir thyself, that thou mayest know who thou art! (103).

Art , Thinking

“The darkness. Goddamn the darkness. It seemed to Garraty they had been buried alive in it. Immured in it. Dawn was a century away. Many of them would never see the dawn. Or the sun. They were buried six feet deep in the darkness. All they needed was the monotonous chanting of the priest, his voice muffled but not entirely obscured by the new-packed darkness, above which the mourners stood. The mourners were not even aware that they were here, they were alive, they were screaming and scratching and clawing at the coffin-lid darkness, the air was flaking and rusting away, the air was turning into poison gas, hope fading until hope itself was darkness, and above all of it the nodding chapel-bell voice of the priest and the impatient, shuffling feet of mourners anxious to be off into the warm May sunshine. Then, overmastering that, the sighing, shuffling chorus of the bugs and the beetles, squirming their way through the earth, come for the feast…I could go crazy, Garraty thought. I could go right the fuck off my rocker.”

Stephen King book The Long Walk

The Long Walk (1979)

Way , Sun , Hope

“The chorus of “Jack and Diane” is: Oh yeah, life goes on, long after the thrill of living is gone. Are you kidding me? The thrill of living was high school? Come on, Mr. Cougar Mellencamp. Get a life.”

Mindy Kaling book Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?

Source: Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?

Life , School

“So many words get lost. They leave the mouthand lose their courage, wandering aimlessly until they are swept into the gutter like dead leaves. On rainy days you can hear their chorus rushing past.”

Nicole Krauss The History of Love

Source: The History of Love

Courage , Past , Dead

“Whether it was a song, a person, or a story, there was a lot you couldn’t know from just an excerpt, a glance, or part of a chorus.”

Sarah Dessen book Just Listen

Source: Just Listen

Parting , Personality

“To-morrow the rediscovery of romantic love,
The photographing of ravens; all the fun under
Liberty's masterful shadow;
To-morrow the hour of the pageant-master and the musician, The beautiful roar of the chorus under the dome;
To-morrow the exchanging of tips on the breeding of terriers,
The eager election of chairmen
By the sudden forest of hands. But to-day the struggle.To-morrow for the young the poets exploding like bombs,
The walks by the lake, the weeks of perfect communion;
To-morrow the bicycle races
Through the suburbs on summer evenings. But to-day the struggle.”

W. H. Auden book Spain

Source: Spain (1937), Lines 81–92

Love , Beauty , Summer , Perfection

“Pandora, waking: …
I am alone. These faces in the mirrors
Are but the shadows and phantoms of myself;
They cannot help nor hinder. No one sees me,
Save the all-seeing Gods…
She lifts the lid. A dense mist rises from the chest
and fills the room. Pandora falls senseless on
the floor. Storm without.

Chorus of Dreams from the Gate of Horn: …
Fever of the heart and brain,
Sorrow, pestilence, and pain,
Moans of anguish, maniac laughter,
All the evils that hereafter
Shall afflict and vex mankind,
All into the air have risen
From the chambers of their prison;
Only Hope remains behind.”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) American poet

The Masque of Pandora and Other Poems (1875)

God , Pain , Dreams , Hope

“All liaisons between homosexuals are conducted as though they were between a chorus girl and a bishop. In some cases both parties think they are bishops.”

Quentin Crisp book The Naked Civil Servant

Source: The Naked Civil Servant (1968), Ch. 14

Girl , Thinking

“If I had my way, I would build a lethal chamber as big as the Crystal Palace, with a military band playing softly, and a Cinematograph working brightly; then I’d go out in the back streets and main streets and bring them in, all the sick, the halt, and the maimed; I would lead them gently, and they would smile me a weary thanks; and the band would softly bubble out the ‘Hallelujah Chorus’.”

D.H. Lawrence (1885–1930) English novelist, poet, playwright, essayist, literary critic and painter

Letter to Blanche Jennings (9 October 1908), Letters of D.H. Lawrence (1979), James T. Boulton, ed., as quoted in The Intellectuals and the Masses: Pride and Prejudice Among the Literary Intelligentsia, 1880-1939 (1992) by John Carey; also quoted in "Art for the Masses : The Death of Culture & the Culture of Death" http://www.touchstonemag.com/docs/issues/14.7docs/14-7pg22.html by Ralph McInery in Touchstone magazine (September 2001)

Smile , Way

“Leader of the Chorus: An insult directed at the wicked is not to be censured; on the contrary, the honest man, if he has sense, can only applaud.”

Aristophanés The Knights

tr. O'Neill 1938, Perseus http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text.jsp?doc=Aristoph.+Kn.+1274
Knights, line 1274-1275
Knights (424 BC)

Sense

“It has been raining for a whole month and I lie in bed in the morning like one drunk or ill, refusing to get up. Suddenly I hear a chorus of birds announcing a clear day. Quickly I pull aside the curtain, push open the window and see the beautiful sun shining and glistening and the forest looks like having a bath. Ah, is this not happiness?”

Jin Shengtan (1610–1661) Chinese writer

"Thirty-three Happy Moments"

Lie , Beauty , Bird , Sun

“Let no one charge us with capricious inconsistency in our actions against Albinus, and let no one think that I am disloyal to this alleged friend or lacking in feeling toward him. 2. We gave this man everything, even a share of the established empire, a thing which a man would hardly do for his own brother. Indeed, I bestowed upon him that which you entrusted to me alone. Surely Albinus has shown little gratitude for the many benefits I have lavished upon him. 3. Now |87 he is collecting an army to take up arms against us, scornful of your valor and indifferent to his pledge of good faith to me, wishing in his insatiable greed to seize at the risk of disaster that which he has already received in part without war and without bloodshed, showing no respect for the gods by whom he has often sworn, and counting as worthless the labors you performed on our joint behalf with such courage and devotion to duty. 4. In what you accomplished, he also had a share, and he would have had an even greater share of the honor you gained for us both if he had only kept his word. For, just as it is unfair to initiate wrong actions, so also it is cowardly to make no defense against unjust treatment. Now when we took the field against Niger, we had reasons for our hostility, not entirely logical, perhaps, but inevitable. We did not hate him because he had seized the empire after it was already ours, but rather each one of us, motivated by an equal desire for glory, sought the empire for himself alone, when it was still in dispute and lay prostrate before all. 5. But Albinus has violated his pledges and broken his oaths, and although he received from me that which a man normally gives only to his son, he has chosen to be hostile rather than friendly and belligerent instead of peaceful. And just as we were generous to him previously and showered fame and honor upon him, so let us now punish him with our arms for his treachery and cowardice. 6. His army, small and island-bred, will not stand against your might. For you, who by your valor and readiness to act on your own behalf have been victorious in many battles and have gained control of the entire East, how can you fail to emerge victorious with the greatest of ease when you have so large a number of allies and when virtually the entire army is here. Whereas they, by contrast, are few in number and lack a brave and competent general to lead them. 7. Who does not know Albinus' effeminate nature? Who does not know that his way |88 of life has prepared him more for the chorus than for the battlefield? Let us therefore go forth against him with confidence, relying on our customary zeal and valor, with the gods as our allies, gods against whom he has acted impiously in breaking his oaths, and let us be mindful of the victories we have won, victories which that man ridicules.”

Septimius Severus (145–211) Emperor of Ancient Rome

Herodian, Book 3, Chapter 6.

Life , God , Hate , Hostility

“Now the Faith is old and the Devil is bold,
Exceedingly bold indeed;
And the masses of doubt that are floating about
Would smother a mortal creed.
But we that sit in a sturdy youth,
And still can drink strong ale,
Oh—let us put it away to infallible truth,
That always shall prevail.
[semi-chorus:]
And thank the Lord
For the temporal sword,
And howling heretics too;
And all good things
Our Christendom brings,
But especially barley brew!”

Hilaire Belloc (1870–1953) writer

the "Pelagian" drinking song, p. 50
The Four Men: A Farrago (1911)

Truth , Youth , Faith , Drink

“Canned laughter: After some supposedly funny or witty remark you can hear the laughter and applause included in the soundtrack of the show itself - here we have the exact counterpart of the Chorus in classical tragedy; it is here that we have to look for 'living Antiquity.' That is to say, why this laughter? The first possible answer - that it serves to remind us when to laugh - is interesting enough, because it implies the paradox that laughter is a matter of duty and not of some spontaneous feeling; but this answer is not sufficient because we do not usually laugh. The only correct answer would be that the Other - embodied in the television set - is relieving us even of our duty to laugh - is instead laughing for us. So even if, tired from a hard days stupid work, all evening we did nothing but gaze drowsily into the television screen, we can say afterwards that objectively, through the medium of the other, we had a really good time.”

Slavoj Žižek book The Sublime Object of Ideology

33
The Sublime Object of Ideology (1989)

Stupidity , Feeling , Laughter , Time

“Americans once expected parents to raise their children in accordance with the dominant cultural messages. Today they are expected to raise their children in opposition to them. Once the chorus of cultural values was full of ministers, teachers, neighbors, leaders. They demanded more conformity, but offered more support. Now the messengers are violent cartoon characters, rappers and celebrities selling sneakers. Parents are considered "responsible" only if they are successful in their resistance. That's what makes child-raising harder. It's not just that American families have less time with their kids; it's that we have to spend more of this time doing battle with our own culture.”

Ellen Goodman (1941) American journalist and writer

Attributed

Children , Family , Support , Parent

“Until quite recently poetry was taught badly—at least according to current academic standards. Poetry was used to teach grammar, elocution, and rhetoric. It was employed to convey history, both secular and sacred, often to instill patriotic sentiment and religious morality. Poetry was chanted in chorus at female academies. It was copied to teach cursive handwriting and calligraphy. It was memorized by wayward schoolboys as punishment. It was recited by children at public events and family gatherings. Being able to write verse was considered a social grace in both domestic and public life. Going to school meant becoming well versed.”

Dana Gioia (1950) American writer

24
Essays, Can Poetry Matter? (1991), Poetry as Enchantment (2015)

Life , Children , School , Family

“The secret belief that the Lord of conscience loves and accepts each faithful sacrifice is the ultimate and sufficient support of all goodness; dispensing with the chorus of approving voices; replacing all vain self-reliance with a Divine strength; and with the peace of a reconciled nature consoling the inevitable sorrows of a devoted life.”

James Martineau (1805–1900) English religious philosopher

Source: Hours of Thought on Sacred Things (1879), p. 190.

Love , Life , Secret , Peace

“The tri-coloured play with music begins' (in Deutsch: Das Drei Farben Singespiel beginnt..)
the cast is as follows
Dr. and MRS. Knarre, a married couple
Franziska and Charlotte, their daughters
Dr. Kahn, a physician
Charlotte Kahn, his daughter
Paulinka Bimbam, a singer
Dr. Singsong, a versatile person
Professor Klingklang, a famous conductor
An Art teacher
Professor and Students at an art academy
and Chorus..
.. The action takes places during the years 1913 to 1940 in Germany, later in Nice, France”

Charlotte Salomon (1917–1943) German painter

Charlotte's 3rd introduction page, related to image JHM no. 4155-3 https://charlotte.jck.nl/detail/M004155-c/part/character/theme/keyword: 'The tri-coloured play with music begins..', p. 43
the quote is written in brush, over the whole page of the painting, with a rough painted gate above
Charlotte Salomon - Life? or Theater?

Art , Music , Teachers , Personality

“Suddenly they saw a body in the water, drifting rapidly down stream. Tripitaka stared at it in consternation. Monkey laughed. 'Don't be frightened, Master,' he said. 'That's you.' And Pigsy said, 'It's you, it's you.' Sandy clapped his hands. 'It's you, it's you,' he cried. The ferryman too joined in the chorus. 'There you go!”

Arthur Waley (1889–1966) British academic

he cried. 'My best congratulations.'
Source: Translations, Monkey: Folk Novel of China (1942), Ch. 28 (p. 282)

Water

“"I suppose you don't have much time for enjoying music," Clary said, thinking of Simon, for whom music was his entire life, "in your line of work."
He shrugged. "Maybe the occasional wailing chorus of the damned."”

Cassandra Clare The Mortal Instruments

Clary and Jace, pg. 172
The Mortal Instruments, City of Bones (2007)

Life , Music , Thinking , Time

“Chorus: Under every stone lurks a politician.”

Aristophanés Thesmophoriazusae

tr. in Bartlett 1968, p. 91 http://books.google.com/books?q=inauthor%3A%22John+Bartlett%22+date%3A1968-1968+%22Under+every+stone+lurks+a+politician%22 or Archive.org http://www.archive.org/stream/familiarquotatio017007mbp/familiarquotatio017007mbp_djvu.txt
Thesmophoriazusae, line 529-530
A play on the Greek proverb "Under every stone lurks a scorpion". In context, "orator" was a synonym for "politician".
Thesmophoriazusae (411 BC)

“And lastly, if, after a day of rest, one should feel energised for recreation of an amorous kind, he or she must heed the cautionary chorus: ‘Never on a Sunday’.”

Vijay R. Singh (1931–2006) Fijian politician

Speaking Out (2006)

Feeling

“It is on some, but not all, of these misty autumn day-breaks that one may hear the chorus of the quail. The silence is suddenly broken by a dozen contralto voices, no longer able to restrain their praise of the day to come.”

Aldo Leopold book A Sand County Almanac

“September: The Choral Copse”, p. 53.
A Sand County Almanac, 1949, "August: The Green Pasture," "September: The Choral Copse," "October: Smoky Gold," and "October: Red Lanterns"

Autumn , Silence

“When the union's inspiration through the workers' blood shall run,
There can be no power greater anywhere beneath the sun;
Yet what force on earth is weaker than the feeble strength of one,
But the union makes us strong.

CHORUS:
Solidarity forever,
Solidarity forever,
Solidarity forever,
For the union makes us strong.

Is there aught we hold in common with the greedy parasite,
Who would lash us into serfdom and would crush us with his might?
Is there anything left to us but to organize and fight?
For the union makes us strong.

CHORUS”

Ralph Chaplin (1887–1961) American writer, artist and labor activist

Strong , Sun , Fight

“The difficult decisions first began in December 1964, when I refused to join a Progress Labor Party group preparing to go ‘underground.’ They ended with the most difficult choice—to leave the movement silently, quietly, as so many other had done before, or to risk the censure of those who had once been my friends and tell of the personal experience, political truths, and illegal activities that forced me to ‘split.’ The friends who were no longer friendly, the attempts at personal slander, the chorus that now sang out my name as the most dangerous enemy of all, the attempts to isolate me—all were expected. But the contemptuous and defamatory quality of the attacks were not, and the only thing one can say is that the Old and New Left have this something in common—they have no scruples when it comes to one who sways from their prescribed faith.”

Phillip Abbott Luce (1935–1998)

Source: The New Left: The Resurgence of Radicalism Among American Students (1966), p. 3

Truth , Faith , Decision , Personality

“But while Palestinians are a lone voice demanding that Israel acknowledge the crimes it has committed and continues to commit against the Palestinian people, Israel is joined by a large international chorus in demanding that the Palestinians accept Zionism's ideological deployment of the Jewish holocaust to justify its crimes against the Palestinians.”

Joseph Massad (1963) Associate Professor of Arab Studies

Ibid.
"Palestinians and Jewish History: Recognition or Submission?"

People

“Chorus of the Eumenides: …
With useless endeavour
Forever, forever,
Is Sisyphus rolling
His stone up the mountain!”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) American poet

The Masque of Pandora and Other Poems (1875)

Mountain

“Emilio and I like projects to breathe and grow. We started with a concept -- write songs, make demos, then let the guest stars listen to them and then afffect the writing process. For Jose Feliciano, I had written a chorus and a bit of a melody. He started playing the chorus and ad-libbing. I went, "This is the [stuff]! Forget my melody!" Carlos Santana worked just the other way. He wanted me to record a plished take singing first, so his playing could recreate my emotion. I got goose bumps [writing "90 Millas"]. Like in "Esperando," which is addressed to Cubans on the island. Those of us in America, we're like the bogeyman, but I wanted Cubans at home to know: Whatever happened doesn't matter. The future is for us to heal. Adn also: because we're here, we latched onto any part of our culture. Yes and no [this is a political record]. Politics is life, so yes. but it's not specific. Saying that 90 miles haven't divided us sends a message about freedom for Cuba -- and for everyone.”

Gloria Estefan (1957) Cuban-American singer-songwriter, actress and divorciada

www.huffingtonpost.com (September 7, 2007)
2007, 2008

Life , Way , Home , Star

“A musician would not willingly consent that his lyre should be out of tune, nor a leader of a chorus that his chorus should not sing in the strictest possible harmony; but shall each individual person be at variance with himself, and shall he exhibit a life not at all in agreement with his words?”

Basil of Caesarea (329–379) Christian Saint

Source: On Greek Literature, p. 401

Life , Singing , Personality

“The fourth phase which commenced with the coming of independence proved a boon for Christianity. The Christian right to convert Hindus was incorporated in the Constitution. Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru who dominated the scene for 17 long years, promoted every anti-Hindu ideology and movement behind the smokescreen of a counterfeit secularism. The regimes that followed continued to raise the spectre of ‘Hindu communalism’ as the most frightening phenomenon. Christian missionaries could now denounce as a Hindu communalist and chauvinist, even as a Hindu Nazi, any one who raised the slightest objection to their means and methods. All sorts of ‘secularists’ came forward to join the chorus. New theologies of Fulfilment, Indigenisation, Liberation, and Dialogue were evolved and put into action. The missionary apparatus multiplied fast and became pervasive. Christianity had never had it so good in the whole of its history in India. It now stood recognized as ‘an ancient Indian religion’ with every right to extend its field of operation and expand its flock. The only rift in the lute was K. M. Panikkar’s book, Asia and Western Dominance, published from London in 1953, the Niyogi Committee Report published by the Government of Madhya Pradesh in 1956, and Om Prakash Tyagi’s Bill on Freedom of Religion introduced in the Lok Sabha in December 1978.”

Sita Ram Goel (1921–2003) Indian activist

Vindicated by Time: The Niyogi Committee Report (1998)

Books , Religion , History , Communication

“I must say that when my Southern Christian Leadership Conference began its work in Birmingham, we encountered numerous Negro church reactions that had to be overcome. Negro ministers were among other Negro leaders who felt they were being pulled into something that they had not helped to organize. This is almost always a problem. Negro community unity was the first requisite if our goals were to be realized. I talked with many groups, including one group of 200 ministers, my theme to them being that a minister cannot preach the glories of heaven while ignoring social conditions in his own community that cause men an earthly hell. I stressed that the Negro minister had particular freedom and independence to provide strong, firm leadership, and I asked how the Negro would ever gain freedom without his minister's guidance, support and inspiration. These ministers finally decided to entrust our movement with their support, and as a result, the role of the Negro church today, by and large, is a glorious example in the history of Christendom. For never in Christian history, within a Christian country, have Christian churches been on the receiving end of such naked brutality and violence as we are witnessing here in America today. Not since the days of the Christians in the catacombs has God's house, as a symbol, weathered such attack as the Negro churches.
I shall never forget the grief and bitterness I felt on that terrible September morning when a bomb blew out the lives of those four little, innocent girls sitting in their Sunday-school class in the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham. I think of how a woman cried out, crunching through broken glass, "My God, we're not even safe in church!" I think of how that explosion blew the face of Jesus Christ from a stained-glass window. It was symbolic of how sin and evil had blotted out the life of Christ. I can remember thinking that if men were this bestial, was it all worth it? Was there any hope? Was there any way out?… time has healed the wounds -- and buoyed me with the inspiration of another moment which I shall never forget: when I saw with my own eyes over 3000 young Negro boys and girls, totally unarmed, leave Birmingham's 16th Street Baptist Church to march to a prayer meeting -- ready to pit nothing but the power of their bodies and souls against Bull Connor's police dogs, clubs and fire hoses. When they refused Connor's bellowed order to turn back, he whirled and shouted to his men to turn on the hoses. It was one of the most fantastic events of the Birmingham story that these Negroes, many of them on their knees, stared, unafraid and unmoving, at Connor's men with the hose nozzles in their hands. Then, slowly the Negroes stood up and advanced, and Connor's men fell back as though hypnotized, as the Negroes marched on past to hold their prayer meeting. I saw there, I felt there, for the first time, the pride and the power of nonviolence.
Another time I will never forget was one Saturday night, late, when my brother telephoned me in Atlanta from Birmingham -- that city which some call "Bombingham" -- which I had just left. He told me that a bomb had wrecked his home, and that another bomb, positioned to exert its maximum force upon the motel room in which I had been staying, had injured several people. My brother described the terror in the streets as Negroes, furious at the bombings, fought whites. Then, behind his voice, I heard a rising chorus of beautiful singing: "We shall overcome."”

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

Tears came into my eyes that at such a tragic moment, my race still could sing its hope and faith.
Interview in Playboy (January 1965) https://web.archive.org/web/20080706183244/http://www.playboy.com/arts-entertainment/features/mlk/04.html
1960s

Life , Men , God , People

“Chorus: O suitably attired in leather boots
Head of a traveller, wherefore seeking whom
Whence by what way how purposed art thou come
To this well-nightingaled vicinity?
My object in inquiring is to know.
But if you happen to be deaf and dumb
And do not understand a word I say,
Nod with your hand to signify as much.
Alcmaeon: I journeyed hither a Boeotian road.
Chorus: Sailing on horseback or with feet for oars?
Alcmaeon: Plying by turns my partnership of legs.
Chorus: Beneath a shining or a rainy Zeus?
Alcmaeon: Mud's sister, not himself, adorns my shoes.
Chorus: To learn your name would not displease me much.
Alcmaeon: Not all that men desire do they attain.”

A.E. Housman (1859–1936) English classical scholar and poet

"Fragment of a Greek Tragedy". This parody was first written in 1883, but quoted here from a revised version of 1927.

Men , Art , Shoe , Way

“Nasreddin Khodja commanded his disciples, when he sneezed, to salute him by clapping their hands and crying out: "Haïr Ollah, Khodja," that is "Prosperity to thee, O Master!" Now it came to pass that on one of the days the bucket fell into the well […] he descended, caught the bucket, and the boys were already pulling him up, when, just as he was drawing near the edge of the well, he chanced to sneeze. Whereupon they, mindful of the master's behest, let go the rope and, clapping their hands in high glee, cried out in chorus: "Haïr Ollah, Khodja," Nasreddin was precipitated violently into the well, bruising himself against the sides. […] "Well, boys, it was not your fault, but mine: too much honour is no good thing for man."”

Nasreddin (1208–1284) philosopher, Sufi and wise man from Turkey, remembered for his funny stories and anecdotes

George Frederick Abbott, Macedonian Folklore (1903: Cambridge University Press), p. 114

Boy , Chance , Drawing , Cry

“Chorus: [We] must look beneath every stone, lest it conceal some orator ready to sting us.”

Aristophanés Thesmophoriazusae

tr. O'Neill 1938, Perseus http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text.jsp?doc=Aristoph.+Thes.+529
Thesmophoriazusae (411 BC)

“Chorus [of Birds]: Full of wiles, full of guile, at all times, in all ways, are the children of Men.”

Aristophanés The Birds

tr. in Bartlett 1968, p. 91 http://books.google.com/books?q=inauthor%3A%22John+Bartlett%22+date%3A1968-1968+%22Full+of+wiles%2C+full+of+guile%2C+at+all+times%2C+in+all+ways%2C+are+the+children+of+Men%22 or Archive.org http://www.archive.org/stream/familiarquotatio017007mbp/familiarquotatio017007mbp_djvu.txt
Birds, line 451-452
Compare the earlier-written but later-known: "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked", Jeremiah, 17:9 KJV Bible http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Jeremiah+17:9&version=9.
Birds (414 BC)

Men , Children , Way , Bird

“It is perhaps a redeeming feature of the year that celebrity endorsements may be seen as the kiss of death to any political campaigning. The unanimous acclamation of Clinton by the famous and the lovey chorus for Remain were to no avail. It is better to build relationships and do politics with the poor rather than the rich.”

Maurice Glasman, Baron Glasman (1961) British philosopher

Blue Labour, A Christmas Message http://www.bluelabour.org/2016/12/22/a-christmas-message-from-lord-glasman/

Death , Kiss

“"In this country in fifteen or twenty years' time the black man will have the whip hand over the white man." I can already hear the chorus of execration. How dare I say such a horrible thing? How dare I stir up trouble and inflame feelings by repeating such a conversation? The answer is that I do not have the right not to do so.”

Enoch Powell (1912–1998) British politician

the first sentence was Powell's own quotation from one of his constituents.
The 'Rivers of Blood' speech

Feeling , Time , Country

“.. even happens that each character has to sing a different text, resulting in a chorus. The varied nature of the paintings should be attributed less to the author than to the varies nature of the characters to be portrayed. The author [= Charlotte Salomon] has tried.... to go completely out of herself to allow the characters to sing or speak in their own voices. In order to achieve this, many artistic values had to be renounced, but I hope that.... this will be forgiven.”

Charlotte Salomon (1917–1943) German painter

The author, St. Jean, August 1940/42
Charlotte's 6th introduction page, related to image no. 4155-6 https://charlotte.jck.nl/detail/M004155-fJHM: '..even happens that each character..', p. 46
this quote is written in brush over the whole page of the painting, without any figure
Charlotte Salomon - Life? or Theater?

Hope , Nature , Singing , Painting

“The term "chorus form" is often used to denote a type of performance - typically in jazz or rhythm 'n' blues, but also sometimes in country music and rock 'n' roll - where a given structural unit is repeated an indefinite number of times. The unit itself may be sectionally elaborate, as in the case of most Tin Pan Alley ballads. It may be twelve-bar blues, or something similar, as in the case of many R&B and rock 'n' roll numbers: here, a three-line AAB lyric, set to a three-phrase melody, is underpinned by a single gestural sweep in the harmony. Occasionally - as in some funk, dub reggae, and hip-hop, for example - it may approach the status of open-ended process.”

Richard Middleton British musicologist

[Key Terms in Popular Music and Culture, ISBN 0631212639, Middleton, Richard, 1999]

Music , Time , Country

“In this allegory the seeker, trying to reach the One, is drawn by two horses, one white and noble and temperate, and the other surly, stubborn, passionate and black. The one is forever aiding him in his upward journey to the portals of heaven, the other is forever confounding him. The Chairman has not stated it yet, but he is at the point at which he must now announce that the white horse is temperate reason, the black horse is dark passion, emotion. He is at the point at which these must be described, but the false note suddenly becomes a chorus.”

Robert M. Pirsig book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Source: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (1974), Ch. 30

Passion , Horse , Falseness

“Characters — conventional women with minor eccentricities — flourished in our world, as Mrs. Cork had no doubt observed. But she'd failed to notice that the characters were all old, rich and pedigreed. Newcomers, especially those of moderate means, were expected to form an attractive but featureless chorus behind our few madcap divas.”

Edmund White book A Boy's Own Story

Source: A Boy's Own Story (1982), Chapter One (p. 14).

Women , World

“I hear if you make friends with Jesus Christ, you will get right up from that chalk outline. And then you'll get dolled up, and you'll dress in white all to take your place in his chorus line. And then in you'll come with those marching drums in a saintly compromise. No more whiskey slurs, no more blonde-haired girls for your whole eternal life. And you'll do the dance that was choreographed at the very dawn of time. Singing "I told you son, the day would come you would die, you'd die you'd die you'd die you'd die."”

Conor Oberst (1980) American musician

Arc Of Time
Digital Ash in a Digital Urn (2005)

Life , Girl , Singing , Time

“It is precisely because we can never really know ourselves, but only guess, that we are so vehement about the good and the evil ascribed to us by others. In maintaining ourselves against all comers, we are maintaining something that is unknown, uncertain, and never wholly provable. We need a chorus of consent, and we are engaged in an unceasing proselytizing campaign in our own behalf.”

Eric Hoffer (1898–1983) American philosopher

Entry (1954)
Eric Hoffer and the Art of the Notebook (2005)

Evil

“I was totally star-struck as a youngster and incredibly shy, but I loved the theatre – especially pantomimes. After a failed audition for RADA, I worked as a trainee fashion buyer at Harrods, where they had an entertainments society and I performed in several of its productions. I took singing lessons and my teacher encouraged me to read The Stage, where I saw that chorus singers were needed for the musical The Belle Of New York. I got the job – much to my parents’ horror, who wanted me to keep my respectable job, but I was determined to become an actress.”

Valerie Leon (1943) English actress

Whatever happened to Bond Girl Valerie Leon? http://www.express.co.uk/life-style/life/614933/Bond-Girl-Valerie-Leon-career-life (November 2, 2015)

Love , Music , Star , Fashion

“When we play the fool, how wide
The theatre expands! beside,
How long the audience sits before us!
How many prompters! what a chorus!”

Walter Savage Landor (1775–1864) British writer

Plays, st. 2 (1846).

Fools

“But please remember, especially in these times of group-think and the right-on chorus, that no person is your friend (or kin) who demands your silence, or denies your right to grow and be perceived as fully blossomed as you were intended.”

Alice Walker book In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens: Womanist Prose

In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens: Womanist Prose (1983)

Thinking , Silence , Time , Personality

“"Hurrah! Hurrah! we bring the Jubilee!
Hurrah! Hurrah! the flag that makes you free!"
So we sang the chorus from Atlanta to the sea,
While we were marching through Georgia.”

Henry Clay Work (1832–1884) American composer and songwriter

Song Marching Through Georgia

Sea

“Never, at any price, should we have put our money on France and against the peoples subjected to her yoke. On the contrary, we should have helped them to achieve their liberty and, if necessary, should have goaded them into doing so. There was nothing to stop us in 1940 from making a gesture of this sort in the Near East and in North Africa. In actual fact our diplomats instead set about the task of consolidating French power, not only in Syria, but in Tunis, in Algeria and Morocco as well. Our 'gentlemen' obviously preferred to maintain cordial relations with distinguished Frenchmen, rather than with a lot of hirsute revolutionaries, with a chorus of musical comedy officers, whose one idea was to cheat us, rather than with the Arabs, who would have been loyal partners for us.”

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

14 February 1945.
Disputed, The Testament of Adolf Hitler (1945)

Money , People , Music , Idea

“The landlord's laugh was ready chorus.”

Robert Burns Tam o' Shanter

Source: Tam o' Shanter (1790), Line 50

“Chorus [leader]: Ye Children of Man! whose life is a span, / Protracted with sorrow from day to day, / Naked and featherless, feeble and querulous, / Sickly, calamitous creatures of clay!”

Aristophanés The Birds

heavily rewritten tr. Frere 1839, p. 38 http://books.google.com/books?id=Bk8JAAAAQAAJ&q=%22Sickly%2C+calamitous+creatures+of+clay%22
Birds (414 BC)

Life , Children

“Leader of the Chorus: Weak mortals, chained to the earth, creatures of clay as frail as the foliage of the woods, you unfortunate race, whose life is but darkness, as unreal as a shadow, the illusion of a dream.”

Aristophanés The Birds

tr. O'Neill 1938, Perseus http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text.jsp?doc=Aristoph.+Birds+685
Birds, line 685-687
Birds (414 BC)

Life , Dreams

“Leader of the Chorus: Let's see. What shall our city be called? […]
Euelpides: Some name borrowed from the clouds, from these lofty regions in which we dwell — in short, some well-known name.
Pisthetaerus: Do you like Nephelococcygia?”

Aristophanés The Birds

tr. O'Neill 1938, Perseus http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text.jsp?doc=Aristoph.+Birds+812
Birds, line 812 & 817-819 (our emphasis on 819)
Birds (414 BC)

“Oh, swiftly glides the bonnie boat,
Just parted from the shore,
And to the fisher's chorus-note,
Soft moves the dipping oar!”

Joanna Baillie (1762–1851) Scottish poet and dramatist

Song, Oh, Swiftly glides the Bonnie Boat; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 74.

Parting

“A chorus of elfin voices blowing about me
Weaves to a babel of sound. Each cries a secret.
I run among them, reach out vain hands, and drown.”

Conrad Aiken (1889–1973) American novelist and poet

The House of Dust (1916 - 1917)

Secret

“Jock with his crutches beats the time;
The gunner, with his head close-bound,
Listen with puzzled, patient smile:
(Shell shocked-he cannot hear a sound).
The others join in from their beds,
And send the chorus rolling round.”

Eva Dobell (1876–1963) British poet

Unsourced, In A Soldiers' Hospital II: Gramophone Tunes

Smile , Time

“Every single empire in its official discourse has said that it is not like all the others, that its circumstances are special, that it has a mission to enlighten, civilize, bring order and democracy, and that it uses force only as a last resort. And, sadder still, there always is a chorus of willing intellectuals to say calming words about benign or altruistic empires, as if one shouldn't trust the evidence of one's eyes watching the destruction and the misery and death brought by the latest mission civilizatrice.”

Edward Said book Orientalism

"Preface (2003)"
Orientalism (1978)

Death , Democracy

“Chorus [leader]: Come now, ye men, in nature darkling, like to the race of leaves, of little might, figures of clay, shadowy feeble tribes, wingless creatures of a day, miserable mortals, dream-like men.”

Aristophanés The Birds

tr. Hickie 1853, vol. 1, p. 338 http://books.google.com/books?id=Cm4NAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA338
Birds (414 BC)

Men , Dreams , Nature

“In his seminar on The Ethic of Psychoanalysis, Lacan speaks of the role of the Chorus in classical tragedy: we, the spectators, came to the theatre worried, full of everyday problems, unable to adjust without reserve to the problems of the play, that is to feel the required fears and compassions - but not problem, there is a chorus, who feels the sorrow and the compassion instead of us - or, more precisely, we feel the required emotions through the medium of the chorus: 'You are then relieved of all worries, even if you do not feel anything, the Chorus will do so in your place.”

Slavoj Žižek book The Sublime Object of Ideology

32; quote from Lacan's Le séminaire, livre VII : L'éthique de la psychanalyse, 295
The Sublime Object of Ideology (1989)

Fear , Feeling , Problem

“The main misfortune, the root of all evil to come, was loss of the confidence in the value of one's own opinion. People imagined that it was out of date of follow their own moral sense, that they must all sing in chorus, and live by other people's notions, notions that were crammed down everybody's throat.”

Borís Pasternak book Doctor Zhivago

As quoted in "Boris Pasternak" in I.F. Stone's Weekly (3 November 1958), § "Words Which Apply to Us As Well As Russia"; later in The Best of I.F. Stone (2006), p. 43
Doctor Zhivago (1957)

People , Confidence , Imagination , Sense

“Chorus of the Eumenides: …
Never by lapse of time
The soul defaced by crime
Into its former self returns again;
For every guilty deed
Holds in itself the seed
Of retribution and undying pain.

Never shall be the loss
Restored, till Helios
Hath purified them with his heavenly fires;
Then what was lost is won,
And the new life begun,
Kindled with nobler passions and desires.”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) American poet

The Masque of Pandora and Other Poems (1875)

Life , Pain , Soul , Passion

“[A] peculiar pattern has repeated itself every few weeks or so since Moon took office. It goes like this. First the Blue House is caught in some statement or act of disloyalty to the spirit of the alliance — like appointing an unrepentant former enforcer of North Korean copyrights to the second most powerful post in the government. (I don’t mean the prime minister.) South Korean conservatives then shout in chorus, “The Americans won’t stand for this!” Whereupon the White House rushes to say, in effect, “Oh yes we will!””

Brian Reynolds Myers (1963) American professor of international studies

It seems to revel in making pro-American, security-minded South Koreans look foolish.
2010s, "Heaven is Helping Us": More from the Nationalist Left (August 2018)

Housing

“Chorus of Furies: Living, you will be my feast, not slain at an altar”

Aeschylus Eumenides

Source: Oresteia (458 BC), Eumenides, line 305 (tr. Herbert Weir Smyth)

“Sighing, he became aware of his own insignificance in the midst of this infinite chorus glory and radiance; his whole consciousness dissolved into one sacred, tearful yearning to be allowed to be one with the Highest and be no longer any part of himself. He lay for a long time on the sand or on the grass, and wept tears of deep and fervent happiness, face to face with the inexpressible. "God, God, God!" he cried, trembling with love and reverence, and kissed the ground and dug his fingers into the turf.”

Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) Icelandic author

Heimsljós (World Light) (1940), Book One: The Revelation of the Deity
Context: He was not quite nine years old, in fact, when he began to have spiritual experiences... he felt he saw God's image open before him. He felt the deity reveal itself in Nature in an inexpressible music, the sonic revelation of the deity; and before he knew it, he himself had become a trembling voice in a celestial chorus of glory. His soul seemed to be rising out of his body like frothing milk brimming over the edge of a basin; it was as if his soul were flowing into an unfathomable ocean of higher life, beyond words, beyond all perception, his body suffused by some surging light that was beyond all light. Sighing, he became aware of his own insignificance in the midst of this infinite chorus glory and radiance; his whole consciousness dissolved into one sacred, tearful yearning to be allowed to be one with the Highest and be no longer any part of himself. He lay for a long time on the sand or on the grass, and wept tears of deep and fervent happiness, face to face with the inexpressible. "God, God, God!" he cried, trembling with love and reverence, and kissed the ground and dug his fingers into the turf.

Love , God , Kiss , Tear

“Satan, piercing space with his keen glance, contemplated the little globe of earth and water where of old he had planted the vine and formed the first tragic chorus.”

Anatole France book The Revolt of the Angels

Source: The Revolt of the Angels (1914), Ch. XXXV
Context: Satan, piercing space with his keen glance, contemplated the little globe of earth and water where of old he had planted the vine and formed the first tragic chorus. And he fixed his gaze on that Rome where the fallen God had founded his empire on fraud and lie. Nevertheless, at that moment a saint ruled over the Church. Satan saw him praying and weeping. And he said to him:
"To thee I entrust my Spouse. Watch over her faithfully. In thee I confirm the right and power to decide matters of doctrine, to regulate the use of the sacraments, to make laws and to uphold purity of morals. And the faithful shall be under obligation to conform thereto. My Church is eternal, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Thou art infallible. Nothing is changed."
And the successor of the apostles felt flooded with rapture. He prostrated himself, and with his forehead touching the floor, replied:
"O Lord, my God, I recognise Thy voice! Thy breath has been wafted like balm to my heart. Blessed be Thy name. Thy will be done on Earth, as it is in Heaven. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil."

Water

“I need not put myself center stage but can rather place myself at the side, like a Greek chorus. As the curtain rises, I can walk to the center and can speak as follows: I wish to tell you of happenings in the twentieth century, as I witnessed them and reflected upon them. You will see me return to center stage, but only occasionally.”

Abraham Pais (1918–2000) American Physicist

On considering his wife's suggestion that he write his autobiography, Prologue, p. xiii
A Tale of Two Continents (1997)
Context: I made a discovery, perhaps known to others but new to me: I need not put myself center stage but can rather place myself at the side, like a Greek chorus. As the curtain rises, I can walk to the center and can speak as follows: I wish to tell you of happenings in the twentieth century, as I witnessed them and reflected upon them. You will see me return to center stage, but only occasionally. Once that imagery had gotten hold of me, I went back to Ida and said yes, I shall try.

“Chorus of Furies: We claim to be just and upright. No wrath from us will come stealthily to the one who holds out clean hands, and he will go through life unharmed; but whoever sins, as this man has, and hides his blood-stained hands, as avengers of bloodshed we appear against him to the end, presenting ourselves as upright witnesses for the dead.”

Aeschylus Eumenides

Source: Oresteia (458 BC), Eumenides, lines 312–320 (tr. Herbert Weir Smyth)

Life , Appearance , Dead

“A chorus of voices, the past alive in everything, that sea upon which the present tossed and rode.”

William Gibson book All Tomorrow's Parties

Source: All Tomorrow's Parties‎ (2003), Ch. 38 : Vincent Black Lightning, p. 191
Context: If Skinner couldn't tell Fontaine a story about something, Fontaine would make up his own story, read function in the shape of something, read use in the way it was worn down. It seemed to comfort him.
Everything to Fontaine, had a story. Each object, each fragment comprising the built world. A chorus of voices, the past alive in everything, that sea upon which the present tossed and rode. When he'd built Skinner's funicular, the elevator that crawled like a small cable car up the angled iron of the tower, when they old man's hip had gotten too bad to allow him to easily climb, Fontaine had a story about the derivation of each piece. He wove their stories together, applied electricity: the thing rose, clicking, to the hatch in the floor of Skinner's room.

Past , Sea

“All persons exist to society by some shining trait of beauty or utility, which they have. We borrow the proportions of the man from that one fine feature, and finish the portrait symmetrically; which is false; for the rest of his body is small or deformed. I observe a person who makes a good public appearance, and conclude thence the perfection of his private character, on which this is based; but he has no private character. He is a graceful cloak or lay-figure for holidays. All our poets, heroes, and saints, fail utterly in some one or in many parts to satisfy our idea, fail to draw our spontaneous interest, and so leave us without any hope of realization but in our own future. Our exaggeration of all fine characters arises from the fact, that we identify each in turn with the soul. But there are no such men as we fable; no Jesus, nor Pericles, nor Caesar, nor Angelo, nor Washington, such as we have made. We consecrate a great deal of nonsense, because it was allowed by great men. There is none without his foible. I verily believe if an angel should come to chant the chorus of the moral law, he would eat too much gingerbread, or take liberties with private letters, or do some precious atrocity.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

1840s, Essays: Second Series (1844), Nominalist and Realist

Soul , Drawing , Law , Personality

“I was totally star-struck as a youngster and incredibly shy, but I loved the theatre – especially pantomimes. After a failed audition for RADA, I worked as a trainee fashion buyer at Harrods, where they had an entertainments society and I performed in several of its productions. I took singing lessons and my teacher encouraged me to read The Stage, where I saw that chorus singers were needed for the musical The Belle Of New York.”

Valerie Leon (1943) English actress

I got the job – much to my parents’ horror, who wanted me to keep my respectable job, but I was determined to become an actress.
Whatever happened to Bond Girl Valerie Leon? http://www.express.co.uk/life-style/life/614933/Bond-Girl-Valerie-Leon-career-life (November 2, 2015)

Singing , Reading , Star , Teachers

“Then afterwards, when victory is yours, we too-all of us Bengalis-will share in the honour and the glory. We do not need to understand what is it that you have done. Or to have given you any thought, time or money, but the moment we hear the chorus or praises in The Times from the lips of the Englishmen we shall lap it up. Some important news papers in our country will observe we are not inferior men; and another paper will observe we are making discovery after discovery in science. Earlier we shall not have felt an iota of responsibility towards you, but when victory has been won and you return home bearing a crop of records, then you will be one of us. Soughing and ploughing you will do alone; reaping we shall do together. The victory you will find will be more ours than yours.”

Jagadish Chandra Bose (1858–1937) Bengali polymath, physicist, biologist, botanist and archaeologist

After his recognition by the west Rabindranath Tagore wrote to Bose. Quoted in "Science and National Consciousness in Bengal: 1870-1930", pages=107-08

Money , Home , Time , Understanding