Quotes about down
page 51

James Taylor photo
Nicomachus photo
Maurice de Vlaminck photo
Emanuel Swedenborg photo
Rachel Whiteread photo

“I don't want to make plop art — sculpture that just gets plopped down in places. I wouldn't want to litter every corner of the world with my sculpture.”

Rachel Whiteread (1963) British sculptor

As quoted in "Boxing clever" by Lynn Barber inThe Guardian (16 October 2005) http://observer.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,6903,1593050,00.html

A.E. Housman photo
John Fante photo
Lloyd Kaufman photo
Richard Dawkins photo
George Galloway photo

“Your Excellency, Mr President: I greet you, in the name of the many thousands of people in Britain who stood against the tide and opposed the war and aggression against Iraq and continue to oppose the war by economic means, which is aimed to strangle the life out of the great people of Iraq. I greet you, too, in the name of the Palestinian people, amongst whom I've just spent two weeks in the occupied Palestinian territories. I can honestly tell you that there was not a single person to whom I told I was coming to Iraq and hoping to meet with yourself who did not wish me to convey their heartfelt, fraternal greetings and support. And this was true, especially at the base in the refugee camps of Jabaliyah and Beach Camp in Gaza, in the Balatah refugee camp in Nablus and on the streets of the towns and villages in the occupied lands.I thought the president would appreciate knowing that even today, three years after the war, I still met families who were calling their newborn sons Saddam; and that two weeks ago, when I was trapped inside the Orient House, which is the Palestinian headquarters in al-Quds [Jerusalem], with 5,000 armed mustwatinin [settlers] outside demonstrating, pledging to tear down the Palestinian flag from the flagpole, the hundreds of shabab [youths] inside the compound were chanting that they wish to be with a DSh K [machine gun] in Baghdad to avenge the eyes of Abu Jihad. And the Youth Club in Silwan, which is the one of the most resistant of all the villages around Jerusalem, asked me to ask the president's permission if they could enrol him as an honourary member of their club and to present him with this flag from holy Jerusalem.I wish to say, sir, that I believe that we are turning the tide in Europe, that the scale of the humanitarian disaster which has been imposed upon the Iraqi people is now becoming more and more widely known and accepted. Fifty-five British members of parliament opposed the war, but 125 are demanding the lifting of the embargo; and this does not include the invisible section of the Conservative Party who must also be moving in that direction, and Sir Edward Heath is being a very persuasive advocate inside the Conservative Party.It is my belief that we must convey the very clear picture that 1994 has to be the year of the ending of the embargo against Iraq. Otherwise, famine and all the awful consequences, including acts of despair by Iraqis, will be the result; and this is the message we must convey to civilized opinion in Europe.Sir, I salute your courage, your strength, your indefatigability, and I want you to know that we are with you, hatta al-nasr, hatta al-nasr, hatta al-Quds”

George Galloway (1954) British politician, broadcaster, and writer

until victory, until victory, until Jerusalem
"'I greet you in the name of thousands of Britons'", The Times, January 20, 1994, citing BBC monitoring service at 9 PM on January 19 as its source.
Speech to Saddam Hussein, January 19, 1994.
Source: See also David Morley Gorgeous George: The Life and Adventures of George Galloway, London: Politicos, 2007, p. 210-11. Galloway disputes the reporting of this quote and has repeatedly stated that the conclusion was a salute to "the Iraqi people" rather than Saddam Hussein personally.

Robert Newman photo
Michelle Obama photo
Charles Kingsley photo

“The world goes up and the world goes down,
And the sunshine follows the rain;
And yesterday's sneer and yesterday's frown
Can never come over again.”

Charles Kingsley (1819–1875) English clergyman, historian and novelist

Dolcino to Margaret, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
Attributed

“Jacques Spex had explained to Ieyasu the methods of Spain and Portugal and in 1612 Henrick Brower presented to the Shogun a memorandum on Spanish and Portuguese methods of conquest. In the time of the second Tokugawa Shogun (Hidetada) the European nations were themselves denouncing each other's imperialist intentions. The Japanese converts had, as elsewhere, shown that their sympathies were with their foreign mentors and for this they had to pay a very heavy price. The Christian rebellion of 1637 in Shembara disclosed this danger to the Shogun. It took a considerable army and a costly campaign to put down the revolt which was said to have received support from the Portuguese. The Japanese were also fully informed of the activities of the Portuguese, the Dutch, the Spaniards and the English in the islands of the Pacific especially in the Philippines, the Moluccas and Java ‑ and these had taught them the necessity of dealing with the foreigners firmly and of denying them an opportunity to gain a foothold on Japanese territory. In 1615 the Japanese sent a special spy to the southern regions to report on the activities of the Europeans there. They were strengthened by the information that reached them in 1622 of a Spanish plan to invade Japan itself. By the beginning of the seventeenth century Spain had consolidated her position in the Philippines, where she maintained a considerable naval force. Japan was the only area in the Pacific which Spain could attack without interfering with Portuguese claims or the Papal distribution of the world which in her own interests she was bound to uphold. It seemed natural to the Spaniards that they should undertake this conquest. The reaction of the Shogunate was sharp and decisive. All Spaniards in Japan were ordered to be deported, the firm policy of eliminating the converts was put into effect and a few years later the country was closed to the Western nations.”

K. M. Panikkar (1895–1963) Indian diplomat, academic and historian

Asia and Western Dominance: a survey of the Vasco Da Gama epoch of Asian history, 1498–1945

Dashiell Hammett photo
Gabriele Münter photo
Calvin Coolidge photo
Kate Bush photo
G. I. Gurdjieff photo
Daniel Handler photo
Halldór Laxness photo
Aurangzeb photo

“Next, he took a step further, and in the 12th year of his reign (9th April, 1669) he issued a general order “to demolish all the schools and temples of the infidels and to put down their religious teaching and practices.”

Aurangzeb (1618–1707) Sixth Mughal Emperor

History of Aurangzib by Jadunath Sarkar, https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.62677/page/n279
Quotes from late medieval histories, 1660s

Harry V. Jaffa photo
Tommy Lee photo
Boutros Boutros-Ghali photo

“I am Boutros Boutros-Ghali; put down your guns and listen to Bob Marley.”

Boutros Boutros-Ghali (1922–2016) 6th Secretary-General of the United Nations

As quoted in "War" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5P9J1wCgNM (28 February 2003), Da Ali G Show http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0508528/?ref_=ttep_ep2
2000s

Abraham Joshua Heschel photo
Ron Richard photo
Ian Hislop photo
Jerry Siegel photo
Tomas Kalnoky photo
Jonathan Swift photo

“So geographers, in Afric maps,
With savage pictures fill their gaps,
And o'er unhabitable downs
Place elephants for want of towns.”

Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) Anglo-Irish satirist, essayist, and poet

On Poetry: Poetry, a Rhapsody (1733)

John Stuart Mill photo
Paul Simon photo

“Cecilia, you're breaking my heart
You're shaking my confidence daily
Oh, Cecilia, I'm down on my knees
I'm begging you please to come home.”

Paul Simon (1941) American musician, songwriter and producer

Cecilia
Song lyrics, Bridge over Troubled Water (1970)

John Fante photo
Steven Erikson photo
Anthony Crosland photo

“To say that we must attend meticulously to the environmental case does not mean that we must go to the other extreme and wholly neglect the economic case. Here we must beware of some of our friends. For parts of the conservationist lobby would do precisely this. Their approach is hostile to growth in principle and indifferent to the needs of ordinary people. It has a manifest class bias, and reflects a set of middle and upper class value judgements. Its champions are often kindly and dedicated people. But they are affluent and fundamentally, though of course not consciously, they want to kick the ladder down behind them. They are highly selective in their concern, being militant mainly about threats to rural peace and wildlife and well loved beauty spots: they are little concerned with the far more desperate problem of the urban environment in which 80 per cent of our fellow citizens live…As I wrote many years ago, those enjoying an above average standard of living should be chary of admonishing those less fortunate on the perils of material riches. Since we have many less fortunate citizens, we cannot accept a view of the environment which is essentially elitist, protectionist and anti-growth. We must make our own value judgement based on socialist objectives: and that judgement must…be that growth is vital, and that its benefits far outweigh its costs.”

Anthony Crosland (1918–1977) British politician

'Class hypocrisy of the conservationists', The Times (8 January 1971), p. 10
An extract from the Fabian pamphlet A Social Democratic Britain.

Neal Stephenson photo
Ian Fleming photo
Courtney Love photo
Gerhard Richter photo
John Muir photo

“I wish I had space to write more of the surpassing beauty of this favorite spruce. … The deer love to lie down beneath its spreading branches; bright streams from the snow that is always near ripple through its groves, and bryanthus spreads precious carpets in its shade. But the best words only hint its charms. Come to the mountains and see.”

John Muir (1838–1914) Scottish-born American naturalist and author

[Concerning the Hemlock Spruce, now called Mountain Hemlock http://plants.usda.gov/java/profile?symbol=TSME:]
Source: 1890s, The Mountains of California (1894), chapter 8: The Forests

Benjamin Spock photo

“We used to think of cow's milk as a nearly perfect food. However, over the past several years, researchers have found new information that has caused many of us to change our opinion. This has provoked a lot of understandable controversy, but I have come to believe that cow's milk is not necessary for children. First, it turns out that the fat in cow's milk is not the kind of fat ("essential fatty acids") needed for brain development. Instead, milk fat is too rich in the saturated fats that promote artery blockages. Also, cow's milk can make it harder for a child to stay in iron balance. Milk is extremely low in iron and slows down iron absorption. It can also cause subtle blood loss in the digestive tract that causes the child to lose iron. … Some children have sensitivities to milk proteins, which show up as ear problems, respiratory problems, or skin conditions. Milk also has traces of antibiotics, estrogens, and other things a child does not need. There is, of course, nothing wrong with human breast milk — it is perfect for infants. For older children, there are many good soy and rice milk products and even nondairy "ice creams" that are well worth trying. If you are using cow's milk in your family, I would encourage you to give these alternatives a try.”

Benjamin Spock (1903–1998) American pediatrician and author of Baby and Child Care

Source: Dr. Spock's Baby and Child Care (1945), Seventh edition (1998), p. 346

Miklós Horthy photo
Nat King Cole photo
Adolf Eichmann photo
Licio Gelli photo
Georges Bernanos photo
Christopher Hitchens photo

“The average black household earned one-sixth as much as the average white household in 2000, down from one-quarter in 1995.”

Patrick Bond (1961) American academic

Source: South Africa and Global Apartheid: Continental and International Policies (2003), p. 8

Cormac McCarthy photo
Ned Kelly photo
Warren Zevon photo
Harry Chapin photo
Saint Patrick photo
Anthony Scaramucci photo

“I'm going to fire everybody — that’s how. You're either going to stop leaking, or you're going to get fired. If I've got to get the thing down to me and Sarah Huckabee, then the leaking will stop.”

Anthony Scaramucci (1964) American financier and political figure

Quoted in " Scaramucci on Leaks: 'I'm Going to Fire Everybody' https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/25/us/politics/scaramucci-on-white-house-leaks-fire-everybody.html", by Julie Hirschfeld Davis and Maggie Haberman, The New York Times (July 25, 2017).

Alain Finkielkraut photo

“According to … the French counterrevolutionaries and German Romantics, … the corpus of prejudices was a country’s cultural treasure, its ancient and tested intelligence, present as the consciousness and guardian of its thought. Prejudices were the “we” of every “I”, the past in the present, the revered vessels of the nation’s memory, its judgements carried from age to age. Pretending to spread enlightenment, the philosophes had set out to extirpate these precious residua. … The result was that they had uprooted men from their culture at the very moment when they bragged of how they would cultivate them. … Convinced that they were emancipating souls, they succeeded only in deracinating them. These calumniators of the commonplace had not freed understanding from its chains, but cut it off from its sources. The individual who, thanks to them, must now cast off childish things, had really abandoned his own nature. … The promises of the cogito were illusory: free from prejudice, cut off from the influence of national idiom, the subject was not free but shrivelled and devitalised. … Everyday opinion should therefore be regarded as the soil where thought was nourished, its hearth and sanctuary, … and not, as the philosophes would have it, as some alien authority which overwhelmed and crushed it. … The cogito needed to be steeped in the profundities of the collective mind; the broken links with the past needed repairing; the quest for independence should yield to that for authenticity. Men should abandon their scepticism and give themselves over to the comforting warmth of majoritarian ideas, bowing down before their infallible authority.”

Alain Finkielkraut (1949) French essayist, born 1949

Source: The Undoing of Thought (1988), pp. 25-26.

Jerome K. Jerome photo
Robert Henry Thurston photo
Steve Bannon photo

“I’m a Leninist. Lenin wanted to destroy the state, and that’s my goal too. I want to bring everything crashing down, and destroy all of today’s establishment.”

Steve Bannon (1953) American media executive and former White House Chief Strategist for Donald Trump

Steve Bannon, Trump's Top Guy, Told Me He Was 'A Leninist' Who Wants To ‘Destroy the State’ The Daily Beast http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/08/22/steve-bannon-trump-s-top-guy-told-me-he-was-a-leninist.html (August 21, 2016)
Disputed

James Smith photo

“I saw them go: one horse was blind,
The tails of both hung down behind,
Their shoes were on their feet.”

Rejected Addresses, "The Baby's Début", reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Thomas Cromwell, 1st Earl of Essex photo
Adrienne von Speyr photo
Jopie Huisman photo

“These are the shoes of old Yde, a bachelor. He has worn them for forty years. He repaired them from below and above, from the inside and the outside. He gave me his shoes, for a bottle of brandy. They protected his feet for forty years. When they broke down, he tore them up and put them back on again. He could have bought new ones, because he already got state pension. But he was married with his shoes.”

Jopie Huisman (1922–2000) Dutch painter

translation, Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018
version in original Dutch / citaat van Jopie Huisman, in het Nederlands: Dit zijn de schoenen van oude Yde, een vrijgezel. Veertig jaar lang heeft hij ze gedragen. Van onder en van boven, van binnen en van buiten heeft hij ze opgelapt. Ik mocht ze van hem hebben, hij een liter brandewijn, ik de schoenen. Ze beschermden zijn voeten veertig jaar lang. Gingen ze stuk, hij lapte ze op en trok ze weer aan. Hij had wel nieuwe kunnen kopen, want hij trok al van Drees, maar hij was met zijn schoenen getrouwd.
Source: Jopie Huisman', 1981, p. 37

Henry Campbell-Bannerman photo
Octavio Paz photo
Thomas Brooks photo
Michelle Obama photo
Chris Cornell photo

“Oddly enough, I was in Paris, the last show of a Soundgarden tour. I didn't know him that well, but I had friends who were trying to talk to him and it wasn't working out. I had this idea that when I got home, I'd try and sit down with him.”

Chris Cornell (1964–2017) American singer-songwriter, musician

When asked where he was when he learned that Kurt Cobain had killed himself ** Blender Magazine, June 2005 http://chriscornellfanblog.atspace.com/Articles/blender05.htm,
Audioslave Era

Dave Matthews photo
Thomas Jefferson photo
Julius Streicher photo
Wesley Willis photo
Rex Stout photo
Winston S. Churchill photo
Paul Bettany photo
Johnny Cash photo

“There's a man goin' 'round takin' names.
An' he decides who to free and who to blame.
Everybody won't be treated all the same.
There'll be a golden ladder reaching down.
When the man comes around.”

Johnny Cash (1932–2003) American singer-songwriter

Song lyrics, American IV: The Man Comes Around (2002), The Man Comes Around

“The death of Black Jade coincided with the wedding hour of Pao-yu and Precious Virtue. Shortly after Snow Duck was taken to the wedding chambers, Black Jade had regained consciousness. During this lucid moment, which was not unlike the afterglow of the setting sun, she took Purple Cuckoo's hand and said to her with an effort, "My hour is here. You have served me for many years, and I had hoped that we should be together the rest of our lives… but I am afraid…"
The effort exhausted her and she fell back, panting. She still held Purple Cuckoo's hand and continued after a while, "Mei-mei, I have only one wish. I have no attachment here. After my death, tell them to send my body back to the south––"
She stopped again, and her eyes closed slowly. Purple Cuckoo felt her mistress' hand tighten over hers. Knowing this was a sign of the approaching end, she sent for Li Huan, who had gone back to her own apartment for a brief rest. When the latter returned with Quest Spring, Black Jade's hands were already cold and her eyes dull. They suppressed their sobs and hastened to dress her. Suddenly Black Jade cried, "Pao-yu, Pao-yu, how––" Those were her last words.
Above their own lamentations, Li Huan, Purple Cuckoo, and Quest Spring thought they heard the soft notes of an ethereal music in the sky. They went out to see what it was, but all they could hear was the rustling of the wind through the bamboos and all they could see was the shadow of the moon creeping down the western wall.”

Wang Chi-chen (1899–2001)

Source: Dream of the Red Chamber (1958), p. 307

“Cash is the one gift everyone despises and no one turns down.”

Mignon McLaughlin (1913–1983) American journalist

The Complete Neurotic's Notebook (1981), Unclassified

Pat Cadigan photo
Frederick Douglass photo

“Vainly you talk about voting it down. When you have cast your millions of ballots, you have not reached the evil. It has fastened its root deep into the heart of the nation, and nothing but God’s truth and love can cleanse the land. We must change the moral sentiment.”

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

Love of God, Love of Man, Love of Country (October 22, 1847), Delivered at Market Hall, New York City, New York.
1840s, Love of God, Love of Man, Love of Country (1847)

Roberto Clemente photo
Donald Barthelme photo
Jimi Hendrix photo

“The traffic lights, they turn a blue tomorrow
And shine their emptiness down on my bed
The tiny island sags on downstream
Cause the life it lived, is, is dead”

Jimi Hendrix (1942–1970) American musician, singer and songwriter

The Wind Cries Mary
Song lyrics, Are You Experienced? (1967)

Neal Stephenson photo
Richard Henry Dana Jr. photo
African Spir photo
Reginald Heber photo

“Eternity has no gray hairs! The flowers fade, the heart withers, man grows old and dies, the world lies down in the sepulchre of ages, but time writes no wrinkles on the brow of Eternity.”

Reginald Heber (1783–1826) English clergyman

Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 213.

John Suckling photo

“Tis now since I sat down before
That foolish fort, a heart,
(Time strangely spent) a year, and more,
And still I did my part:”

John Suckling (1609–1642) English poet

Tis Now, Since I Sat Down Before.
Other poems

Herbert Marcuse photo