Quotes about down (8440 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

“She kept saying “I love you,” every time they finished, every time he lost himself inside her, every time they reached that amazing ecstasy of two bodies that already know each other; But, deep down, she, little by little, had begun to doubt that “eternal love,” that verb so easy to conjugate.”

José Baroja book El curioso caso de la sombra que murió como un recuerdo y otros cuentos

Love , Time

“The biggest people with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest people with the smallest minds. Think big anyway!”

Matka Tereza (1910–1997) Roman Catholic saint of Albanian origin

People , Idea , Thinking

“If you’re going to set goals, it’s better for them to be big. If you write them down decisively, it’s easier to succeed. Indeed, my way of thinking is quite mathematical.”

Yuzuru Hanyu (1994) Japanese figure skater (1994-)

Translation source: https://kaerb.tumblr.com/post/170346243034/if-youre-going-to-set-goals-its-better-for (user-translation) from 31 January 2018.
Annotation: This quote is excerpted from an interview filmed in Yokohama on 22 November 2009 after an official practice at Japanese Junior Nationals, aired 23 December 2009 in 2009全日本フィギュアスケートジュニア選手権大会 (2009 All Japan Figure Skating Junior Championships) by BS Fuji.
Page: 124.
Original: (ja) 目標を書くなら大きいほうがいい。具体的に書いたほうが達成しやすい。けっこう理数系です。

Thinking , Mathematics , Decision , Way

“There are alway going to be bad things. But you can write it down and make a song out of it.”

Billie Eilish (2001) American singer-songwriter

Bad luck , Making love

“Stars," she whispered. "I can see the stars again, my lady."
A tear trickled down Artemis's cheek. "Yes, my brave one. They are beautiful tonight."
Stars," Zoe repeated. Her eyes fixed on the night sky. And she did not move again.”

Rick Riordan book The Titan's Curse

Source: The Titan's Curse

Beauty , Star , Tear , Night

“When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘happy’. They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life.”

John Lennon (1940–1980) English singer and songwriter

Variant: When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘happy’. They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life.

Inspirational , Motivational , Deep , Happy

“Teachers also say that teaching for learning how-to-learn-learn will consume a lot of time. It will be difficult to cover all the content specified by the curriculum if learning uses up too much time on hands-on activities. The less-is-more alternative has not been considered as a possible solution at all in educational reforms where only expanding will bring about progress and development is more. Now is an appropriate time for educators to come down to the heart of educational matters or the learning methods to achieve the less-is-more alternative in all educational reforms.”

Sukavich Rangsitpol (1935) Thai politician

Teacher

Time , Heart , Learning , Teachers

“I hate pockets in trousers … By the way, I do not wear a hose. My hose is my own. No coke bottle, nothing stuffed down there.”

Freddie Mercury (1946–1991) British singer, songwriter and record producer

As quoted in NME (2 November 1974) http://www.queenarchives.com/index.php?title=Freddie_Mercury_-_11-02-1974_-_NME.

Hate , Way

“It all began with the three wise men, followed a star took them to Bethelehem, and made it heard throughout the land — born was the leader of man. All going down to see the Lord Jesus.”

Freddie Mercury (1946–1991) British singer, songwriter and record producer

"Jesus" on Queen (1973).

Men , Star

“Lots of people want to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down.”

Oprah Winfrey (1954) American businesswoman, talk show host, actress, producer, and philanthropist

Variant: Everyone wants to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down.

For Wife , love , Happy , Family

“Today is filled with anger, fueled with hidden hate.
Scared of being outkast, afraid of common fate.
Today is build on tragedies which no one want's to face.
Nightmares to humanity and morally disgraced.
Tonight is filled with Rage, violence in the air.
Children bred with ruthlessness cause no one at home cares.
Tonight I lay my head down but the pressure never stops,
knowing that my sanity content when I'm droped.
But tomorrow I see change, a chance to build a new,
build on spirit intent of heart and ideas based on truth.
Tomorrow I wake with second wind and strong because of pride.
I know I fought with all my heart to keep the dream alive.”

Tupac Shakur (1971–1996) rapper and actor

Hate , Fate , Children , Truth

“It took a lot of courage for him to befriend me in front of Hitler… You can melt down all the medals and cups I have and they wouldn't be a plating on the 24-karat friendship I felt for Lutz Long at that moment.”

Jesse Owens (1913–1980) American track and field athlete

On the congratulations given by German athlete Lutz Long, a competitor in the long jump, who in some accounts he credited with giving him some friendly advice that helped him to win against him; as quoted in "Owens pierced a myth" by Larry Schwartz http://espn.go.com/sportscentury/features/00016393.html in ESPN SportsCentury (2005)
Context: It took a lot of courage for him to befriend me in front of Hitler... You can melt down all the medals and cups I have and they wouldn't be a plating on the 24-karat friendship I felt for Lutz Long at that moment. Hitler must have gone crazy watching us embrace. The sad part of the story is I never saw Long again. He was killed in World War II.

Friendship , Courage

“No one is afraid of heights, they're afraid of falling down. No one is afraid of saying I love you, they're afraid of the answer…”

Kurt Cobain (1967–1994) American musician and artist

Love

“It seems like every time you come up something happens to bring you back down.”

Tupac Shakur (1971–1996) rapper and actor

Time

“But I know for a fact that had I had a father, I'd have some discipline. I'd have more confidence. Your mother cannot calm you down the way a man can. Your mother can't reassure you the way a man can. My mother couldn't show me where my manhood was. You need a man to teach you how to be a man. When I was young I was quiet, withdrawn. I read a lot, wrote poetry, kept a diary. I watched TV all day. I stayed in front of the television. It was when I was in front of the TV by myself, being alone in the house by myself, having to cook dinner by myself, eat by myself. Just being by myself and looking at TV, at families and all these people out there in this pretend world. I knew I could be part of it if I pretended too, So early on I just watched and emulated … and I just thirsted for that. I thought if I could be and act like those characters, act like those people, I could have some of their joy. If I could act like I had a big family I wouldn't feel as lonely.”

Tupac Shakur (1971–1996) rapper and actor

Posthumous attributions, Tupac: Resurrection (2003)

People , World , Family , Way

“Thousands of people who say they "love" animals sit down once or twice a day to enjoy the flesh of creatures who have been utterly deprived of everything that could make their lives worth living and who endured the awful suffering and the terror of the abattoirs— and the journey to get there— before finally leaving their miserable world, only too often after a painful death.”

Jane Goodall (1934) British primatologist, ethologist, and anthropologist

The Ten Trusts (2003), p. xv

Love , Death , Pain , People

“I was trying to figure out what I’m doing, and that was the first time I was constantly being kicked down for doing that. When I didn’t know, I just wanted to say, ‘This is what I want, this is where I am in my professional life, things changed in my personal life, things changed in my heart — everything.’ And people just thought, ‘Alright, this is what we think.’ And yeah, I made some decisions that weren’t great as well, and so did he and that’s why we went through all that to only make us better. And he has heard [the song] and he has seen the video, and it’s something that I feel like girls need hear, and it’s something I’m willing to share with people.”

Selena Gomez (1992) American singer and actress

Life , People , Feeling , Girl

“Make sure that you are next year's big success story. Don't fall into the pit of people who have given up on making something of themselves, and make sure you make everything out of yourself. I'm getting too old for this. And when I retire someday, I'm going to want to sit down at a computer and play your games, read your stories, and watch your videos. Don't fall in with the people who have already given up on themselves. You are tomorrow's next big thing.”

Scott Cawthon (1971) American independent video game designer

People , Game , Reading , Success

“One, remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Two, never give up work. Work gives you meaning and purpose and life is empty without it. Three, if you are lucky enough to find love, remember it is there and don't throw it away.”

Stephen Hawking (1942–2018) British theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author

Variant: Remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Never give up work. Work gives you meaning and purpose and life is empty without it. If you are lucky enough to find love, remember it is there and don't throw it away.

Success , Deep , Love , Life

“Just as I was starting on my journey the idea came to me for a new symphony, this time with a program, but a program which will remain an enigma to all— let them guess it who can. It will be called "A Programmatic Symphony" (No. 6). During my trip, while composing in my mind, I frequently shed tears. When I got home I settled down to sketch it, and the work went so furiously that I had the first movement completely ready in less than four days and the remaining movements are already clearly outlined in my head. Half the third movement is already done. There will be much innovation of form in this symphony— and incidentally, the finale will not be a noisy allegro but, on the contrary, a long drawn-out adagio. You can't imagine what bliss I feel, being convinced that my time is not yet passed and I can still work. Perhaps, of course, I'm mistaken, but I don't think so.”

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840–1893) Russian composer

Letter to a nephew (late February 1893)

Feeling , Home , Imagination , Idea

“(on "I Don't Get Down Like That" the Swedish group Play pop song) There comes a day when you realise turning the page is the best feeling in the world, because you realise there is so much more to the book than the page you were stuck on.”

Zayn Malik (1993) British singer

As himself talking about it being a yearbook, on 2017-05-10, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/music/artists/nobodys-reached-out--zayn-maliks-best-quotes/zayn-malik-in-quotes3/

Books , World , Feeling

“Find me in the shadows, and pull the shades down until tomorrow.”

Selena Gomez (1992) American singer and actress

“After the United States gobbled up California and half of Mexico, and we were stripped down to nothing, territorial expansion suddenly becomes a crime. It's been going on for centuries, and it will still go on.”

Hermann Göring (1893–1946) German politician and military leader

At lunch during the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal (11 December 1945); Nuremberg Diary p. 66, 1947 edition.
Nuremberg Diary (1947)

“My middle finger won't go down, how do I wave?”

Eminem (1972) American rapper and actor

"Role Model" (Track 9).
1990s, The Slim Shady LP (1999)

“If you hate, then you have been defeated.
Do not allow anyone to diminish you.
Do not fall down to their level that you allow them to lower yourself enough to hate them.
It is exhausting to hate so much…not to mention toxic.
It has caused a prodigious amount of problems that negatively affect you, however it has never solved anything yet.
Do not squander a second of your time to even allow that person to occupy even a tiny part of your mind at all.
Often we hate that which we fear the most.
Let it flow out of you.
Then see how much lighter you feel in your mind, body and soul.”

Stephie Pahlavi Zan

Soul , Personality , Problem , Hate

“Tell the truth. If you tell the truth all the time you don't have to worry three months down the line about what you said three months earlier. Truth is always the truth. You won't have to complicate your life by trying to cover up.”

Ben Carson (1951) 17th and current United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; American neurosurgeon

Source: Think Big: Unleashing Your Potential for Excellence

Life , Truth , Time

“No tree, it is said, can grow to heaven unless its roots reach down to hell.”

C.G. Jung (1875–1961) Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist who founded analytical psychology

Deep , Hell , Tree

“Deep down, the young are lonelier than the old.”

Anne Frank (1929–1945) victim of the Holocaust and author of a diary

Source: The Diary of a Young Girl

Loneliness

“If it were not for the depressing heat and the urgency of the work, one could sit down and laugh to tears at the absurdity of the thing, and under the circumstances it is a little wearing. But our motto is the old west coast proverb,; in other words, don't flurry; patience gains the day.”

Robert Baden-Powell (1857–1941) lieutenant-general in the British Army, writer, founder and Chief Scout of the Scout Movement

Tear , Patience

“Look down at me and you see a fool; look up at me and you see a god; look straight at me and you see yourself.”

Charles Manson (1934–2017) American criminal and musician

As quoted in 101 People You Won't Meet in Heaven: The Twisted Achievements of the Most Brutal and Sadistic Individuals the World Has Ever Known (2007) by Michael Powell, p. 148

God , Fools

“It's dangerous & humiliating. The whalers killed whales while green peace watched. Now, you don't walk by a child that is being abused, you don't walk by a kitten that is being kicked to death and do nothing. So I find it abhorrent to sit there and watch a whale being slaughtered and do nothing but "bear witness" as they call it. I think it was best illustrated a few years ago, the contradictions that we have, when a ranger in Zimbabwe shot and killed a poacher that was about to kill a black rhinoceros and uh human rights groups around the world said "how dare you? Take a human life to protect an animal". I think the rangers' answer to that really illustrated a hypocrisy. He said "Ya know, if I lived in, If I was a police officer in Herrari and a man ran out of Bark Place Bank with a bag of money and I shot him in the head in front of everybody and killed him, you'd pin a medal on me and call me a national hero. Why is that bag of paper more valued than the future heritage of this nation?" This is our values. WE fight, WE kill, WE risk our lives for things we believe in… Imagine going into Mecca, walk up to the black stone and spit on it. See how far you get. You’re not going to get very far. You’re going to be torn to pieces. Walk into Jerusalem, walk up to that wailing wall with a pick axe, start whacking away. See how far you’re going to get, somebody is going to put a bullet in your back. And everybody will say you deserved it. Walk into the Vatican with a hammer, start smashing a few statues. See how far you’re going to get. Not very far. But each and every day, ya know, people go into the most beautiful, most profoundly sacred cathedrals of this planet, the rainforests of the Amazonia, the redwood forests of California, the rainforests of Indonesia, and totally desecrate & destroy these cathedrals with bulldozers, chainsaws and how do we respond to that? Oh, we write a few letters and protest; we dress up in animal costumes with picket signs and jump up and down; but if the rainforests of Amazonia and redwoods of California, were as, or had as much value to us as a chunk of old meteorite in Mecca, a decrepit old wall in Jerusalem or a piece of old marble in the Vatican, we would literally rip those pieces limb from limb for the act of blasphemy that we’re committing but we won’t do that because nature is an abstraction, wilderness is an abstraction. It has no value in our anthropocentric world where the only thing we value is that which is created by humans.”

Paul Watson (1950) Canadian environmental activist

Life , Death , Money , People

“Black and ugly as ever, however I stay Coogi down to the socks, rings and watch filled with Rocks.”

The Notorious B.I.G. (1972–1997) American rapper

"One More Chance"
Song lyrics

“Pick up a book on any subject of your desire, sit down in full discipline, then read quietly. Remember, you are never alone. God is within and is always watching.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

God , Reading , Books

“Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.”

Vladimir Nabokov book Lolita

Source: Lolita

Life , Soul , Light

“We shall dive down through black abysses… and in that lair of the Deep Ones we shall dwell amidst wonder and glory forever.”

H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author

“Not thinking about anything is Zen. Once you know this, walking, sitting, or lying down, everything you do is Zen.”

Bodhidharma (483–540) Chinese philosopher and Buddhist Monk

Source: The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma

Lying , Thinking

“The phenomenological world is not the bringing to explicit expression of a pre-existing being, but the laying down of being. Philosophy is not the reflection of a pre-existing truth, but, like art, the act of bringing truth into being.”

Maurice Merleau-Ponty book Phenomenology of Perception

Source: Phenomenology of Perception

Truth , World , Art

“I am too sick to lay down
the sidewalks frighten me
the whole damned city frightens me,
what I will become
what I have become
frightens me.”

Charles Bukowski book Mockingbird Wish Me Luck

Source: Mockingbird Wish Me Luck

“Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Variant: Never argue with an idiot. They will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.

People , Stupidity

“I'm gonna pick up the pieces,
and build a Lego house.
When things go wrong we can knock it down.”

Ed Sheeran (1991) English singer-songwriter and producer

Song lyrics, + (2011)

Housing

“I’m without a teacher. My teacher… God has sent me teachers: the angel that stands by me, stands by me and directs me what to do. Time for me to paint a picture and I be tired I say I’m going to rest up for a couple of days. He won’t let me. Come down grab my feet and shake me. Beat me.”

Minnie Evans (1892–1987) American artist

Cited in Allie Light, Irving Saraf (1983), "The Angel That Stands By Me"

God , Angels , Teachers , Time

“Being an atheist must be like living in a closed cell with no windows. I’d hate to live like that, wouldn’t you? We see them, mind you, on television today, many brilliant people who are professional atheists who say they know for a fact that it’s insanity to have a God or to believe in religion. Well, OK, God bless them for feeling that way and I hope they’re happy. But I couldn’t live with that certainty, and I wonder about some of them: why are they protesting so much? How are they so sure of what is out there? And who am I to refute the beliefs of so many great philosophers and martyrs all the way down the years?”

Anthony Hopkins (1937) Welsh stage and television actor

"Sir Anthony Hopkins: I couldn't be an atheist". https://www.catholicherald.co.uk/news/2011/02/11/sir-anthony-hopkins-i-couldnt-be-an-atheist/ (February 11, 2011)

God , Hate , People , Religion

“We are suspended in language in such a way that we cannot say what is up and what is down. The word "reality" is also a word, a word which we must learn to use correctly.”

Niels Bohr (1885–1962) Danish physicist

Quoted in Philosophy of Science Vol. 37 (1934), p. 157, and in The Truth of Science : Physical Theories and Reality (1997) by Roger Gerhard Newton, p. 176
Context: What is it that we humans depend on? We depend on our words... Our task is to communicate experience and ideas to others. We must strive continually to extend the scope of our description, but in such a way that our messages do not thereby lose their objective or unambiguous character … We are suspended in language in such a way that we cannot say what is up and what is down. The word "reality" is also a word, a word which we must learn to use correctly.

Way , Reality , Learning

“Everybody feels these moments of sadness and moments of loss and sometimes I think everybody can relate to sitting alone and feeling like crap and a friend of yours comes up and starts like, you know, 'Come on, feel happy,' and you don't want that. Sometimes its alright to let yourself be upset about something and so that you can show yourself that regardless of how low you feel, you can always rise out of it, but not at the moment. And so the song ends with the lyric, 'I believe we all fall down' but I don't say 'but we we get back up'. It's just, sometimes you fall down and sometimes you fell low, and that's okay.”

Andrew Biersack (1990) American singer-songwriter

Loss , Thinking , Relation ships , Sadness

“The left believes in a hierarchy of victimhood, if you are L. G. B. T. Q., then we suggest that you are very top of the victimhood hierarchy. You have been most victimized in the United States and therefore your opinion must be taken with the most gravitas. … Black folks have been historically victimized in the United States, which of course, is true. But the idea that every black person now is being individually victimized by the United States is not true. … Way down at the bottom are white straight males. Those are people whose opinions do not matter at all. Because those are the people who are the beneficiaries of the system. They don’t get to talk about the system because they were the ones who built the system.”

Ben Shapiro (1984) American journalist and attorney

About reverse racism, as quoted in Ben Shapiro, a Provocative ‘Gladiator,’ Battles to Win Young Conservatives https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/23/us/ben-shapiro-conservative.html (November 23, 2017) by Sabrina Tavernise, The New York Times.
2017

Way , Idea , People , Personality

“My community supports me a lot. I don’t want to let them down so I go out and compete for them.”

Sunisa Lee (2003) American artistic gymnast; first Hmong American Olympic gold medalist

"Sunisa Lee reflects on recent success, while looking ahead to possible Olympic run" in MPR News (14 August 2021) https://www.mprnews.org/story/2019/08/14/sunisa-lee-reflects-on-recent-success-while-looking-ahead-to-possible-olympic-run

Support , Communication

“Go to the edge of the cliff and jump off. Build your wings on the way down.”

Ray Bradbury book Fahrenheit 451

Brown Daily Herald (24 March 1995)
Variant: Stand at the top of a cliff and jump off and build your wings on the way down.
Source: Fahrenheit 451

Way

“Look up to the sky
You'll never find rainbows
If you’re looking down.”

Charlie Chaplin (1889–1977) British comic actor and filmmaker

"Swing High Little Girl", opening song written and sung by Chaplin for the 1969 re-release of The Circus (1928) - Full text online http://www.charliechaplin.com/biography/articles/84-Swing-little-girl

“I know it's wrong - God, it's all kinds of wrong - but I just want to lie down with you and wake up with you, just once, just once ever in my life.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Glass

Source: City of Glass

Life , God , Lie

“In school we learn that mistakes are bad, and we are punished for making them. Yet, if you look at the way humans are designed to learn, we learn by making mistakes. We learn to walk by falling down. If we never fell down, we would never walk.”

Robert T. Kiyosaki book Rich Dad Poor Dad

Source: Rich Dad, Poor Dad

School , Way , Learning

“I'll have to calm down a bit. Or else I'll burst with happiness”

Tove Jansson book Moominsummer Madness

Source: Moominsummer Madness

Happiness

“To be GOVERNED is to be watched, inspected, spied upon, directed, law-driven, numbered, regulated, enrolled, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, checked, estimated, valued, censured, commanded, by creatures who have neither the right nor the wisdom nor the virtue to do so. To be GOVERNED is to be at every operation, at every transaction noted, registered, counted, taxed, stamped, measured, numbered, assessed, licensed, authorized, admonished, prevented, forbidden, reformed, corrected, punished. It is, under pretext of public utility, and in the name of the general interest, to be place under contribution, drilled, fleeced, exploited, monopolized, extorted from, squeezed, hoaxed, robbed; then, at the slightest resistance, the first word of complaint, to be repressed, fined, vilified, harassed, hunted down, abused, clubbed, disarmed, bound, choked, imprisoned, judged, condemned, shot, deported, sacrificed, sold, betrayed; and to crown all, mocked, ridiculed, derided, outraged, dishonored. That is government; that is its justice; that is its morality."
General Idea of the Revolution in the Nineteenth Century, translated by John Beverly Robinson (London: Freedom Press, 1923), pp. 293-294.”

Pierre Joseph Proudhon (1809–1865) French politician, mutualist philosopher, economist, and socialist

Wisdom , Justice , Law , Idea

“Never stay up on the barren heights of cleverness, but come down into the green valleys of silliness.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) Austrian-British philosopher

Source: Culture and Value (1980), p. 76e

“General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

Speech at the Brandenburg Gate. (12 June 1987)
1980s, Second term of office (1985–1989)

Tear

“Alone, I often fall down into nothingness. I must push my foot stealthily lest I should fall off the edge of the world into nothingness. I have to bang my head against some hard door to call myself back to the body.”

Virginia Woolf book The Waves

Source: The Waves

World

“Always speak the truth, think before you speak, and write it down afterwards.”

Lewis Carroll (1832–1898) English writer, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer

Truth , Thinking

“O sleep, O gentle sleep, Nature's soft nurse, how have I frightened thee. That thou no more will weigh my eyelids down, And steep my senses in forgetfulness?”

William Shakespeare Henry IV, Part 2

Source: Henry IV, Part 2

Nature , Sense , Sleep , Forgetting

“Have you fallen in love with the wrong person yet?'
Jace said, "Unfortunately, Lady of the Haven, my one true love remains myself."
…"At least," she said, "you don't have to worry about rejection, Jace Wayland."
"Not necessarily. I turn myself down occasionally, just to keep it interesting.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Bones

Source: City of Bones

Love , Personality

“We spend the first year of a child's life teaching it to walk and talk and the rest of its life to shut up and sit down. There's something wrong there.”

Neil deGrasse Tyson (1958) American astrophysicist and science communicator

Life , Funny

“If you're walking down the right path and you're willing to keep walking, eventually you'll make progress.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

“In my own country I am in a far off land.
I am strong but have no power.
I win all yet remain a loser.
At break of day I say goodnight.
When I lie down I have great fear of falling.”

Francois Villon (1431–1463) Mediæval French poet

Lie , Fear , Strong , Country

“When it comes down to it, I let them think what they want. If they care enough to bother with what I do, then I'm already better than them.”

Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962) American actress, model, and singer

Thinking

“I really like you, Midori. A lot.”
“How much is a lot?”
“Like a spring bear,” I said.
“A spring bear?” Midori looked up again. “What’s that all about? A spring bear.”
“You’re walking through a field all by yourself one day in spring, and this sweet little bear cub with velvet fur and shiny little eyes comes walking along. And he says to you, “Hi, there, little lady. Want to tumble with me?’ So you and the bear cub spend the whole day in each other’s arms, tumbling down this clover-covered hill. Nice, huh?”
“Yeah. Really nice.”
“That’s how much I like you.”

Haruki Murakami book Norwegian Wood

Source: Norwegian Wood

Spring

“Sometimes, if you aren't sure about something, you just have to jump off the bridge and grow your wings on the way down.”

Danielle Steel (1947) American author of romance novels

Way

“What we believed in was responsible majority rule as opposed to irresponsible majority rule, and I stand by that. I think it's important that before you give a person a [right to] vote you ensure that his roots go down [and] that he's part of the whole structure of the country. So I stand by what I've said, and I think we can substantiate the fact that the things we did were to the benefit of the black people of our country more so than anybody else. And I challenge anybody to disagree with that.”

Ian Smith (1919–2007) Prime Minister of Rhodesia

Ian Smith - A Bit Of A Rebel, Ian Smith

People , Thinking , Parting , Personality

“Flying down a tunnel of 1s and 0s is not how hacking is really done. The staff here has been really good about staying away from the cartoony version.”

Walter O'Brien (1975) Irish businessman, founder of Scorpion Computer Services

Scorpion's Origin

Flying

“Look, when you realize how fake it all is; the football, the basketball, the Lady Gaga, the Justin Bieber—you know, who gives you these carbon tax messages. They tell your kids they gotta love Justin Biebler [sic], and then Biebler [sic] says "hand in your guns", "pass the Cyber Security Act", and "the police state is good", and then your children are turned into a mindless vassals—who now, they look up to some twit, instead of looking up to Thomas Jefferson, or looking up to Nikola Tesla, or looking up to Magellan; I mean, kids, Magellan is a lot cooler than Justin Bieber! He circumnavigated with one ship the entire planet! He was killed by wild natives before they got back to Portugal! And when they got back there was only like eleven people alive of the two hundred and something crew and the entire ship was rotting down to the waterline! That's destiny! That's will! That's striving! That's being a trailblazer and explore! Going into space! Mathematics! Quantum mechanics! The secrets of the universe! It's all there! Life is fiery with its beauty! Its incredible detail! Tuning into it! They wanna shutter your mind, talking about Justin Bieber! It's pure evil! They're taking your intellect, your soul, and giving you Michael Jordan and Bieber. Unlock your human potential! Defeat the globalists who wanna shutter your mind!—Your doorways to perception!—I wanna see you truly live! I wanna see you truly be who you are!”

Alex Jones (1974) American radio host, author, conspiracy theorist and filmmaker

Alex Jones: The "Justin Biebler" Rant https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDMB0KyhPN8, 21 February 2011.
2011

Love , Life , Children , People

“There are sadistic scientists who hurry to hunt down errors instead of establishing the truth.”

Marie Curie (1867–1934) French-Polish physicist and chemist

As quoted in The Commodity Trader's Almanac 2007 (2006) by Scott W. Barrie and Jeffrey A. Hirsch, p. 44

Truth , Error

“Commands-
you're sure to hear from above
if you're placed down below.”

Suman Pokhrel (1967) Nepali poet, lyricist, playwright, translator and artist

<span class="plainlinks"> Commands https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/commands/</span>
From Poetry

“I gotta big mouth, I can't help it, I talk from my heart, I'm real you know what I'm sayin whatever comes comes. But my controverse problems, It's not my fault, I try to find my way in the world you know, I try to be somebody instead of just, make money off of everybody. You know what im saying, so I go down paths that haven't been traveled before and I usually mess up, but I learn, you know what I'm saying, I come back stronger, I'm not talking ignorant, you know what I'm saying. So obviously put thought into what I do. So I think my mouth, my controverse, I have not been out of the paper since I joined Digital Underground, I've been in all, you know what I'm saying, my name has not been not uttered, you know what I'm saying, and that's good for me because I don't wanna be forgotten. If I'm forgotten then that means I'm comfortable and that means I think everything is okay.”

Tupac Shakur (1971–1996) rapper and actor

1990s, MTV interview (1994)

Money , World , Way , Travel

“I have not written all this to complain: I have simply written the truth. I do not intend by what I have written to compliment myself: I have simply set down exactly what happened. Since I have made it a point in this history to write the truth of every matter and to set down no more than the reality of every event, as a consequence I have reported every good and evil I have seen of father and brother and set down the actuality of every fault and virtue of relative and stranger. May the reader excuse me; may the listener take me not to task.”

Babur (1483–1530) 1st Mughal Emperor

As quoted in The Baburnama : Memoirs of Babur, Prince and Emperor, as translated by Wheeler M. Thackston (2002), p. xxvii

Truth , History , Reality , Evil

“What you have in your head, put down on paper. The head is a fragile vessel.”

Dmitri Shostakovich book Testimony

Page 229
Testimony (1979)

“I love chess, and I didn't invent Fischerandom chess to destroy chess. I invented Fischerandom chess to keep chess going. Because I consider the old chess is dying, it really is dead. A lot of people come up with other rules of chess-type games, with 10x8 boards, new pieces, and all kinds of things. I'm really not interested in that. I want to keep the old chess flavor. I want to keep the old chess game. But just making a change so the starting positions are mixed, so it's not degenerated down to memorization and prearrangement like it is today.”

Bobby Fischer (1943–2008) American chess prodigy, chess player, and chess writer

Radio Interview, June 27 1999 http://www.geocities.jp/bobbby_b/mp3/F_08_3.MP3
1990s

Love , People , Game , Change

“One basic principle must be the absolute rule for the S. S. men. We must be honest, decent, loyal, and comradely to members of our own blood and nobody else. What happens to a Russian and a Czech does not interest me in the least. What the nations can offer in the way of good blood of our type we will take, if necessary by kidnapping their children and raising them here with us. Whether nations live in prosperity or starve to death interests me only in so far as we need them as slaves for our culture: otherwise it is of no interest to me. Whether ten thousand Russian females fall down from exhaustion while digging an anti-tank ditch interests me only in so far as the anti-tank ditch for Germany is finished. We shall never be tough and heartless where it is not necessary, that is clear. We, Germans, who are the only people in the world who have a decent attitude towards animals, will also assume a decent attitude towards these human animals. But it is a crime against our blood to worry about them and give them ideals, thus causing our sons and grandsons to have a more difficult time with them. When somebody comes up to me and says: 'I cannot dig the anti-tank ditch with women and children, it is inhuman, for it would kill them,' then I have to say: 'You are the murderer of your own blood, because if the anti-tank ditch is not dug German soldiers will die, and they are the sons of German mothers. They are our own blood….”

Heinrich Himmler (1900–1945) Nazi officer, Commander of the SS

Our concern, our duty, is our people and our blood. We can be indifferent to everything else. I wish the S.S. to adopt this attitude towards the problem of all foreign, non-Germanic peoples, especially Russians....
The Posen speech to SS officers (6 October 1943)
1940s

Death , Women , Men , Children

“I think it is a mistake to hire huge numbers of people to get a complicated job done. Numbers will never compensate for talent in getting the right answer (two people who don't know something are no better than one), will tend to slow down progress, and will make the task incredibly expensive.”

Elon Musk (1971) South African-born American entrepreneur

Conversation: Elon Musk on Wired Science (2007)

People , Thinking

“I hope that Cezanne will still be here and that he will join us, but he is so shy, so afraid of meeting new people, that I am afraid that he might let us down, even though he wants very much to meet you. How sad it is that this man hasn't had more patronage in his life! This is a true artist who has come to doubt himself far too much. He needs to be cheered up, so e was quote touched by your article.”

Claude Monet (1840–1926) French impressionist painter

Quote in a letter from Giverny to Gustave Geffroy, 23 November 1894; as cited in: P. Michael Doran (2001), ‎Art Conversations with Cézanne, p. 3
1890 - 1900

Life , People , Sadness , Hope

“You don't learn anything in school. It's just a waste of time. You lug around books and all and do homework. They give too much homework. You shouldn't be doing homework. Nobody's interested in it. The teachers are stupid. They shouldn't have any women in there. They don't know how to teach. And they shouldn't make anyone go to school. You don't want to go, you don't go, that's all. It's ridiculous. I don't remember one thing I learned in school. I don't listen to weakies. My two and a half years in Erasmus High I wasted. I didn't like the whole thing. You have to mix with all those stupid kids. The teachers are even stupider than the kids. They talk down to the kids. Half of them are crazy. If they'd have let me, I would have quit before I was sixteen.”

Bobby Fischer (1943–2008) American chess prodigy, chess player, and chess writer

1960s, Portrait of a Genius As a Young Chess Master (1961)

Women , Books , Stupidity , School

“There are no plains in the spiritual life; we are either going uphill or coming down. Furthermore the pose of indifference is only intellectual. The will must choose. And even though an "indifferent" soul does not positively reject the infinite, the infinite rejects it.”

Fulton J. Sheen (1895–1979) Catholic bishop and television presenter

Source: Peace of Soul (1949), Ch. 2, p. 20

Life , Soul , Indifference

“Bring down a man and be the man”

E.M.S (1995) Nigerian rapper, singer and record producer

88 Bars (2012)

“I am strong. I lived through a divorce, separation from my family. I never let it break me down. I’m not an alcoholic. I’ve never smoked, I’ve never done drugs. I’ve floated through the disaster of my past clean. I arrived here undamaged.”

Tina Turner (1939) singer, dancer, actress, and author

Tina Turner is a soul survivor http://www.express.co.uk/entertainment/music/141823/Tina-Turner-is-a-soul-survivor, Daily Express, 22th of November 2009

Alcohol , Family , Strong , Past

“Sure, Kill Bills a violent movie. But it's a Tarantino movie. You don't go to see Metallica and ask the fuckers to turn the music down.”

Quentin Tarantino (1963) American film director, screenwriter, producer, and actor

Quentin Tarantino on media criticisms of violence in his movies.

Music

“[…] your own are burning and your memories and you don't want to leave them. Everything will burn to the end, you suffer, but nobody is punishing you, they are just setting your soul free. Don't be afraid because while you fear death they will rend your soul like demons. Only calm down and you will see the angels who are setting you free and then you will be free.”

Dimitris Lyacos (1966) Greek writer

Source: Poena Damni Z213: Exit, p. 88, Shoestring Press, 2010.

Death , Fear , Angels , Soul

“If you really come down to any large story that interests people – holds the attention for a considerable time … human stories are practically always about one thing, aren't they? Death. The inevitability of death.”

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (1892–1973) British philologist and author, creator of classic fantasy works

Tolkien in Oxford (1968) http://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/writers/12237.shtml, a BBC 2 television documentary (at 21:49)

Death , People , Time

“If you're trying to turn me into something else? It's easy to see, I'm not down with that.”

Avril Lavigne (1984) Canadian singer-songwriter and actress

"Nobody's Fool"
Let Go (2002)

“And there is another feeling that is a great consolation in poverty. I believe everyone who has been hard up has experienced it. It is a feeling of relief, almost of pleasure, at knowing yourself at last genuinely down and out. You have talked so often of going to the dogs--and well, here are the dogs, and you have reached them, and you can stand it. It takes off a lot of anxiety.”

George Orwell book Down and Out in Paris and London

Source: Down and out in Paris and London (1933), Ch. 3
Context: For, when you are approaching poverty, you make one discovery which outweighs some of the others. You discover boredom and mean complications and the beginnings of hunger, but you also discover the great redeeming feature of poverty: the fact that it annihilates the future. Within certain limits, it is actually true that the less money you have, the less you worry. When you have a hundred francs in the world you are liable to the most craven panics. When you have only three francs you are quite indifferent; for three francs will feed you till tomorrow, and you cannot think further than that. You are bored, but you are not afraid. You think vaguely, 'I shall be starving in a day or two--shocking, isn't it?' And then the mind wanders to other topics. A bread and margarine diet does, to some extent, provide its own anodyne. And there is another feeling that is a great consolation in poverty. I believe everyone who has been hard up has experienced it. It is a feeling of relief, almost of pleasure, at knowing yourself at last genuinely down and out. You have talked so often of going to the dogs--and well, here are the dogs, and you have reached them, and you can stand it. It takes off a lot of anxiety.

Pleasure , Dogs , Feeling

“People often ask me when am I gonna slow down. You know what I tell 'em? I'm just gettin' started.”

Tina Turner (1939) singer, dancer, actress, and author

Spoken interlude during "Proud Mary", live at The Apollo, Manchester, 14 March 1979 ("On the Road", VHS)
Lyrics

People

“I'll probably cool down a little bit and just focus on what I need to do especially because we're coming to the end. I want to just do the best I can and end it off good.”

Sunisa Lee (2003) American artistic gymnast; first Hmong American Olympic gold medalist

Source: "Sunisa Lee Says She's 'Going to Delete Twitter' So She Can Focus on Preparing for Beam Final" in People (1 August 2021) https://people.com/sports/tokyo-olympics-sunisa-lee-going-to-delete-twitter-focus-preparing-beam-final/