Quotes about dam (62 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

“Bedevil the devil and devil be dammed. I fear no devil and bow to no man.

- Adam Black”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: Beyond the Highland Mist

Fear

“Like water leaking through a dam," said Piper.
"Yeah," smiled Percy. "We've got a dam hole."
"What?" Piper asked.
"Nothing," he said. "Inside joke.”

Rick Riordan The Mark of Athena

Source: The Mark of Athena

Smile , Water

“God give us men. The time demands
Strong minds, great hearts, true faith, and willing hands;
Men whom the lust of office does not kill;
Men whom the spoils of office cannot buy;
Men who possess opinions and a will;
Men who have honor; men who will not lie;
Men who can stand before a demagogue
And dam his treacherous flatteries without winking;
Tall men, sun-browned, who live above the fog
In public duty and in private thinking.”

Josiah Gilbert Holland Wanted

Wanted, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Men , God , Lie , Faith

“Leave not thy nest, thy dam and sire,
Fly back and sing amidst this choir.”

Anne Bradstreet (1612–1672) Anglo-American poet

In Reference to her Children, 23 June 1659.

Singing , Flying

“Piper: it looks like we have hole. Percy: Yeah we've got a dam hole! (LOL-ing) Piper: What! Percy: Inside joke. (still LOL-ing) Piper: Whatever.”

Rick Riordan The Mark of Athena

Source: The Mark of Athena

“Regret, already sogging me down, burst its dam. It seeped into my legs, it pooled in my heart.”

Jeffrey Eugenides book Middlesex

Source: Middlesex

Heart

“Never give up; for even rivers someday wash dams away.”

Arthur Golden (1956) American novelist

“Undressing her was an act of recklessness, a kind of vandalism, like releasing a zoo full of animals, or blowing up a dam.”

Michael Chabon book Wonder Boys

Source: Wonder Boys (1995)

Animals

“The Theory of Evolution has more holes in it than a dam made out of Swiss cheese.”

Eoin Colfer (1965) Irish author of children's books

Source: The Time Paradox

“I think the world is a series of broken dams and floods, and my cartoons are tiny little lifeboats.”

Sherman Alexie book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Source: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

World , Thinking

“But love is much like a dam; if you allow a tiny crack to form through which only a trickle of water can pass, that trickle will quickly bring down the whole structure and soon no one will be able to control the force of the current.”

Paulo Coelho book By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept

By The River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept (1994)
Source: By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept
Context: Love is much like a dam: if you allow a tiny crack to form through which only a trickle of water can pass, that trickle will quickly bring down the whole structure, and soon no one will be able to control the force of the current. For when those walls come down, then love takes over, and it no longer matters what is possible or impossible; it doesn't even matter whether we can keep the loved one at our side. To love is to lose control.

Love , Water

“Damn you, Sassenach!" his voice said, from a very great distance. His voice was choked with passion. "Dam you! I swear if ye die on me, I'll kill you!”

Diana Gabaldon book Voyager

Source: Voyager

Passion

“But if man's affection be one of passion, then it is moved also in regard to other animals: for since the passion of pity is caused by the afflictions of others; and since it happens that even irrational animals are sensible to pain, it is possible for the affection of pity to arise in a man with regard to the sufferings of animals. Now it is evident that if a man practice a pitiful affection for animals, he is all the more disposed to take pity on his fellow-men: wherefore it is written (Prov. 12:10): "The just regardeth the lives of his beasts: but the bowels of the wicked are cruel." Consequently the Lord, in order to inculcate pity to the Jewish people, who were prone to cruelty, wished them to practice pity even with regard to dumb animals, and forbade them to do certain things savoring of cruelty to animals. Hence He prohibited them to "boil a kid in the milk of its dam"; and to "muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn"; and to slay "the dam with her young."”

Thomas Aquinas book Summa Theologica

I-II, q. 102, art. 6 ad. 8
Summa Theologica (1265–1274)

Men , Pain , People , Affliction

“On-line service providers and others have a key role to play in freeing cyberspace of the taint of copyright lawlessness. Accountability for copyright violations committed by users is as essential for advancing this indispensable goal.
Who is responsible if a valuable copyrighted work is downloaded from a provider, and then copied on a digital video machine from which thousands of copies can be made, the last copy as pure and pristine as the first? And if no one can be held responsible, then who and what is to prevent the flood that will surely follow? This is a loophole larger than a parade of eight-wheelers through which a dam-busting avalanche of violations can rupture the purpose of your bill every day.”

Jack Valenti (1921–2007) President of the MPAA

Testimony to the U.S. House of Representatives on copyright immunities for ISPs. (7 February 1996) http://www.judiciary.house.gov/legacy/461.htm

“Thick rumors of imminent peace are in the air… Big spectacle with six or seven British tanks. In the afternoon, they played war once more at the Palaisplein [near Dam square in Amsterdam center] and at the Rokin [street where Beckmann lived for 8 years, as 'entartete' German artist under German occupation; The Netherlands was liberated by the Allies, 5 May 1945].”

Max Beckmann (1884–1950) German painter, draftsman, printmaker, sculptor and writer

In Max Beckmann, , Bonfini Press Corporation, Naefels, Switzerland, 1983, p. 80
1940s

War , Peace

“On [defense lawyers]: "They lie, they cheat, they'll say anything. They walk a thin line that I don't even want to get near. Like in the David Westerfield case. They knew the whole time he did it, because he knew where her body was, and they used that as a bargaining chip to improve his situation. But when that didn't work [the police found the body on their own], they proceeded to drag the Van Dams through the mud. It's disgusting. Some people argue that the prosecution just wants to get a conviction. What joy would I get out of sending the wrong person to jail?"”

Nancy Grace (1959) American legal commentator, television host, television journalist, and former prosecutor

The Intervention Magazine, interventionmag.com http://www.interventionmag.com/cms/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=408,

People , Lie , Time , Joy

“The fall of Empire, gentlemen, is a massive thing, however, and not easily fought. It is dictated by a rising bureaucracy, a receding initiative, a freezing of caste, a damming of curiosity — a hundred other factors. It has been going on, as I have said, for centuries, and it is too majestic and massive a movement to stop.”

Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, known for his works of science fiction …

Part I, The Psychohistorians, section 6
The Foundation series (1951–1993), Foundation (1951)

“After serving about 2 years there I was pronounced by the parole board to be a nice, clean boy of good morals, as pure as lily and a credit to those in authority in the istatution where I had been sent to be reformed. Yes sure I was reformed all right, dam good and reformed too. When I got out of there I knew all about Jesus and the bible so much so that I knew it was all a lot of hot air. But that wasn’t all I knew. I had been taught by christians how to be a hypocrite and I had learned more about stealing, lying, hating, burning and killing. I had learned that a boys penis could be use for something besides to urinate with and that a rectum could be use for other purposes than crepitating. Oh yes I had learned a hell of a lot, from my expert instructors furnished to me free of charge by society in general and the state of Minnesota in particular. From the treatment I recieved while there and the lessons I learned from it, I had fully desided when I left there just how I would live my life. I made up my mind that I would rob, burn, destroy and kill every where I went and everybody I could as long as I lived. That’s the way I was reformed in the Minnesota State Training School. Thats the reasons why.”

Carl Panzram (1891–1930) American serial killer

sic
Lustmord: The Writings and Artifacts of Murderers, p. 172, (1997), Brian King, ed. ISBN 096503240X

Life , Hate , School , Way

“This is D. J., Disc Jockey to America turning off. Vietnam, hot dam.”

Norman Mailer (1923–2007) American novelist, journalist, essayist, playwright, film maker, actor and political candidate

D.J., in Why Are We in Vietnam? (1967) Ch. 10

“A great measure of world poverty today and African poverty in particular is due to the continuing dependence on foreign markets for manufactured goods, which undermines domestic production and dams up domestic skills, apart from piling up unmanageable foreign debts. Gandhi's insistence on self-sufficiency is a basic economic principle that, if followed today, could contribute significantly to alleviating Third World poverty and stimulating development.”

Nelson Mandela (1918–2013) President of South Africa, anti-apartheid activist

2000s, The Sacred Warrior (2000)

World , Dependency

“An adequately designed spillway is critical to pond management. The purpose of the spillway is to carry surplus water from the pond, away from the face of the dam. It may consist of a mechanical control, such as an exit pipe installed in the base of the dam where it will empty below the dam site.”

Ken Kern American writer

p, 125
The Owner-Built Homestead (1977)

Water

“China might seem quite successful in its controls, but it has only raised the water level. It’s like building a dam: it thinks there is more water so it will build higher. But every drop of water is still in there. It doesn’t understand how to let the pressure out. It builds up a way to maintain control and push the problem to the next generation.”

Ai Weiwei (1957) Chinese concept artist

2010-, China’s Censorship Can Never Defeat the Internet, 2012

Way , Understanding , Problem , Thinking

“What does peace mean in a world in which the combined wealth of the world's 587 billionaires exceeds the combined gross domestic product of the world's 135 poorest countries? Or when rich countries that pay farm subsidies of a billion dollars a day, try and force poor countries to drop their subsidies? What does peace mean to people in occupied Iraq, Palestine, Kashmir, Tibet and Chechnya? Or to the aboriginal people of Australia? Or the Ogoni of Nigeria? Or the Kurds in Turkey? Or the Dalits and Adivasis of India? What does peace mean to non-Muslims in Islamic countries, or to women in Iran, Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan? What does it mean to the millions who are being uprooted from their lands by dams and development projects? What does peace mean to the poor who are being actively robbed of their resources and for whom everyday life is a grim battle for water, shelter, survival and, above all, some semblance of dignity? For them, peace is war.”

Arundhati Roy (1961) Indian novelist, essayist

A selection from a speech entitled "Peace given on November 7, 2004 while accepting the Sydney Peace Prize.
Speeches

Life , Women , War , People

“Big Dams are to a nation's 'development' what nuclear bombs are to its military arsenal. They're both weapons of mass destruction. They're both weapons governments use to control their own people. Both twentieth-century emblems that mark a point in time when human intelligence has outstripped its own instinct for survival. They're both malignant indications of a civilization turning upon itself. They represent the severing of the link, not just the link -- the understanding-- between human beings and the planet they live on. They scramble the intelligence that connects eggs to hens, milk to cows, food to forests, water to rivers, air to life, and the earth to human existence.”

Arundhati Roy (1961) Indian novelist, essayist

The Greater Common Good May, 1999 http://www.narmada.org/gcg/gcg.html.
Articles

Life , People , Food , Intelligence

“Development is not about factories, dams and roads. Development is about people.”

Rajiv Gandhi (1944–1991) sixth Prime Minister of India

Quote, Memorable Quotes from Rajiv Gandhi and on Rajiv Gandhi

People

“But the sound of water escaping from mill-dams, &c., willows, old rotten planks, slimy posts, and brickwork, I love such things. Shakespeare could make everything poetical; he tells us of poor Tom's haunts among "sheep cotes and mills." As long as I do paint, I shall never cease to paint such places. They have always been my delight.”

John Constable (1776–1837) English Romantic painter

Quote from John Constable's letter to Rev. John Fisher (23 October 1821), from John Constable's Correspondence, part 6, pp. 76-78
1820s

Love , Water , Painting

“The spirit of rebellion is present in every great city, and the great task of wise government is to keep it dormant, for if it wakes it is a torrent which no dam can hold back.”

Giacomo Casanova (1725–1798) Italian adventurer and author from the Republic of Venice

History of My Life (trans. Trask 1967), 1997 reprint, v. 9, chapter 7, p. 174
Referenced

“I'm not going to rip all that up. It's water over the dam. The people have gotten used to it. You know, that's what Stare Decisis is all about. In other words, I am an originalist. I am a textualist. I am not a nut.”

Antonin Scalia (1936–2016) former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

On originalism vs. stare decisis: Manhattan Institute Lecture http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/wl1997.htm (17 November 1997).
1990s

People , Water

“Body work must be approached with the same respect and attentiveness that one gives to dreams. The body has a wisdom of its own. However slowly and circuitously that wisdom manifests, once it is experienced it is a foundation, a basis of knowing that gives confidence and total support to the ego. To reach its wisdom requires absolute concentration: dropping the mind into the body, breathing into whatever is ready to be released, and allowing the process of expression until the negative, dammed energy is out, making room for the positive energy, genuine Light, to flood in.”

Marion Woodman (1928–2018) Canadian writer

Source: The Pregnant Virgin (1985), p. 60

Wisdom , Dreams , Confidence , Support

“It takes brains to make money, but any dam fool can inherit. P. S.: I never inherited any money.”

Elbert Hubbard (1856–1915) American writer, publisher, artist, and philosopher fue el escritor del jarron azul

Source: A Thousand & One Epigrams: Selected from the Writings of Elbert Hubbard (1911), p. 10.

Money , Fools

“I repeat what I said when I started out — that I have no axe to grind, that I'm not asking anybody for anything. It's all water over the dam as far as I am concerned. I can say that my conscience is clear and that I'll stand on my record in that World Series. I'm not what you call a good Christian, but I believe in the Good Book, particularly where it says "what you sow, so shall you reap." I have asked the Lord for guidance before, and I am sure He gave it to me. I'm willing to let the Lord be my judge.”

Joe Jackson (1887–1951) American baseball player

This is the Truth! (1949)

Books , World , Water

“[On the victims of the hurricane Katrina] "Here in Idaho, we couldn't understand how people could sit around on the kerbs waiting for the federal government to come and do something. We had a dam break in 1976, but we didn't whine about it. We got out our backhoes and we rebuilt the roads and replanted the fields and got on with our lives. That's the culture here. Not waiting for the federal government to bring you drinking water. In Idaho there would have been entrepreneurs selling the drinking water."”

Jim Risch (1943) American politician

Quoted in Guardian, August 31, 2007. http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/mark_schmitt/2007/08/the_real_hypocrisy_of_idaho_co.html

People , Drink , Understanding , Water

“The American Society of Civil Engineers said in 2007 that the U. S. had fallen so far behind in maintaining its public infrastructure -- roads, bridges, schools, dams -- that it would take more than a trillion and half dollars over five years to bring it back up to standard. Instead, these types of expenditures are being cut back. At the same time, public infrastructure around the world is facing unprecedented stress, with hurricanes, cyclones, floods and forest fires all increasing in frequency and intensity. It's easy to imagine a future in which growing numbers of cities have their frail and long-neglected infrastructures knocked out by disasters and then are left to rot, their core services never repaired or rehabilitated. The well-off, meanwhile, will withdraw into gated communities, their needs met by privatized providers.”

Naomi Klein (1970) Canadian author and activist

The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism (2007)

World , School , Imagination , Communication

“A thing called "Cherry Cherry", was my first big national hit. It was a top five record. And international, as well. And you know, that's what broke the dam. … Boom, as soon as that record hit, I was out on the road. And I've been out on the road… since then. … I didn't realize it at first, but I did want to perform. I liked it. It was fun. You know, I went through all of the growth experiences that you go through in any field. But I did like it. And you know, I've been doing it since.”

Neil Diamond (1941) American singer-songwriter

Larry King interview (2003)

“And he (Andy Van Dam) put his arm around my shoulders and we went for a little walk and he said, Randy, it's such a shame that people perceive you as so arrogant. Because it's going to limit what you're going to be able to accomplish in life. What a hell of a way to word "you're being a jerk." [laughter] Right? He doesn't say you're a jerk. He says people are perceiving you this way and he says the downside is it's going to limit what you're going to be able to accomplish.”

Randy Pausch book The Last Lecture

The Last Lecture (2008)
Variant: And he put his arm around my shoulders and we went for a little walk and he said, Randy, it’s such a shame that people perceive you as so arrogant. Because it’s going to limit what you’re going to be able to accomplish in life. What a hell of a way to word “you’re being a jerk.” [laughter] Right? He doesn’t say you’re a jerk. He says people are perceiving you this way and he says the downside is it’s going to limit what you’re going to be able to accomplish.

Life , People , Jerk , Way

“General Kaika: Was it black men who filled the Mediterranean with poison? No, it was destroyed by the filthy wastes from European factories!
Reporter: Well, the Aswan dam--
General Kaika: Yes, yes, the Aswan dam may have tipped the balance finally, but before that the sea was dying. Because so many had to starve on the African coast there began this war. That is why I say the white countries are responsible. It is the typical white habit to ruin what you have and then go to steal from other people.
Reporter: Oh, General, you’re stretching the facts a bit!
General Kaika: Is the fact that it is dangerous to swim in the Mediterranean? Is the fact that the fish have died?
Reporter: Well, yes, but--
General Kaika: I have no more to say.”

John Brunner book The Sheep Look Up

January “CHARGE ACCOUNT”
The Sheep Look Up (1972)

Men , War , People , Fish

“Grief restrains grief as dams torrential rain
And time grows fertile with extended pain”

J. V. Cunningham (1911–1985) American writer

'Exclusion of Rhyme' Alan Swallow Denver 1942
Epigrams

Pain , Time

“It is just most delightful to me that I live in this way in the heart of Amsterdam. In a second you can eat somewhere and be back home again. You never have to wait for the tram. It is less than seven minutes [walking] from Dam Square. To me that is so unusual and so pleasant. I walk there daily.... the window [of his new studio] is about 2.25 m wide and high, and underneath a standing window of the same size, breadth-wise.”

George Hendrik Breitner (1857–1923) Dutch painter and photographer

translation from the original Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek
version in original Dutch (citaat van Breitner's brief, in het Nederlands:) 't is al allerheerlijkst voor me, dat ik zoo midden in Amsterdam woon. In een oogenblik kun je ergens gaan eten en weer 't huis zijn. Je hoeft nooit op de tram te gaan staan. 't is niet verder dan een minuut of zeven van de Dam. dat is voor mij zoo ongewoon en zoo prettig. Ik loop er heen, dag in en uit.. ..'t raam [van het atelier] is ongeveer 2.25 m breed en hoog, en daaronder een staand raam van zelfde breedte.
Quote of Breitner in his letter from Amsterdam, 11 May 1893, to Herman van der Weele; from the original letter in the RKD-Archive, The Hague https://rkd.nl/explore/excerpts/1154
1890 - 1900

Way , Home , Waiting , Heart

“The Aswan Dam, built at enormous expense to improve the lot of the Egyptian peasant, has caused the Nile to deposit its fertilizing sediment in Lake Nasser, where it is unavailable. Egyptian fields must now be artificially fertilized. Gigantic fertilizer plants have been built to meet the new need. The plants require enormous amounts of electricity. The dam must operate at capacity merely to supply the increased need for electricity which was created by the building of the dam”

John Gall (1925–2014) American physician

Source: General systemantics, an essay on how systems work, and especially how they fail..., 1975, p. 18. Cited in: Harvey J. Bertcher (1988) Staff development in human service organizations. p. 45

“switch (ref $@) { OverflowError => warn 'Dam needs to be drained'; DomainError => warn 'King needs to be trained'; NuclearWarError => die; }”

Larry Wall (1954) American computer programmer and author, creator of Perl

[199709302338.QAA17037@wall.org, 1997]
Usenet postings, 1997

Training

“Last Saturday it was a rainy evening. I took advantage of that to draw once again the whole evening at Dam Square all over and Sunday I repainted my painting [of Dam square] completely, that yellow nasty color has disappeared now completely. The work has become much broader, and I believe it is really finished now. When my model came, the change struck her so strongly that she said, 'sir, the painting has become beautifully now'. I myself am very happy with it, because I believe it is really good.”

George Hendrik Breitner (1857–1923) Dutch painter and photographer

translation from the original Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek
version in original Dutch (citaat van Breitner's brief, in het Nederlands:) Zaterdag avond was het een regenachtige avond. Ik heb daarvan geprofiteerd en [om] de heele avond op de Dam alles nog eens goed over te teekenen en Zondag mijn schilderij heelemaal overgeschilderd, de geele nare kleur is er heelemaal uit. Het is veel ruimer geworden, en ik geloof dat het er nu is. Toen mijn modelletje kwam, trof haar de verandering zoo erg dat het zei, hè meneer, nou is het schilderij mooi geworden. Ik zelf ben er erg mee in mijn schik, want het is geloof ik, heel goed.
quote of Breitner in a letter to his friend Herman van der Weele, Amsterdam, 14 June 1893; original letter in RKD-Archive, The Hague https://rkd.nl/explore/excerpts/54
1890 - 1900

Color , Change , Drawing , Painting

“Now as ever, he was startled by the wild exuberance of the twentieth century. All these lights! Colored neon and glaring filaments, powered, he had learned, but mechanical dams spanning rivers hundreds of miles away. And most of this—astonishingly—in the name of advertising.”

Robert Charles Wilson book A Bridge of Years

Source: A Bridge of Years (1991), Chapter 9 (p. 148)

Color , Light , Learning

“England may as well dam up the waters of the Nile with bulrushes as to fetter the step of Freedom, more proud and firm in this youthful land than where she treads the sequestered glens of Scotland, or couches herself among the magnificent mountains of Switzerland.”

Lydia Maria Child (1802–1880) American abolitionist, author and women's rights activist

Supposititious Speech of James Otis. The Rebels, Chap. iv

Youth , Mountain , Freedom , Water

“I do love thee as my lambs
Are belovėd of their dams”

Henry Constable (1562–1613) English poet

Diaphenia

Love

“Somehow, open heart surgery means more to most of us then the Alton, Illinois, Lock and Dam 26.”

John W. Kingdon (1940) American political scientist

Source: Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies - (Second Edition), Chapter 5, Problems, p. 95

Heart

“Johnson: What do you think about this Vietnam thing? I’d like to hear you talk a little bit.
Russell: Well, frankly, Mr. President, it’s the damn worse mess that I ever saw, and I don’t like to brag and I never have been right many times in my life, but I knew that we were going to get into this sort of mess when we went in there. And I don’t see how we’re ever going to get out of it without fighting a major war with the Chinese and all of them down there in those rice paddies and jungles. I just don’t see it. I just don’t know what to do.
Johnson: Well, that’s the way I have been feeling for six months.
Russell: Our position is deteriorating and it looks like the more we try to do for them, the less they are willing to do for themselves. It is a mess and it’s going to get worse, and I don’t know how or what to do. I don’t think the American people are quite ready for us to send our troops in there to do the fighting. If I was going to get out, I’d get the same crowd that got rid of old Diem [the Vietnamese prime minister who was overthrown and assassinated in 1963] to get rid of these people and to get some fellow in there that said we wish to hell we would get out. That would give us a good excuse for getting out.
Johnson: How important is it to us?
Russell: It isn’t important a damn bit for all this new missile stuff.
Johnson: I guess it is important.
Russell: From a psychological standpoint. Other than the question of our word and saving face, that’s the reason that I said that I don’t think that anybody would expect us to stay in there. It’s going to be a headache to anybody that tries to fool with it. You’ve got all the brains in the country, Mr. President—you better get ahold of them. I don’t know what to do about this. I saw it all coming on, but that don’t do any good now, that’s water over the dam and under the bridge. And we are there.”

Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–1973) American politician, 36th president of the United States (in office from 1963 to 1969)

1960s, Telephone call with Senator Richard Russell (May 27, 1964)

Life , War , People , Fools

“Every generation has its defining works. More than 300,000 people worked to put a man on the moon – including that janitor. Millions of volunteers immunized children around the world against polio. Millions of more people built the Hoover dam and other great projects. These projects didn’t just provide purpose for the people doing those jobs, they gave our whole country a sense of pride that we could do great things.”

Mark Zuckerberg (1984) American internet entrepreneur

Harvard Graduation Speech (2017)

Children , People , World , Sense

“What makes the Hohokam noteworthy is the development of irrigation works. The earliest… dates from some 2,000 years ago. …They built dams that redirected the flow of water into irrigation canals, some of them… extending for more than twenty-five miles. …They built flat-topped pyramids and ball courts, where they used rubber balls imported from Central America. The Hohokam may also have been the first to use the technique of etching with acid in their remarkable designs on marine shells.”

Peter Farb (1929–1980) American academic and writer

Man's Rise to Civilization (1968)

Water

“Oh, I loved Mr. Moffet! He was WONDERFUL! He’d given me hope! I felt fearless once again, and I could clearly see it had always been fear that had kept me dammed up all these years. Fear of sin, fear of hell, fear of what people might think of me, fear of … of … I didn’t quite know how to say or even think all these thoughts I was having, and yet… it was like I was now so excited with all these thoughts racing around inside my brain that I was on fire. Maybe I wasn’t really stupid after all. Maybe I’d just been misled all these years from the very beginning. OH, A FIRE FOR WANTING TO LEARN ALL I COULD LEARN WAS NOW BURNING INSIDE ME!”

Victor Villaseñor (1940) American writer

Crazy Loco Love: A Memoir (2008)

Love , People , Stupidity , Fear

“When the sun shouts and people abound
One thinks there were the ages of stone and the age of bronze
And the iron age; iron the unstable metal;
Steel made of iron, unstable as his mother; the towered-up cities
Will be stains of rust on mounds of plaster.
Roots will not pierce the heaps for a time, kind rains will cure them,
Then nothing will remain of the iron age
And all these people but a thigh-bone or so, a poem
Stuck in the world's thought, splinters of glass
In the rubbish dumps, a concrete dam far off in the mountain…”

Robinson Jeffers (1887–1962) American poet

"Summer Holiday"

People , Age , World , Mountain

“Bob: [about Bing Crosby] He's up in Nevada looking over Boulder Dam - his piggy bank is filled. He's so loaded, you know, he uses Howard Hughes for a bell boy.”

Jack Benny (1894–1974) comedian, vaudeville performer, and radio, television, and film actor

The Jack Benny Program (Radio: 1932-1955), The Jack Benny Program (Television: 1950-1965)

Boy

“Dam Square is the center of movement in our city [Amsterdam]. (translation from the original Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek)”

George Hendrik Breitner (1857–1923) Dutch painter and photographer

version in original Dutch (citaat van Breitner's brief, in het Nederlands:) De Dam is het middenpunt van beweging in onzen stad [Amsterdam].
Quote of Breitner, after 1886; as cited in 'The Hofland Collection, from Jongkind to Mondriaan', Christies Sale Cat. https://www.christies.com/PDF/catalog/2014/AMS3060_SaleCat.pdf, p. 102
undated quotes

“For fifty years the women of this nation have tried to dam up this deadly stream that poisons all their lives, but thus far they have lacked the insight or courage to follow it back to its source and there strike the blow at the fountain of all tyranny, religious superstition, priestly power and the canon law.”

Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902) Suffragist and Women's Rights activist

1896
September
The Degraded Status of Woman in the Bible
Free Thought Magazine
Chicago
14
542
http://books.google.com/books?id=TfOfAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA542&dq=%22for+fifty+years+the+women%22

Women , Law , Courage

“Personally, I have my doubts that science can be said to be genuinely progressive, but I'm pretty dammed certain that art is not. Which is not to say that it is not accumulative or accretionary.”

Caitlín R. Kiernan (1964) writer

(15 June 2007)
Unfit for Mass Consumption (blog entries), 2007
Context: Art is not science. Even when art is about science, it is still art. There cannot be consensus, in the sense that science strives for meaningful consensus. And unlike science, art is not progressive. Personally, I have my doubts that science can be said to be genuinely progressive, but I'm pretty dammed certain that art is not. Which is not to say that it is not accumulative or accretionary. But the belief that sf writers are out there forecasting the future, that they have some social responsibility to do so, that's malarky, if you ask me. Writers of sf can only, at best, make educated guesses, and usually those guesses are wrong, and clumping together to form a consensus does not in any way insure against history unfolding in one of those other, unpredicted directions. People love to pick out the occasional instances where Jules Verne and William Gibson got it right; they rarely ever point fingers at their miscalls.

Art , Science , Personality

“O thou A-dam, thu Esau, thou Cain, thou Hypocritical man of flesh, when wilt thou cease to kill thy younger Brother? Surely thou must not do this great work of advancing the Creation out of Bondage; for thou art lost extremely, and drowned in the Sea of Covetousnesse, Pride, and hardness of heart. The blessing shall rise out of the dust which thou treadest under foot, Even the poor despised People, and they shall hold up Salvation to this Land, and to all Lands, and thou shalt be ashamed.”

Gerrard Winstanley (1609–1676) English Protestant religious reformer, political philosopher, and activist

The True Levellers Standard Advanced (1649)

Sea , People , Heart , Art

“I have a philosophy that when you have a commander in the field, let him know what you want done and then let him alone. I have two other philosophies. One is: Do the best you can with what you have. The other is: Do not worry about water over the dam.”

Ernest King (1878–1956) United States Navy admiral, Chief of Naval Operations

From Time magazine's interview with King, Volume XL, Number 23 (December 7, 1942), p. 32.
1940s

Water

“My Children, you are unaware of the battle that rages around you. Both secretly and openly do the dark forces fight. Your spirit, like a dam, is lashed by the waters. Your heart unfolds and will be flooded with knowledge. Fear not, O heart, you will conquer!”

Helena Roerich (1879–1955) Russian philosopher

117
Leaves of Morya’s Garden: Book One (The Call) (1924)

Children , Heart , Knowledge , Water

“Nature is the universe, including ourselves. And are we not all the time tinkering at the universe, especially the garden patch that is next to us—the earth? Every time we dig a ditch or plant a field, dam a river or build a town, form a government or gut a mountain, slay a forest or form a new resolution, or do anything else almost, do we not change and reform Nature, make it over again and make it more acceptable than it was before? Have we not been working hard for thousands of years, and do our poor hearts not almost faint sometimes when we think how far, far away the millennium still is after all our efforts, and how long our little graves will have been forgotten when that blessed time gets here?”

J. Howard Moore (1862–1916)

Source: The New Ethics (1907), The Survival of the Strenuous, p. 164

Time , Mountain , Heart , Nature

“I am not tragically colored. There is no great sorrow dammed up in my soul, nor lurking behind my eyes. I do not mind at all. I do not belong to that sobbing school of Negrohood who hold that nature somehow has given them a lowdown dirty deal. Even in the helter-skelter skirmish that is my life, I have seen that the world is to the strong regardless of a little pigmentation more or less. No, I do not weep at the world — I am too busy sharpening my oyster knife.”

Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960) American folklorist, novelist, short story writer

How It Feels to Be Colored Me (1928)

School , Soul , Business , Strong

“I mind o' the Ponnage Pool,
The reid brae risin',
Morphie Lade,
An' the saumon that louped the dam,
A tree i' Martin's Den
Wi' names carved on it;
But I ken na wha I am.”

Helen Cruickshank (1886–1975) British poet

The Ponnage Pool

Tree

“Do the best you can with what you have.
Do not worry about water that has gone over the dam.
Difficulties exist to be overcome.”

Ernest King (1878–1956) United States Navy admiral, Chief of Naval Operations

p. 640

Water

“We don't have much time left. We are moving towards temperature increases of around two degrees Celsius, which is going to have consequences in the tropics, and we will loose things like glaciers. That's not a theory; it's happening right now. It's not a prediction; it's happening right now. But you just sightsee near those glaciers. But the glaciers are a big source of water. And on the questions of water, in California we store our water in a snowpack. When that's gone, the rain will be the same but it won't accumulate. With warming temperatures the snowpack will now work. It might be possible to substitute with dams, but that's complicated. This is conjoined with a big energy problem and I think that we really have to encourage development in this area. Just waiting for technological improvement won't work. We need to encourage it.”

Kenneth Arrow (1921–2017) American economist

quoted in Conor Clarke, An Interview with Kenneth Arrow, Part Three https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2009/07/an-interview-with-kenneth-arrow-part-three/22330/ (2009)
New millennium

Time , Waiting , Question , Problem