Quotes about down
page 49

Sam Harris photo

“If Jesus does come down out of the clouds like a superhero, Christianity will stand revealed as a science. That will be the science of Christianity.”

Sam Harris (1967) American author, philosopher and neuroscientist

Sam Harris, “Religion, Terror, and Self-Transcendence.” The Ethical Culture Society and the Center for Inquiry, New York, NY, November 16, 2005 (broadcast on CSPAN-2)
2000s

“Men feel that women somehow drag them down, and women feel that way about men. It's possible they are right.”

Mignon McLaughlin (1913–1983) American journalist

The Complete Neurotic's Notebook (1981), Women & men

Roberto Mangabeira Unger photo
Sören Kierkegaard photo

“After a considerable walk through the forest, where I became acquainted with several of the little lakes I am so fond of, I came to Hestehaven and Lake Carl. Here is one of the most beautiful regions I have ever seen. The countryside is somewhat isolated and slopes steeply down to the lake, but with the beech forests growing on either side, it is not barren. A growth of rushes forms the background and the lake itself the foreground; a fairly large part of the lake is clear, but a still larger part is overgrown with the large green leaves of the waterlily, under which the fish seemingly try to hide but now and then peek out and flounder about on the surface in order to bathe in sunshine. The land rises on the opposite side, a great beech forest, and in the morning light the lighted areas make a marvelous contrast to the shadowed areas. The church bells call to prayer, but not in a temple made by human hands. If the birds do not need to be reminded to praise God, then ought men not be moved to prayer outside of the church, in the true house of God, where heaven's arch forms the ceiling of the church, where the roar of the storm and the light breezes take the place of the organ's bass and treble, where the singing of the birds make up the congregational hymns of praise, where echo does not repeat the pastor's voice as in the arch of the stone church, but where everything resolves itself in an endless antiphony — Hillerød, July 25, 1835”

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

1830s, The Journals of Søren Kierkegaard, 1830s

Martin Luther King, Jr. photo

“Be concerned about your brother. You may not be on strike. But either we go up together, or we go down together.”

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

1960s, I've Been to the Mountaintop (1968)

Alfred P. Sloan photo

“Having been connected with industry during my entire life, it seems eminently proper that I should turn back, in part, the proceeds of that activity with the hope of promoting a broader as well as a better understanding of the economic principles and national policies which have characterized American enterprise down through the years.”

Alfred P. Sloan (1875–1966) American businessman

Alfred P. Sloan (1936); Cited in: " OBITUARY : Alfred P. Sloan Jr. Dead at 90; G.M. Leader and Philanthropist http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/0523.html," the New York Times, February 18, 1966. This article comments:
Toward the end of the year [1936] Mr. Sloan made a substantial foray into philanthropy by endowing the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation with $10-million.

Philip Roth photo
Bruno Schulz photo
Eric Clapton photo

“Did you plan your leads, or, for that matter, do you plan them now?
No. The only planning I do is about a minute before I play. I desperately try to think of something that will be effective, but I never sit down and work it out note for note.”

Eric Clapton (1945) English musician, singer, songwriter, and guitarist

Fred Stuckey, "Eric Clapton Interview," Guitar Player 4 (June 1970) p. 47. guitarplayer.com http://www.guitarplayer.com/miscellaneous/1139/gp-flashback-eric-clapton-june-1970/12798

George Raymond Richard Martin photo
Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston photo
Lil Wayne photo
Warren Farrell photo
Margaret Thatcher photo
Eric Chu photo

“I had no option to turn down the (Vice Premiership) appointment or make other choices as the country needs me at a time when it is facing the most trying challenge it ever has faced.”

Eric Chu (1961) Taiwanese politician

Eric Chu (2009) cited in " Chu said he could not turn down appointment http://www.chinapost.com.tw/taiwan/national/national-news/2009/09/08/223721/Chu-said.htm" on The China Post, 8 September 2009.

Calvin Coolidge photo
Jim Yong Kim photo
Philip José Farmer photo
Julian (emperor) photo
Shashi Tharoor photo
Rabia Basri photo

“I want to put out the fires of Hell, and burn down the rewards of Paradise. They block the way to Allah. I do not want to worship from fear of punishment or for the promise of reward, but simply for the love of Allah.”

Rabia Basri Muslim saint and Sufi mystic

as quoted in Farid al-Din Attar, Memorial of the Friends of God (c. 1230, 2009 Translation edited by Losensky).

Alain de Botton photo
William Westmoreland photo
Rahul Gandhi photo
Amy Grant photo

“Sometimes I see you
And you don't know why I'm there
And I'm washed away by emotions
I hold deep down inside
Getting stronger with time
It's living through the fire
And holding on we find That's what love is for …”

Amy Grant (1960) American musician

"That's What Love Is For", co-written with Michael Omartian and Mark Mueller
Song lyrics, Heart in Motion (1991)

Sri Aurobindo photo
Pat Condell photo
Glenn Beck photo

“We must go to God Boot Camp and straighten our own lives up so we can help people out in the rest of the world and guide them down the stairs and out of the building into safety.”

Glenn Beck (1964) U.S. talk radio and television host

"Restoring Honor" rally, Lincoln Memorial, Washington DC, 2010-08-28
2010s, 2010

Clay Shirky photo
Randal Marlin photo

“Down to the present day the luminous image of democracy has often served as a pretext for the most undemocratic actions.”

Randal Marlin (1938) Canadian academic

Source: Propaganda & The Ethics Of Persuasion (2002), Chapter Two, History Of Propaganda, p. 45

Noel Gallagher photo
Hunter S. Thompson photo
Bill Moyers photo
Sarah Palin photo

“The Administration says then, there are no downsides or upsides to treating terrorists like civilian criminal defendants.But a lot of us would beg to differ. For example, there are questions we would've liked this foreign terrorist to answer before he lawyered up and invoked our US constitutional right to remain silence. Our US constitutional rights. Our rights that you, sir [addressing veteran in audience], fought and were willing to die for to protect in our Constitution. The rights that my son, as an infantryman in the United States Army, is willing to die for. The protections provided — thanks to you, sir! — we're gonna bestow them on a terrorist who hates our Constitution?! And tries to destroy our Constitution and our country. This makes no sense because we have a choice in how we're going to deal with a terrorist — we don't have to go down that road.There are questions that we would have liked answered before he lawyered up, like, "Where exactly were you trained and by whom? You—you're braggin' about all these other terrorists just like you — uh, who are they? When and where will they try to strike next?" The events surrounding the Christmas Day plot reflect the kind of thinking that led to September 11th. That threat — the threat, then, as the U. S. S. Cole was attacked, our embassies were attacked, it was treated like an international crime spree, not like an act of war. We're seeing that mindset again settle into Washington. That scares me, for my children and for your children. Treating this like a mere law enforcement matter places our country at grave risk. Because that's not how radical Islamic extremists are looking at this. They know we're at war. And to win that war, we need a commander-in-chief, not a perfesser of law standing at the lectern!”

Sarah Palin (1964) American politician

National Tea Party Convention keynote speech, Nashville, Tennessee, , quoted in
regarding President Obama
2014

Jon Stewart photo
Sören Kierkegaard photo
Ayaan Hirsi Ali photo

“Life marks us all down, so it's just as well that we start out by overpricing ourselves.”

Mignon McLaughlin (1913–1983) American journalist

The Complete Neurotic's Notebook (1981), Unclassified

Neil Diamond photo
Frank Wilczek photo
Bruce Fairchild Barton photo

“A man may be down, but he is never out.”

Bruce Fairchild Barton (1886–1967) American author, politician and advertising executive

A slogan Barton wrote for the Salvation Army

Ben Croshaw photo
Kent Hovind photo
Francis Thompson photo
Jeet Thayil photo
Barbara Bush photo
John Quinlan photo

“As you get old you have to train smarter. Every young guy goes through it; every young guy says I'm invincible, it will never happen to me. The body is like a car or machine, you work it so often that eventually it's going to break down.”

John Quinlan (1974) American professional wrestler and bodybuilder

John Quinlan Muscle & Strength Audio Podcast Interview by Steve Shaw, Bodybuilder And Wrestler John Quinlan Talks About His Passion For Lifting (2010)

Donald J. Trump photo

“Throughout my life, my two greatest assets have been mental stability and being, like, really smart, "Crooked Hillary Clinton also played these cards very hard and, as everyone knows, went down in flames. I went from VERY successful businessman, to top T. V. Star to President of the United States (on my first try). I think that would qualify as not smart, but genius…. and a very stable genius at that!”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

7:27am https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/949618475877765120 and 7:30am https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/949619270631256064, quoted in * 2020-01-21 A Very Stable Genius: Donald J. Trump's Testing of America Philip Rucker and Carol Leonnig Penguin 198487750X 2019952799

Ref: en.wikiquote.org - Donald Trump / Quotes / Donald Trump on social media / Twitter
2010s, 2018, January

Jonathan Safran Foer photo
Aron Ra photo

“We don’t believe this because we want to! And why would we want to? We believe it because we can prove it really is true, and that applies to everyone whether you want to believe it or not. We’re not just saying you’ve descended from primates either; we’re saying you are a primate! Humans have been classified as primates since the 1700s when a Christian creationist scientist figured out what a primate was –and prompted other scientists to figure out why that applied to us. It wouldn’t be this way if different “kinds” of life had been magically-created unrelated to anything else; not unless God wanted to trick us into believing everything had evolved. Because the phylogenetic tree of life is plainly evident from the bottom up to any objective observer who dares compare the anatomy of different sets of collective life forms. But it can be just as objectively confirmed from the top down when re-examined genetically. This is why it is referred to as a “twin-nested hierarchy”. But there’s still more than that because the evident development of physiology and morphology can be confirmed biochemically as well as chronologically in geology and developmentally in embryology. Why should that be? And how do creationists explain why it is that every living thing fits into all of these daughter sets within parent groups, each being derived according to apparently inherited traits? They don’t even try to explain any of that, or anything else. They won’t because they can’t, because evolution is the only explanation that accounts for any of this, and it explains it all.”

Aron Ra (1962) Aron Ra is an atheist activist and the host of the Ra-Men Podcast

"10th Foundational Falsehood of Creationism" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MXTBGcyNuc, Youtube (June 5, 2008)
Youtube, Foundational Falsehoods of Creationism

Saadi photo

“When gnats act in concert they will bring
down an elephant: when ants set to work,
and move in a body, they can strip a fierce
lion of its hide”

Chapter 3, story 28 http://books.google.com/books?id=LDpbAAAAQAAJ&q=%22use+a+sweet+tongue+courtesy+and+gentleness+and+thou+mayst+manage+to+guide+an+elephant+with+a+hair%22&pg=PA292#v=onepage
Gulistan (1258)

Donald Rumsfeld photo

“Pieces of intelligence, scraps of intelligence…you run down leads and you run down leads, and you hope that sometimes it works.”

Donald Rumsfeld (1932) U.S. Secretary of Defense

DoD News Briefing May 01, 2002 http://www.defenselink.mil/Transcripts/Transcript.aspx?TranscriptID=3424
2000s

William Cobbett photo

“Sit down to write what you have thought, and not to think what you shall write.”

William Cobbett (1763–1835) English pamphleteer, farmer and journalist

Page 180.
A Grammar of the English Language (1818)

William Blake photo

“In the Middle Ages, people were born and baptized into the Church. But the Church was the corpus mysticum and it depended upon one's own free will whether one wanted to be a living or a dead member of the Mystical Body of Christ. The cry "traitor" was only raised against those who broke the solemn oath of allegiance, not those who chose to go ways different from their status of birth. The Connêtable Charles de Bourbon who served with Charles V, or Marshal Moritz of Saxony, the great general under Louis XV were hardly considered to be traitors. Soldiers picked out the countries they wanted to serve. Prospective monks chose their orders. There were no "traitors to the proletariat" or "traitors to democracy." Today we live in an age of increased predestination and decreased free will, where Calvin, Freud, Marx, Luther, Darwin, Dewey, and the host of racial biologists have laid down the inexorable laws of anthropological, religious, psychological, environmental, and sociological determinism with no hope for escape. We are merely exhorted to make a virtue out of necessity and to be loyal to our prison and prisoners. Every attempt from our side to escape the artificial shell or to use our dormant remainders of free will to destroy the chains is branded as treason and punished accordingly by State or Society or even by both.”

Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn (1909–1999) Austrian noble and political theorist

Pg 133, emphasis in the original
The Menace of the Herd (1943)

Tom Petty photo
Tom Petty photo

“Baby, you've got a heart so big,
It could crush this town.
But I can't hold out forever.
Even walls fall down.”

Tom Petty (1950–2017) American musician

Walls (Circus)
Lyrics, Songs and Music from "She's the One" (1996)

Jean Paul Sartre photo
Ian Hacking photo
Francis Bacon photo
Balasaraswati photo
Chuck Palahniuk photo

“I used to think the secret to a happy ending was to bring down the curtain at the exact right time. A moment after happiness, then everything's all wrong, again.”

Haunted (2005)
Variant: I used to think the secret to a happy ending was to bring down the curtain at the exact right time. A moment after happiness, then everything's all wrong, again.

Diogenes Laërtius photo

“Among what he called his precepts were such as these: Do not stir the fire with a sword. Do not sit down on a bushel. Do not devour thy heart.”

Diogenes Laërtius (180–240) biographer of ancient Greek philosophers

Pythagoras, 17.
The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers (c. 200 A.D.), Book 8: Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans

Henri Fayol photo

“The control of an undertaking consists of seeing that everything is being carried out in accordance with the plan which has been adopted, the orders which have been given, and the principles which have been laid down. Its object is to point out mistakes in order that they may be rectified and prevented from recurring.”

Henri Fayol (1841–1925) Developer of Fayolism

Henri Fayol (1916) cited in: Ralph Currier Davis (1951) The fundamentals of top management. p. 157. This quote was already cited in multiple sources in 1938.

Anton Chekhov photo
Bertolt Brecht photo

“General, your tank
is a powerful vehicle
it smashes down forests
and crushes a hundred men.
but it has one defect:
it needs a driver.”

Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956) German poet, playwright, theatre director

"General, Your Tank Is a Powerful Vehicle", in "From a German War Primer", part of the Svendborg Poems (1939); as translated by Lee Baxandall in Poems, 1913-1956, p. 289
Poems, 1913-1956 (1976)

Max Boot photo
Marc Randazza photo
Camille Paglia photo
Gautama Buddha photo
Anthony Burgess photo
Winston Peters photo

“We have now reached the point where you can wander down Queen Street in Auckland and wonder if you are still in New Zealand or some other country.”

Winston Peters (1945) New Zealand politician

2005 speech on immigration policy, entitled "Securing Our Borders and Protecting Our Identity."'

Friedrich Engels photo

“The anarchists put the thing upside down. They declare that the proletarian revolution must begin by doing away with the.”

Friedrich Engels (1820–1895) German social scientist, author, political theorist, and philosopher

Letter to Philipp Van Patten http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1883/letters/83_04_18.htm (18 April 1883)

Donald J. Trump photo

“Donald Trump: Meredith, he spent two million dollars in legal fees trying to get away from this issue. And if he weren't lying, why wouldn't he just solve it? And I wish he would, because if he doesn't, it's one of the greatest scams in the history of politics, and in the history period. You are not allowed to be a president if you're not born in this country. He may not be born in this country. And I'll tell you what, three weeks ago I thought he was born in this country. Right now, I have some real doubts. I have people that actually have been studying it and they cannot believe what they're finding.
Meredith Vieira: You have people now, down there searching—
Trump: Absolutely.
Vieira: I mean, in Hawaii?
Trump: Absolutely. And they cannot believe what they're finding. I would like to have him show his birth certificate, and can I be honest with you, I hope he can. Because if he can't, if he can't, if he wasn't born in this country, which is a real possibility, I'm not saying it hap— I'm saying it's a real possibility, much greater than I thought two or three weeks ago, then he has pulled one of the great cons in the history of politics. And beyond politics.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

Today
2011-04-07
NBC
Television
regarding Barack Obama
Two million dollars is the sum of all the Obama presidential campaign's post-election legal expenses. http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2011/apr/12/donald-trump/donald-trump-claims-obama-has-spent-2-million-lega/
2010s, 2011

Sten Nadolny photo
Johnnie Ray photo
Charles Lyell photo
Bob Dylan photo

“I got into the driver's seat and drove down 42nd Street in my Cadillac.
Good car to drive after a war.”

Bob Dylan (1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist

Song lyrics, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan (1963), Talkin' World War III Blues

John Harvey Kellogg photo
Brad Paisley photo
Glen Cook photo

“It looks like it fell out of the ugly tree and hit every single branch on the way down.”

Source: Soldiers Live (2000), Chapter 10, “An Abode of Ravens: Recovery” (p. 396)

Mohamed Nasheed photo

“Well, if I did cooperate with Waheed, this country will go down the drain immediately. The people of this country elected a leader, and that was me. I have been removed forcefully and they want me back. But, I’m saying “Okay, let’s have new elections and see who the people want again”. If I step aside, if I join the Rebel Government, the people of this country will lose faith.”

Mohamed Nasheed (1967) Maldivian politician, 4th president of the Maldives

Quoted in an interview with Stephen Sackur on BBC News, Interview with Mohamed Nasheed: "Mohamed Nasheed: Unity government 'will not happen'" http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/hardtalk/9696560.stm, February 15, 2012.

Vin Scully photo

“And, (relief pitcher Dennis Eckersley) walked (pinch-hitter Mike Davis) … and look who's comin' up!
(36 seconds of crowd cheering)
All year long, they looked to him to light the fire, and all year long, he answered the demands, until he was physically unable to start tonight—with two bad legs: the bad left hamstring, and the swollen right knee. And, with two out, you talk about a roll of the dice … this is it. If he hits the ball on the ground, I would imagine he would be running 50 percent to first base. So, the Dodgers trying to catch lightning right now!
Fouled away.
He was, you know, complaining about the fact that, with the left knee bothering him, he can't push off. Well, now, he can't push off and he can't land. … 4-3 A's, two out, ninth inning, not a bad opening act!
Mike Davis, by the way, has stolen 7 out of 10, if you're wondering about Lasorda throwing the dice again. 0-and-1.
Fouled away again. … 0-and-2 to Gibson, the infield is back, with two out and Davis at first. Now Gibson, during the year, not necessarily in this spot, but he was a threat to bunt. No way tonight, no wheels.
No balls, two strikes, two out.
Little nubber … foul—and, it had to be an effort to run that far. Gibson was so banged up, he was not introduced; he did not come out onto the field before the game. … It's one thing to favor one leg, but you can't favor two. 0-and-2 to Gibson.
Ball one. And, a throw down to first, Davis just did get back. Good play by Ron Hassey using Gibson as a screen; he took a shot at the runner, and Mike Davis didn't see it for that split-second and that made it close.
There goes Davis, and it's fouled away! So, Mike Davis, who had stolen 7 out of 10, and carrying the tying run, was on the move.
Gibson, shaking his left leg, making it quiver, like a horse trying to get rid of a troublesome fly. 2-and-2! … Tony LaRussa is one out away from win number one. … two balls and two strikes, with two out.
There he goes! Wa-a-ay outside, he's stolen it! … So, Mike Davis, the tying run, is at second base with two out. Now, the Dodgers don't need the muscle of Gibson, as much as a base hit, and on deck is the lead-off man, Steve Sax. 3-and-2. Sax waiting on deck, but the game right now is at the plate.
High fly ball into right field, she i-i-i-is gone!!
(67 seconds of cheering and organ music)
In a year that has been so improbable … the impossible has happened!
And, now, the only question was, could he make it around the base paths unassisted?!
You know, I said it once before, a few days ago, that Kirk Gibson was not the Most Valuable Player; that the Most Valuable Player for the Dodgers was Tinkerbell. But, tonight, I think Tinkerbell backed off for Kirk Gibson. And, look at Eckersley—shocked to his toes!
They are going wild at Dodger Stadium—no one wants to leave!”

Vin Scully (1927) American sports broadcaster

Kirk Gibson's World Series-game-winning home run, October 15, 1988, transcribed from mlb.com archives <nowiki>[</nowiki>excising comments by color commentator Joe Garagiola]

John Ashbery photo

“Did I say that? One says so many things, and the problem is they all get written down.”

John Ashbery (1927–2017) poet from the United States

In response to the question "Why do you call yourself anti-art?," Bard College, 2005

John Green photo
Amy Winehouse photo
Pete Doherty photo
Philo photo
Hayley Williams photo

“I have the ability to build myself up or break myself down. I stay positive. Strength comes from within.”

Hayley Williams (1988) American singer-songwriter and musician

From Hayley's Twitter. September 10, 2010. http://twitter.com/#!/yelyahwilliams/status/24055172040

Judith Krug photo

“It's a public library. If you don't like the book, magazine, CD-ROM or film, put it down and pick up something else. Libraries provide choice. Our responsibility is to have in our collection a broad range of ideas and information.”

Judith Krug (1940–2009) librarian and freedom of speech proponent

" Oak Lawn Library Vows to Keep Playboy on Shelf http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2005-06-23/news/0506230234_1_library-board-president-library-officials-magazine" by Jo Napolitano, Chicago Tribune (June 23, 2005)