Quotes about day (10000 quotes, page 99)

“Some old men, by continually praising the time of their youth, would almost persuade us that there were no fools in those days; but unluckily they are left themselves for examples.”

Alexander Pope (1688–1744) eighteenth century English poet

Thoughts on Various Subjects (1727)

Men , Youth , Fools , Time

“Three days later the little princess was buried, and Prince Andrei went up the steps to where the coffin stood, to give her the farewell kiss. And there in the coffin was the same face, though with closed eyes. "Ah, what have you done to me?" it still seemed to say, and Prince Andrei felt that something gave way in his soul and that he was guilty of a sin he could neither remedy nor forget.”

Leo Tolstoy book War and Peace

Bk. IV, ch. 9
War and Peace (1865–1867; 1869)

Way , Soul , Kiss , Princess

“On Matthew McConaughey: "He was always taking his shirt off, he's like "Yeah, here's my deal, I'm hot." We had a meeting one day at like 11 o'clock, right before the show and he walks into the meeting shirtless wearing this like old musty sarong… He doesn't smell great, no."”

Tina Fey (1970) American comedian, writer, producer and actress

On SNL Guest Hosts

“I believe that most of us are too quick to name things when we are with small children. By simply naming a thing and letting it go at that when a child asks, "What is that?" we communicate that the name or label is the most important thing, that naming is sufficient. We deprive our children of their sense of wonder and discovery by labeling and categorizing things in the physical world. Instead of merely naming a tree, for example, try also guiding your child through an exploration of the tree both physically and mentally. This exploration may include touching, smelling, seeing from various angles, comparing one tree with another, imagining the inside of the tree and the parts underground, listening to the leaves, viewing the tree at different times of the day or during different seasons, planting its seeds, observing how other creatures — birds, moths, bugs — use the tree, and so on. After discovering that every object is fascinating and complex, a child will begin to understand that the label is only a small part of the whole. Thus taught, a child's sense of wonder will survive, even under our modern avalanche of words.”

Betty Edwards (1926) American artist

Source: The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain (1979), p.239

Children , World , Imagination , Communication

“The failure to control Iraq's borders on day one after regime change was a strategic blunder of incalculable consequences. It all goes back to inadequate troop levels not to knock Saddam out, but to maintain the peace after his overthrow. The problem of the borders incidentally pertains not only to Qaeda but to Iranian intelligence and Revolutionary Guard member for whom access into Iraq is until today a very easy thing.”

Kanan Makiya (1949) American orientalist

"Kanan Makiya speaks about Iraq 5 years later...", Washington Post (March 20, 2008)

Peace , Intelligence , Failure , Problem

“In 1932 many dark clouds still hung round the horizon. In 1933, although the outlook was distinctly brighter, there was no settled feeling that we were about to enjoy a spell of fine weather. To-day the atmosphere is distinctly brighter. The events of the last 12 months have shown gratifying evidence that the efforts of His Majesty's Government are bearing fruit…If you look to what I might call the telltale statistics, the unemployment figures and statistics of such things as retail trade, consumption of electricity, transport, iron and steel production and house building, in every case you see a definite revival of activity…If I might borrow an illustration from the titles of two well-known works of fiction, I would say that we have now finished the story of "Bleak House" and that we are sitting down this afternoon to enjoy the first chapter of "Great Expectations."”

Neville Chamberlain (1869–1940) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Budget speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1934/apr/17/financial-statement in the House of Commons (17 April 1934)
Chancellor of the Exchequer

Feeling , Effort , Housing , Weather

“After a few weeks of this she'd spend a whole day weeping, beating at herself as if on fire.”

David Foster Wallace book Infinite Jest

Infinite Jest (1996)

“They who have been reading the capitalist newspapers realize what a capacity they have for lying. We have been reading them lately. They know all about the Socialist Party—the Socialist movement, except what is true. Only the other day they took an article that I had written—and most of you have read it—most of you members of the party, at least—and they made it appear that I had undergone a marvelous transformation. I had suddenly become changed—had in fact come to my senses; I had ceased to be a wicked Socialist, and had become a respectable Socialist, a patriotic Socialist—as if I had ever been anything else. What was the purpose of this deliberate misrepresentation? It is so self-evident that it suggests itself. The purpose was to sow the seeds of dissension in our ranks; to have it appear that we were divided among ourselves; that we were pitted against each other, to our mutual undoing. But Socialists were not born yesterday. They know how to read capitalist newspapers; and to believe exactly the opposite of what they read.
Why should a Socialist be discouraged on the eve of the greatest triumph in all the history of the Socialist movement? It is true that these are anxious, trying days for us all — testing days for the women and men who are upholding the banner of labor in the struggle of the working class of all the world against the exploiters of all the world; a time in which the weak and cowardly will falter and fail and desert. They lack the fiber to endure the revolutionary test; they fall away; they disappear as if they had never been. On the other hand, they who are animated by the unconquerable spirit of the social revolution; they who have the moral courage to stand erect and assert their convictions; stand by them; fight for them; go to jail or to hell for them, if need be — they are writing their names, in this crucial hour — they are writing their names in faceless letters in the history of mankind.”

Eugene V. Debs (1855–1926) American labor and political leader

The Canton, Ohio Speech, Anti-War Speech (1918)

Women , Men , World , History

“My own preliminary diagnosis is that I am out of my skull and getting farther from its vicinity every day.”

James K. Morrow (1947) (1947-) science fiction author

"Diary of a Mad Deity" p. 191 (originally published in Synergy: New Science Fiction, Number 2, edited by George Zebrowski)
Short fiction, Bible Stories for Adults (1996)

“It's not a fantasy performance, Jane. Come on. Everything I do is real. It comes out of my head. I live this life every day. When I'm onstage it's my therapy. It's not a performance. It's a ritual. And the ultimate performance would be when I've reached my peak and I'm not there yet so don't you all clap when I say this I'll commit suicide and I'll take your kids with me.”

GG Allin (1956–1993) American singer-songwriter

GG Allin on The Jane Whitney Show July 16. 1993.
On The Jane Whitney Show

Life , Suicide

“America is no longer an obscure and inaccessible country. Our ships are in every sea, our commerce is in every port, our language is heard all around the globe, steam and lightning have revolutionized the whole domain of human thought, changed all geographical relations, make a day of the present seem equal to a thousand years of the past, and the continent that Columbus only conjectured four centuries ago is now the center of the world.”

Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman

1860s, Our Composite Nationality (1869)

World , Change , Past , Sea

“Guided by His wisdom, strong in His strength, there maybe for you struggle and suffering, the darkness and the storm. "The disciple is not above His Master." There may be weeping that shall endure for a night, but joy shall come in the morning. If the night cometh, so also the morning, "a morning without clouds," the morning of an eternal day.”

Mark Hopkins (educator) (1802–1887) American educationalist and theologian

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 108.

Wisdom , Strong , Suffering , Joy

“One day I rode in company with ‘Alã-ul-mulk and arrived at a plain called Tarna at a distance of seven miles from the city. There I saw innumerable stone images and animals, many of which had undergone a change, the original shape being obliterated. Some were reduced to a head, others to a foot and so on. Some of the stones were shaped like grain, wheat, peas, beans and lentils. And there were traces of a house which contained a chamber built of hewn stone, the whole of which looked like one solid mass. Upon it was a statue in the form of a man, the only difference being that its head was long, its mouth was towards a side of its face and its hands at its back like a captive’s. There were pools of water from which an extremely bad smell came. Some of the walls bore Hindî inscriptions. ‘Alã-ul-mulk told me that the historians assume that on this site there was a big city, most of the inhabitants of which were notorious. They were changed into stone. The petrified human form on the platform in the house mentioned above was that of their king. The house still goes by the name of ‘the king’s house’. It is presumed that the Hindî inscriptions, which some of the walls bear, give the history of the destruction of the inhabitants of this city. The destruction took place about a thousand years ago…”

Ibn Battuta (1304–1377) Moroccan explorer

Lahari Bandar (Sindh) . The Rehalã of Ibn Battûta translated into English by Mahdi Hussain, Baroda, 1967, p. 10.
Travels in Asia and Africa (Rehalã of Ibn Battûta)

History , Water , Change , Animals

“I came into politics because I love this country, I think its best days still lie ahead and I believe deeply in public service, and I think the service our country needs right now is to face up to our really big challenges, to confront our problems, to take difficult decisions, to lead people through those difficult decisions so that together we can reach better times ahead.”

David Cameron (1966) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

2010s, 2010, First speech as UK Prime Minister (2010)

Love , People , Lie , Problem

“Beware! By Allah the son of Abu Quhafah (Abu Bakr) dressed himself with it (the caliphate) and he certainly knew that my position in relation to it was the same as the position of the axis in relation to the hand-mill. The flood water flows down from me and the bird cannot fly upto me. I put a curtain against the caliphate and kept myself detached from it.
Then I began to think whether I should assault or endure calmly the blinding darkness of tribulations wherein the grown up are made feeble and the young grow old and the true believer acts under strain till he meets Allah (on his death). I found that endurance thereon was wiser. So I adopted patience although there was pricking in the eye and suffocation (of mortification) in the throat. I watched the plundering of my inheritance till the first one went his way but handed over the Caliphate to Ibn al-Khattab after himself.
(Then he quoted al-A`sha's verse):
My days are now passed on the camel's back (in difficulty) while there were days (of ease) when I enjoyed the company of Jabir's brother Hayyan.
It is strange that during his lifetime he wished to be released from the caliphate but he confirmed it for the other one after his death. No doubt these two shared its udders strictly among themselves. This one put the Caliphate in a tough enclosure where the utterance was haughty and the touch was rough. Mistakes were in plenty and so also the excuses therefore. One in contact with it was like the rider of an unruly camel. If he pulled up its rein the very nostril would be slit, but if he let it loose he would be thrown. Consequently, by Allah people got involved in recklessness, wickedness, unsteadiness and deviation.
Nevertheless, I remained patient despite length of period and stiffness of trial, till when he went his way (of death) he put the matter (of Caliphate) in a group and regarded me to be one of them. But good Heavens! what had I to do with this "consultation"? Where was any doubt about me with regard to the first of them that I was now considered akin to these ones? But I remained low when they were low and flew high when they flew high. One of them turned against me because of his hatred and the other got inclined the other way due to his in-law relationship and this thing and that thing, till the third man of these people stood up with heaving breasts between his dung and fodder. With him his children of his grand-father, (Umayyah) also stood up swallowing up Allah's wealth like a camel devouring the foliage of spring, till his rope broke down, his actions finished him and his gluttony brought him down prostrate.
At that moment, nothing took me by surprise, but the crowd of people rushing to me. It advanced towards me from every side like the mane of the hyena so much so that Hasan and Husayn were getting crushed and both the ends of my shoulder garment were torn. They collected around me like the herd of sheep and goats. When I took up the reins of government one party broke away and another turned disobedient while the rest began acting wrongfully as if they had not heard the word of Allah saying:
That abode in the hereafter, We assign it for those who intend not to exult themselves in the earth, nor (to make) mischief (therein); and the end is (best) for the pious ones. (Qur'an, 28:83)
Yes, by Allah, they had heard it and understood it but the world appeared glittering in their eyes and its embellishments seduced them. Behold, by Him who split the grain (to grow) and created living beings, if people had not come to me and supporters had not exhausted the argument and if there had been no pledge of Allah with the learned to the effect that they should not acquiesce in the gluttony of the oppressor and the hunger of the oppressed I would have cast the rope of Caliphate on its own shoulders, and would have given the last one the same treatment as to the first one. Then you would have seen that in my view this world of yours is no better than the sneezing of a goat.”

Ali book Nahj al-Balagha

Known as the Sermon of ash-Shiqshiqiyyah (roar of the camel), It is said that when Amir al-mu'minin reached here in his sermon a man of Iraq stood up and handed him over a writing. Amir al-mu'minin began looking at it, when Ibn `Abbas said, "O' Amir al-mu'minin, I wish you resumed your Sermon from where you broke it." Thereupon he replied, "O' Ibn `Abbas it was like the foam of a Camel which gushed out but subsided." Ibn `Abbas says that he never grieved over any utterance as he did over this one because Amir al-mu'minin could not finish it as he wished to.
Nahj al-Balagha

Death , Hunger , Children , People

“I will go upon the rock, boys, and look abroad for the savages," said Ishmael shortly after, advancing towards them with a mien which he intended should be conciliating, at the same time that it was authoritative. "If there is nothing to fear, we will go out on the plain; the day is too good to be lost in words, like women in the towns wrangling over their tea and sugared cakes.”

James Fenimore Cooper book The Prairie

The Prairie (1827)

Women , Fear , Boy , Time

“Don't be shy you learn to fly.
And see the sun when day is done.
If only you see
Just what you are beneath a star
That came to stay one rainy day
In autumn for free.
Yes, be what you'll be.”

Nick Drake (1948–1974) British singer-songwriter

Things Behind the Sun
Pink Moon (1972)

Star , Autumn , Learning , Sun

“I paint all day. First Becka Brotmann with her loose yellow hair and just a suggestion of dahlias in the background. Then I painted Anni Brotmann at the clay pit, where the sun nearly baked us. In the afternoon I painted Rieke Gefken holding red lilies. I think it is the best thing I've done so far – I'll show it to Mackensen [her teacher in Worpswede] tomorrow. I spent another hour with Vogeler, yesterday.... he showed us a sketchbook full of his ideas for etchings.... many really fine and original things.”

Paula Modersohn-Becker (1876–1907) German artist

in a letter to her mother, from Worpswede, c. 28 August 1897; as quoted in Paula Modersohn-Becker, The Letters and Journals by Paula Modersohn-Becker, eds. Günter Busch, Liselotte von Reinken, Arthur S. Wensinger, Carole Clew Hoey - Northwestern University Press, 1998, p. 81
1897

Idea , Thinking , Teachers , Sun

“Let us protest and let us be angry, let us be indignant, or let us be enthusiastic, Schopenhauer has marked humanity with the seal of his disdain and of his disenchantment.
A disabused pleasure-seeker, he overthrew beliefs, hopes, poetic ideals and chimeras, destroyed the aspirations, ravaged the confidence of souls, killed love, dragged down the chivalrous worship of women, crushed the illusions of hearts, and accomplished the most gigantic task ever attempted by scepticism. He spared nothing with his mocking spirit, and exhausted everything. And even to-day those who execrate him seem to carry in their own souls particles of his thought.”

Guy De Maupassant (1850–1893) French writer

"Beside Schopenhauer's Corpse"

Love , Women , Pleasure , Hope

“Turning away from the computer I saw through my own narrow window (at least it opened) the green, the blue, the flashes. I looked to the clock, the screen, the window. An hour passed, then two. I looked again at the clock and saw it had been only twenty minutes. I willed the second-hand, the minute-hand, the hour-hand to move faster, to deliver me to five o'clock when I would be released as from my prison term. Then suddenly I stopped, struck by the absurdity of wishing away the only thing I've got. Eight hours, eighty years, it was all too similar. Would I wish away the years until the day of my retirement, until my time was once again my own? At work I tried to keep busy to make the hours pass quickly. It was no different when watching television, socializing, moving frenetically--there are so many ways to kill time.”

Derrick Jensen book A Language Older Than Words

A Language Older Than Words (2000)

Way , Business , Time

“The third day, I knew it was over. But I tried to make it last for three months.”

Lana Turner (1921–1995) American actress

On her marriage to Artie Shaw, quoted in interview with Gary Collins, Hour Magazine (1982). [ZCyC5BwtbaE].
On her marriages

“In this painting ['Moscow'], I was in fact in quest for a certain hour, which was and which remains always the most beautiful hour of the day in Moscow. The sun is already low and has reached its highest force, which it has searched all the day, to which it has aspired all the day... The sun dissolves all Moscow in a spot, which as a frenzied tuba makes entered into vibration all the inner being, the whole soul... Rendering this hour seemed the biggest, the most impossible of the happiness for an artist. These impressions renewed every sunny day. They brought me a joy which shattered me until the bottom of the soul, and which reached until ecstasy.”

Wassily Kandinsky (1866–1944) Russian painter

Quote from: 'Looks on the past', Wassily Kandinsky; published in der Sturm, Berlin 1913
1910 - 1915

Beauty , Soul , Search , Sun

““If you can see a thing whole,” he said, “it seems that it’s always beautiful. Planets, lives…. But close up, a world’s all dirt and rocks. And day to day, life’s a hard job, you get tired, you lose the pattern. You need distance, interval. The way to see how beautiful the earth is, is to see it as the moon. The way to see how beautiful life is, is from the vantage point of death.”
“That’s all right for Urras. Let it stay off there and be the moon—I don’t want it! But I’m not going to stand up on a gravestone and look down on life and say, ‘O lovely!’ I want to see it whole right in the middle of it, here, now. I don’t give a hoot for eternity.””

Ursula K. Le Guin Hainish Cycle

Source: Hainish Cycle, (1974), Chapter 6 (p. 190)

Love , Life , Death , World

“I worried that my vegan diet might fail me. I worried that I'd run out of energy. I worried that the heat might prove too much. True, I wasn't as sore as I had been before going to a plant-based diet, and my recovery time was faster than ever. True, I almost never got congested, and whenever a cold or flu swept through Seattle, sending a lot of other runners to bed, I stayed healthy. And of course, I had battled Mount Si and prevailed, if a man could be said to prevail. I had also gone to California a week earlier and trained every day in the 100-degree canyons. But if you can imagine running 100 miles, you can imagine almost anything.”

Scott Jurek (1973) American ultramarthon runner

Source: Eat and Run (2012), Ch. 11, p. 91

Imagination , Time , Training

“The experience of my five years made me feel that things were futile so I decided that if I bumped down the stone kitchen steps from top to bottom … I would probably be dead at the end. I did not succeed … As I went on in life, I made two other efforts to put an end to things, only to discover it is a very difficult thing to commit suicide. All of these attempts were made before I was fifteen. I tried to smother myself with sand when I was around eleven years old, but sand in one's mouth, nose and eyes is not comfortable and I decided to postpone the happy day… But again the instinct to self-preservation was too strong. Since then I have not been very interested in suicide, though I have always understood the impulse.”

Alice A. Bailey (1880–1949) esoteric, theosophist, writer

Source: The Unfinished Autobiography (1951), Chapter I, Part 1

Life , Feeling , Suicide , Effort

“I was raised by parents who taught me to love and respect people regardless of their race or background, so I am saddened and frustrated by the divisive rhetoric and racial tensions that seem to be getting worse as of late. I know this country is better than that, and I can no longer stay silent. We need to find solutions that ensure people of color receive fair and equal treatment AND that police officers – who put their lives on the line every day to protect us all – are respected and supported.”

Michael Jordan (1963) American retired professional basketball player and businessman

Love , People , Color , Support

“For many Americans, these four months have brought sorrow, and pain that will never completely go away. Every day a retired firefighter returns to Ground Zero, to feel closer to his two sons who died there. At a memorial in New York, a little boy left his football with a note for his lost father: Dear Daddy, please take this to heaven. I don't want to play football until I can play with you again some day.”

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

2000s, 2002, State of the Union address (January 2002)

Pain , Feeling , Boy , Memory

“On that day beneath the fluorescent lights of the YMCA, I was transcendent.”

Kai Cheng Thom (1991) writer

What I learned, loved and lost as a trans Zumba addict (2018)

Light

“Servants, when their lords no longer sway,
Their minds no more to righteous courses bend.
Half that man's virtue doth Zeus take away,
Whom he surrenders to the servile day.”

Homér The Odyssey (Cowper)

XVII. 320–323 (tr. Worsley).
Odyssey (c. 725 BC)

“Then on a certain day I went out [from Amsterdam, c. 1881-82]. I traveled to Dongen, brought some interior studies back, to try to make something good of them.”

Suze Robertson (1855–1922) Dutch painter

(version in original Dutch / origineel citaat van Suze Robertson:) Toen ben ik er op 'n goeden dag eens op uit getrokken [c. 1880], naar buiten. Ik ging naar nl:Dongen, bracht er enkele interieur-studies uit mee, om te proberen daar wat van te maken.
Source: 1900 - 1922, Onder de Menschen: Suze Robertson' (1912), p. 32

Travel , Study

“Little by little it ebbs, this life,
if by any chance I am still alive;
my brief time passes before my eyes.
I mourn the past in whatever I say;
as each day passes, step by step
my youth deserts me—what persists is pain.”

Luís de Camões (1524–1580) Portuguese poet

Foge-me pouco a pouco a curta vida
(se por caso é verdade que inda vivo);
vai-se-me o breve tempo d'ante os olhos;
choro pelo passado e quando falo,
se me passam os dias passo e passo,
vai-se-me, enfim, a idade e fica a pena.
"Foge-me pouco a pouco a curta vida" http://www.poetryinternationalweb.net/pi/site/poem/item/8451, tr. Landeg White in The Collected Lyric Poems of Luis de Camoes (2016), p. 330
Lyric poetry, Sestina

Life , Pain , Youth , Chance

“We got up at four in the morning, that first day in the east. On the evening before we had climbed off a freight train at the edge of town, and with the true instinct of Kentucky boys had found our way across town and to the race track and the stables at once. Then we knew we were all right.”

Sherwood Anderson (1876–1941) writer

"I Want to Know Why"
The Triumph of the Egg and Other Stories (1921)

Way , Boy , Training

“Truth is buried, deep inside of men, sweep away each day.”

Dawud Wharnsby (1972) Canadian musician

"The Last Tea Song"
Blue Walls and The Big Sky (1995)

Men , Truth

“You may produce a case here and there of abuse of the dole: you may produce an occasional man who marches with the unemployed and has a bad record; but every Member of this House who has been in a contested election and has come into personal contact with the unemployed knows that the great mass of unemployed men are those same men who saved us during the War. They are the same men who stood side by side in the trenches. They are the heroes of 1914 and 1918, though they may be pointed out as the Bolshevists of to-day.”

Clement Attlee (1883–1967) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1922/nov/23/debate-on-the-address in the House of Commons (23 November 1922)
1920s

Men , War , Housing , Personality

“The Folkish State, conversely, must under no conditions annex Poles with the intention of wanting to make Germans out of them some day. On the contrary, it must muster the determination either to seal off these alien racial elements, so that the blood of its own Folk will not be corrupted again, or it must without further ado remove them and hand over the vacated territory to its own National Comrades.”

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

1920s, Zweites Buch (1928)

“Change is healthy. Any actor can depart this show and it will survive. In my mind, there is nothing unclear about how I got here. You go to different shows and hear the chirping about who’s No. 1 on the call sheet or who has the biggest trailer. For me, it’s about doing a job as well as you can. If your job is to get somebody coffee—and I did that in my early days—then make it the best cup of coffee possible. Do the work. And do it with pride.”

Mark Harmon (1951) actor from the United States

TV Insider interview (2017)

Coffee , Change

“There's a man with a mullet going mad with a mallet in Millets.
National Shite Day, CSI:Ambleside”

Nigel Blackwell

2008
Lyrics

Madness

“As the days of spring arouse all nature to a green and growing vitality, so when hope enters the soul it makes all things new. It insures the progress which it predicts. Rooted in faith, growing up into love; these make the three immortal graces of the gospel, whose intertwined arms and concurrent voices shed joy and peace over our human life.”

James Freeman Clarke (1810–1888) American theologian and writer

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 328.

Love , Life , Peace , Faith

“Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.”

Clive Staples Lewis The Chronicles of Narnia

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (1950), Dedication: "To Lucy Barfield"
The Chronicles of Narnia (1950–1956)

Reading

“My school was a happy place. All of us who started our schooling there completed our studies till the eighth standard. I don't remember even a single person dropping out. These days, when i visit schools, both big and small, all across the country, i tell them that true quality does not come from a great building or great facilities or great advertisements. It happens when education is imparted with love by great teachers.”

A. P. J. Abdul Kalam (1931–2015) 11th President of India, scientist and science administrator

My Journey: Transforming Dreams into Actions

Love , Education , School , Study

“Illusion begets and sustains the world; we do not destroy one without destroying the other. Which is what I do every day. An apparently ineffectual operation, since I must begin all over again the next day.”

Emil M. Cioran (1911–1995) Romanian philosopher and essayist

Drawn and Quartered (1983)

World

“From his brimstone bed, at break of day,
A-walking the Devil is gone,
To look at his little, snug farm of the World,
And see how his stock went on.”

Robert Southey (1774–1843) British poet

St. 1.
The Devil's Walk http://www.rc.umd.edu/editions/shelley/devil/devil.rs1860.html (1799)

World

“And I’ve been on the road for too long, I know I have, because I was in the supermarket the other day, and I saw this tiny, heartbreaking can of beans. And it really made me want to cry. I just thought how old or sick or small do you need to be to need those beans? And it was on a high shelf, you know, you’d be climbing the ladder for days just to get at those four beans.”

Dylan Moran (1971) Irish actor and comedian

On warning on cigarettes boxes.
What It Is (2009)

Cry

“Tis sufficient to say, according to the proverb, that here is God's plenty. We have our fore-fathers and great-grandames all before us, as they were in Chaucer's days; their general characters are still remaining in mankind, and even in England, though they are call'd by other names than those of Monks and Friars, and Canons, and Lady Abbesses, and Nuns: for mankind is ever the same, and nothing lost out of nature, though everything is altered.”

John Dryden book Fables, Ancient and Modern

Preface to the Fables.
Fables, Ancient and Modern (1700)

God , Nature

“Humanity, morality, decency, might be forgotten, but codfish must still be had for the use of the faithful in Lent and on fast days.”

Francis Parkman (1823–1893) American historian

Pt. II, Ch. 2
Pioneers of France in the New World (1865)

Faith

“Alike all ages. Dames of ancient days
Have led their children through the mirthful maze,
And the gay grandsire, skill'd in gestic lore,
Has frisk'd beneath the burden of threescore.”

Oliver Goldsmith (1728–1774) Irish physician and writer

Source: The Traveller (1764), Line 251.

Children , Age

“My deepest intention is that some day a sufferer, no matter how afflicted, will be able to look at a painting, at a photograph, and be instantly healed. That is my ultimate hope. Not to be realized in this life, maybe, but that is what I believe art can do.”

John Diamond (doctor) (1934) Australian doctor

Source: Art for Healing: Guided Painting Then and Now (2011), p. 39

Life , Hope , Art , Affliction

“They don't make poles long enough for me want to touch Microsoft products, and I don't want any mass-marketed game-playing device or Windows appliance near my desk or on my network. This is my workbench, dammit, it's not a pretty box to impress people with graphics and sounds. When I work at this system up to 12 hours a day, I'm profoundly uninterested in what user interface a novice user would prefer.”

Erik Naggum (1965–2009) Norwegian computer programmer

Re: Why lisp failed in the marketplace http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/6dd13ffe0e273031 (Usenet article).
Usenet articles, Miscellaneous

People , Game , Box

“When five men were captured in the Watergate offices of the Democratic National Committee early in the morning on Saturday June 17, 1972 I had just completed a three-year stint as an assistant United States Attorney in Nashville. Ironically I had resigned the day before the break-in. I was about to become an unpaid political worker- the middle Tennessee director for the reelection campaign of Sen. Howard Baker.”

Fred Thompson (1942–2015) American politician and actor

page 3
At That Point in Time, Initial involvement

Men

“Time won't fly, it's like I'm paralyzed by it.
I'd like to be my old self again, but I'm still trying to find it.
After plaid shirt days and nights when you made me your own,
Now you mail back my things and I walk home alone.But you keep my old scarf from that very first week,
'Cause it reminds you of innocence and it smells like me.
You can't get rid of it 'cause you remember it all too well, yeah.”

Taylor Swift (1989) American singer-songwriter

All Too Well, written by Taylor Swift and Liz Rose.
Song lyrics, Red (2012)

Home , Time , Flying , Night

“Every Manifestation is but a revelation of Thine Own Self, with each of Whom we have truly appeared and we bow down in adoration before Thee. Thou hast been, O my Best Beloved, and shalt ever be my witness throughout bygone times and in the days to come. Verily, Thou art the All-Powerful, the Ever-Faithful, the Omnipotent.”

Báb (1819–1850) Iranian prophet; founder of the religion Bábism; venerated in the Bahá'í Faith

Tablet to ‘Him Who Will Be Made Manifest’

Faith , Art , Appearance , Time

“I never expected I would be connected to the Alpha male as some kind of ancillary object, and to this day it mystifies me.”

Courtney Love (1964) American punk singer-songwriter, musician, actress, and artist

On her marriage to Kurt Cobain, The Telegraph (3 April 2010)
2006–2013

“Most Illustrious and most Excellent Lady, our very dear Sister,- Confident of the circumstance that there can be no more efficacious and salutary medicine for the indisposition from which you are at present suffering than the announcement of good and happy news, we advise you that at this very moment we have received sure tidings of the capture of Camerino. We beg that you will do honour to this message by an immediate improvement, and inform us of it, because, tormented as we are to know you so ill, nothing, not even this felicitous event, can suffice to afford us pleasure. We beg you also kindly to convey the present to the Illustrious Lord Don Alfonso, your husband and our beloved Brother-in-law, to whom we are not writing to-day.”

Cesare Borgia (1475–1507) Duke of Romagna and former Catholic cardinal

Cesare's letter to Lucrezia (July, 1502), as quoted by Rafael Sabatini, 'The Life of Cesare Borgia', Chapter XIII: Urbino and Camerino.

Pleasure , Law , Confidence , Sister

“Demosthenes told Phocion, "The Athenians will kill you some day when they once are in a rage." "And you," said he, "if they are once in their senses."”

Plutarch (46–127) ancient Greek historian and philosopher

Life of Phocion
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Sense , Rage

“Favouritism was the secret of our efficiency in the old days and got us young Admirals….. Going by seniority saves so much trouble. 'Buggins's turn' has been our ruin and will be disastrous hereafter!”

John Fisher, 1st Baron Fisher (1841–1920) Royal Navy admiral of the fleet

Letter to Lord Selborne, dated 13 January 1901, describing Buggins's turn, a system by which appointments or awards are made in rotation rather than on merit.
Fear God and Dread Nought: The Correspondence of Admiral of the Fleet Lord Fisher of Kilverstone. Vol 1 (1953), p. 181.

Secret

“I haven't decided if he deserved to eat bread made out of sticks or live in a rancid puddle, probably because I haven't made up my mind whether anyone deserves such treatment, though I suspect that the day a person gives up on the Geneva Conventions is the day a person gives up on the human race.”

Sarah Vowell book Assassination Vacation

Source: Assassination Vacation (2005), p. 81 On Samuel Mudd

Personality

“Along the Syria border there were no farms and no refugee camps — there was only the Syrian army… The kibbutzim saw the good agricultural land … and they dreamed about it… They didn't even try to hide their greed for the land… We would send a tractor to plow some area where it wasn't possible to do anything, in the demilitarized area, and knew in advance that the Syrians would start to shoot. If they didn't shoot, we would tell the tractor to advance further, until in the end the Syrians would get annoyed and shoot. And then we would use artillery and later the air force also, and that's how it was…The Syrians, on the fourth day of the war, were not a threat to us.”

Moshe Dayan (1915–1981) Israeli military leader and politician

On pre-1967 clashes with the Syrians, from a private conversation in 1976 with Rami Tal, as quoted in The New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/1997/05/11/world/general-s-words-shed-a-new-light-on-the-golan.html?scp=1&sq=Moshe%20Dayan%20Rami%20Tal&st=cse and Associated Press reports (11 May 1997)

War , Dreams

“When I was a young man working 14 hour days, I traded using outrageous and terrifying leverage. I was either very lucky, very smart or very dumb. That’s what terrifies people about commodities. Commodities themselves are no riskier than stocks. A stock on margin has more risk than a commodity fully paid for. It’s all about the degree of leverage.”

Jim Rogers (1942) American writer

Interview, February 2005

People

“We want to thank everyone who wrote good things about it the day you heard it--both of you.”

Reggie Fils-Aimé (1961) American businessman

Joking about the reaction to the Wii's name when it was first announced
On Wii
Source: E3 2006

“Sing in me, Muse, and through me tell the story
of that man skilled in all ways of contending,
the wanderer, harried for years on end,
after he plundered the stronghold
on the proud height of Troy.
He saw the townlands
and learned the minds of many distant men,
and weathered many bitter nights and days
in his deep heart at sea, while he fought only
to save his life, to bring his shipmates home.
But not by will nor valor could he save them,
for their own recklessness destroyed them all—
children and fools, they killed and feasted on
the cattle of Lord Hêlios, the Sun,
and he who moves all day through the heaven
took from their eyes the dawn of their return.”

Robert Fitzgerald (1910–1985) American poet, critic and translator

opening lines
The Odyssey (1961)

Life , Men , Children , Fools

“After this Alexander left Dareius's mother, his daughters, and his son in Susa, providing them with persons to teach them the Greek language, and marching on with his army on the fourth day reached the Tigris River.”

Diodorus Siculus (-90–-30 BC) Greek historiographer

Histories 17.67.1

Personality , Daughters

“The whitewashed wall, the nicely sanded floor,
The varnished clock that clicked behind the door;
The chest contrived a double debt to pay,
A bed by night, a chest of drawers by day.”

Oliver Goldsmith The Deserted Village

Source: The Deserted Village (1770), Line 227.

Night

“My life [is] a series of Hollywood orgies and Kabbalah center brunches with the cast of Friends. At least that's what my handlers tell me. I’m actually too valuable to live my own life and spend most of my days in a vegetable crisper to remain fake news anchor fresh.”

Jon Stewart (1962) American political satirist, writer, television host, actor, media critic and stand-up comedian

College of William & Mary Commencement Address (2004)

Life

“You spend months and months listening to the music, absorbing, practicing, working with real musicians who worked with them and getting as much of that as you can. And then the day you start shooting, you have to throw it all away. Because, they had no self-consciousness. They were natural performers and at that time, it wasn't about how you could synthesize a voice and make it appealing, it was about the natural little hiccups and the way you related a story or wrote the soul in the words you wrote. And 90% of your popularity was your performance and your interpretation of your own song. So, once we learned it all you just have to just kind of hope it all sunk in somewhere and just let it all go, cause they just had incredible confidence.”

Reese Witherspoon (1976) American film actress and producer

On making Walk the Line
IGN Interview with Reese Witherspoon http://movies.ign.com/articles/666/666865p1.html (November 15, 2005).

Hope , Music , Way , Soul

“Give me health and a day, and I will make the pomp of emperors ridiculous.”

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

Source: 1830s, Nature http://www.emersoncentral.com/nature.htm (1836), Ch. 3, Beauty

Health

“No more my heart shall sob or grieve. My days and nights dissolve in God's own Light. Above the toil of life, my soul is a Bird of Fire winging the Infinite.”

Sri Chinmoy (1931–2007) Indian writer and guru

"Revelation", p. 47
My Flute (1972)

Life , God , Soul , Bird

“I'm much more into 'electronica' (yeah, I know it's cliche these days).”

Andrew Sega (1975) musician from America

Static Line interview, 1998

“Even during the fifteen years of Alptigin’s reign Subuktigin is represented by Firishta in an untranslated passage to have made frequent attacks upon India, and even to have penetrated as far as Sodra on the Chinab, where he demolished idols in celebration of Mahmud’s birth, which, as it occurred on the date of the prophet’s birth, Subuktigin was anxious that it should be illustrated by an event similar to the destruction of idols in the palace of the Persian king by an earthquake, on the day of the prophet’s birth.”

Sabuktigin (942–997) Founder of the Ghaznavid Empire

Tarikh-i-Firishta: Elliot and Dowson, Vol. II : Elliot and Dowson's History of India as told by its own Historians p. 435-36.

Birth

“Roger: I think the best show is every night. I don't know every night we pretty much have the best show. We don't really have bad shows. The only thing that would contribute to a bad show is if nobody showed up. But, people do show up - so I can't really say. We did this tour in Australia and it was like a.. we were playing way out in Perth - you know, like in the middle of nowhere, the most remote city on the planet! But, we had a day off before that, so our booking agent got us to play at this tiny, tiny town north of Perth. It was a tiny club show, tiny PA, no baracade, like less then 200 kids and it was completely insaine! It was awesome! And then the next night we were playing in Perth and it was like 700 kids but the show just wasn't as awesome, you know? So it doesn't really ever matter where it is. I don't know. It wasn't a bad show!”

Roger Manganelli (1973) American musician

laughs

People , Books , Way , Thinking

“The sea, the sea is everything! Its sovereign mass
brings to me atoms of a myriad faraway lands;
Its bright smile animates me in the limpid mornings
And when at the end of day my faith has failed me
My heart echoes the sound of its sorrow in the sands.”

José Rizal (1861–1896) Filipino writer, ophthalmologist, polyglot and nationalist

"Mi Retiro", st.6 - translated by Nick Joaquin.

Faith , Smile , Heart , Animals

“The President of the Commission, M. Delors, said at a press conference the other day that he wanted the European Parliament to be the democratic body of the Community, he wanted the Commission to be the Executive and he wanted the Council of Ministers to be the Senate. No. No. No.”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

Debate in the House of Commons (30 October 1990) http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm198990/cmhansrd/1990-10-30/Debate-1.html
Third term as Prime Minister

Communication

“I've seen those big machines come rolling through the quiet pines.
Blue suits and bankers with their Volvos and their valentines.
Give us this day our daily discount outlet merchandise.
Raise up a multiplex and we will make a sacrifice.
Now we're gonna get the big business.
Now we're gonna get the real thing.
Everybody's all excited about it.”

Billy Joel (1949) American singer-songwriter and pianist

No Man's Land.
Song lyrics, River of Dreams (1993)

Business

“Time after time she opened her door to catch the first glimmer of day; and she rejoiced when early Dawn lit up the sky and people in the town began to stir.”

Apollonius of Rhodes book Argonautica

Source: Argonautica (3rd century BC), Book III. Jason and Medea, Lines 822–824

People , Time

“When I consider life, 't is all a cheat.
Yet fool'd with hope, men favour the deceit;
Trust on, and think to-morrow will repay.
To-morrow 's falser than the former day;
Lies worse, and while it says we shall be blest
With some new joys, cuts off what we possest.
Strange cozenage! none would live past years again,
Yet all hope pleasure in what yet remain;
And from the dregs of life think to receive
What the first sprightly running could not give.”

John Dryden Aureng-zebe

Aureng-Zebe (1676), Act IV, scene i.

Life , Men , Pleasure , Hope

“There is nothing at all that remains: nor any house; nor any castle, however strong; nor any love, however tender and sound; nor any comradeship among men, however hardy. Nothing remains but the things of which I will not speak, because we have spoken enough of them already during these four days. But I who am old will give you advice, which is this—to consider chiefly from now onwards those permanent things which are, as it were, the shores of this age and the harbours of our glittering and pleasant but dangerous and wholly changeful sea.”

Hilaire Belloc (1870–1953) writer

By this, we are then told, "he meant Death." (p. 158)
Source: The Four Men: A Farrago (1911), pp. 157–8

Love , Men , Age , Strong

“I was trying to write a book that simply would not come. I did my daily five hundred words, but the characters never began to live. So much in writing depends on the superficiality of one’s days. One may be preoccupied with shopping and income tax returns and change conversations, but the stream of the unconscious continues to flow undisturbed, solving problems, planning ahead: one sits down sterile and dispirited at the desk, and suddenly the words come as though from the air: the situations that seemed blocked in a hopeless impasse move forward: the work has been done while one slept or shopped or talked with friends. But this hate and suspicion, this passion to destroy went deeper than the book – the unconscious worked on it instead…”

Graham Greene book The End of the Affair

Bk. 1, ch. 2
The End of the Affair (1951)

Hate , Books , Problem , Passion

“Once there ruled in the distant city of Wirani a king who was both mighty and wise. And he was feared for his might and loved for his wisdom. Now, in the heart of that city was a well, whose water was cool and crystalline, from which all the inhabitants drank, even the king and his courtiers; for there was no other well. One night when all were asleep, a witch entered the city, and poured seven drops of strange liquid into the well, and said, “From this hour he who drinks this water shall become mad.” Next morning all the inhabitants, save the king and his lord chamberlain, drank from the well and became mad, even as the witch had foretold. And during that day the people in the narrow streets and in the market places did naught but whisper to one another, “The king is mad. Our king and his lord chamberlain have lost their reason. Surely we cannot be ruled by a mad king. We must dethrone him.” That evening the king ordered a golden goblet to be filled from the well. And when it was brought to him he drank deeply, and gave it to his lord chamberlain to drink. And there was great rejoicing in that distant city of Wirani, because its king and its lord chamberlain had regained their reason.”

Khalil Gibran (1883–1931) Lebanese artist, poet, and writer

The Madman (1918)

Love , Wisdom , People , Fear

“His speech is clumsy, with a toadlike indolence, long winded, pedantic, choppy. The words tumble from his mouth in sentence fragments, which he holds back as much as possible, as if they were earning interest. It takes forever and a day for him to push out a clump of hardened brain snot. Then he writhes in painful ecstasy, as if he had sugar on his rotten teeth. A very slow blab machine. An obsolete model with a non-working switch — it can't be turned off unless you cut off the electric power altogether. So I'd have to smash him in the kisser. No, I'd have to knock him unconscious. But even if he were unconscious he'd keep talking. Even if his vocal cords were sliced through, he'd keep talking like a ventriloquist. Even if his throat were cut and his head were chopped off, speech balloons would still dangle from his mouth like gases emitted by internal decay.”

Klaus Kinski (1926–1991) German actor

On Werner Herzog, p. 213
Kinski Uncut : The Autobiography of Klaus Kinski (1996)

Pain

“Sun has never deprived anyone of its light and energy irrespective of their caste and religion. Despite this, if it is being linked to communalism then I request such people to stay in their rooms during the day without sunlight.”

Yogi Adityanath (1972) Indian politician

On religious groups claiming that Surya Namaskar would cause communal disharmony, as quoted in "People opposed to 'Surya Namaskar' should lock themselves in 'dark room': Yogi Adityanath" http://zeenews.india.com/news/india/people-opposed-to-surya-namaskar-should-lock-themselves-in-dark-room-yogi-adityanath_1610111.html, Zee News (9 June 2015).

People , Religion , Communication , Light

“At this time a high-ranking SS leader hinted to me that Himmler was preparing decisive steps. In February 1945, the Reichsführer-SS had assumed command of the Vistula Army Group, but he was no better than his successor at stopping the Russian advance. Hitler was now berating him also. Thus what personal prestige Himmler had retained was used up by a few weeks of commanding frontline troops. Nevertheless, everyone still feared Himmler, and I felt distinctly shaky one day on learning that Himmler was coming to see me about something that evening. This, incidentally, was the only time he ever called on me. My nervousness grew when Theodor Hupfauer, the new chief of our Central Office- with whom I had several times spoken rather candidly- told me in some trepidation that Gestapo chief Kaltenbrunner would be calling on him at the same hour. Before Himmler entered, by adjutant whispered to me: "He's alone." My office was without window panes; we no longer bothered replacing them since they were blasted out by bombs every few days. A wretched candle stood at the center of the table; the electricity was out again. Wrapped in our coats, we sat facing one another. Himmler talked about minor matters, asked about pointless details, and finally made the witless observation: "When the course is downhill there's always a floor to the valley, and once it is reached, Herr Speer, the ascent begins again." Since I expressed neither agreement nor disagreement with this proverbial wisdom and remained virtually monosyllabic throughout the conversation, he soon took his leave. I never found out what he wanted of it, or why Kaltenbrunner called on Hupfauer at the same time. Perhaps t hey had heard about my critical attitude and were seeking allies; perhaps they merely wanted to sound us out.”

Albert Speer (1905–1981) German architect, Minister of Armaments and War Production for Nazi Germany

Source: Inside the Third Reich: Memoirs (1970), p. 427-428

Wisdom , Fear , Decision , Learning

“We wake and whisper awhile,
But, the day gone by,
Silence and sleep like fields
Of amaranth lie.”

Walter de la Mare (1873–1956) English poet and fiction writer

All That's Past.

Lie , Sleep , Silence

“Let us take first an absurd example: always preferring goods that come on Thursdays to those that come on Wednesdays, solely because of a preference for that particular day of the week. As we shall see, this is not contrary to the principles of rational choice, but it is certainly contrary to reason. The simple preference for Thursdays is a reason, but reason also demands the reason for that reason. And obviously there is none.”

Jon Elster (1940) Norwegian academic

Reason and Rationality (2009)

“That freedom can never be attained by a nation without suffering and sacrifice has been amply borne out by the recent tragic happenings in this subcontinent. We are in the midst of unparalleled difficulties and untold sufferings; we have been through dark days of apprehension and anguish; but I can say with confidence that with courage and self-reliance and by the Grace of God we shall emerge triumphant.”

Muhammad Ali Jinnah (1876–1948) Founder and 1st Governor General of Pakistan

Speech at a rally at the University Stadium, Lahore (30 October 1947)

God , Confidence , Courage , Freedom

“It's not easy, it's not easy. And I couldn't do it if I just didn't, you know, passionately believe it was the right thing to do. You know, I've had so many opportunities from this country, I just don't want to see us fall backwards - no. So - you know, this is very personal for me. It's not just political, it's not just public. I see what's happening, and we have to reverse it. And some people think elections are a game, they think it's like who's up or who's down. It's about our country, it's about our kids' futures, and it's really about all of us together. You know some of us put ourselves out there and do this against some pretty difficult odds. And we do it, each one of us, because we care about our country. But some of us are right and some of us are wrong, some of us are ready and some of us are not, some of us know what we will do to do on day one and some of haven't really thought that through enough. And so when we look at the array of problems we have and the potential for it getting - really spinning out of control, this is one of the most important elections America's ever faced. So as tired as I am - and I am - and as difficult as it is to try to kind of keep up with what I try to do on the road like occasionally exercise and try to eat right - it's tough when the easiest food is pizza - I just believe so strongly in who we are as a nation. So I'm going to do everything I can to make my case and, you know, then the voters get to decide.”

Hillary Clinton (1947) American politician, senator, Secretary of State, First Lady

In response to the question, "How do you do it?" from Marianne Pernold The Washington Post http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/07/AR2008010702954.html
Presidential campaign (January 20, 2007 – 2008)

People , Food , Exercises , Game