Quotes about down
page 73

“Death did not come to my mother
Like an old friend.
She was a mother, and she must
Conceive him. Up and down the bed she fought crying
Help me, but death
Was a slow child
Heavy.”

Josephine Miles (1911–1985) American poet, academic

"Conception" (1974) st. 1–2; Collected Poems, University of Illinois Press, 1983

Nick Cave photo

“O no don't go O no O slow down Joe!
The righteous path is straight as an arrow,
Take a walk and you'll find it's too narrow,
Too narrow for the likes of me.”

Nick Cave (1957) Australian musician

Song lyrics, Tender Prey (1988), Up Jumped the Devil

Michael E. Uslan photo
Frederik Pohl photo
Sri Aurobindo photo

“I find it difficult to take these psycho-analysts at all seriously when they try to scrutinise spiritual experience by the flicker of their torch-lights,'yet perhaps one ought to, for half-knowledge is a powerful thing and can be a great obstacle to the coming in front of the true Truth. This new psychology looks to me very much like children learning some summary and not very adequate alphabet, exulting in putting their a-b-c-d of the subconscient and the mysterious underground super-ego together and imagining that their first book of obscure beginnings (c-a-t cat, t-r-e-e tree) is the very heart of the real knowledge. They look from down up and explain the higher lights by the lower obscurities; but the foundation of these things is above and not below, upari budhna esam [Rig-Veda, 1.24.7]. The superconscient, not the subconscient, is the true foundation of things. The significance of the lotus is not to be found by analysing the secrets of the mud from which it grows here; its secret is to be found in the heavenly archetype of the lotus that blooms for ever in the Light above. The self-chosen field of these psychologists is besides poor, dark and limited; you must know the whole before you can know the part and the highest before you can truly understand the lowest. That is the promise of the greater psychology awaiting its hour before which these poor gropings will disappear and come to nothing…. Wanton waste, careless spoiling of physical things in an incredibly short time, loose disorder, misuse of service and materials due either to vital grasping or to tamasic inertia are baneful to prosperity and tend to drive away or discourage the Wealth-Power. These things have long been rampant in the society and, if that continues, an increase in our means might well mean a proportionate increase in the wastage and disorder and neutralise the material advantage. This must be remedied if there is to be any sound progress…. Asceticism for its own sake is not the ideal of this yoga, but self-control in the vital and right order in the material are a very important part of it… and even an ascetic discipline is better for our purpose than a loose absence of true control. Mastery of the material does not mean having plenty and profusely throwing it out or spoiling it as fast as it comes or faster. Mastery implies in it the right and careful utilisation of things and also a self-control in their use…. There is a consciousness in [things], a life which is not the life and consciousness of man and animal which we know, but still secret and real. That is why we must have a respect for physical things and use them rightly, not misuse and waste, ill-treat or handle with a careless roughness. This feeling of all being consciousness or alive comes when our own physical consciousness'and not the mind only'awakes out of its obscurity and becomes aware of the One in all things, the Divine everywhere.”

Sri Aurobindo (1872–1950) Indian nationalist, freedom fighter, philosopher, yogi, guru and poet

Undated
India's Rebirth

Gloria Estefan photo
Edward St. Aubyn photo
Kent Hovind photo
Joseph Addison photo
Vincent Van Gogh photo

“And at times already I feel old and broken... To succeed one must have ambition, and ambition seems to me absurd. What will come of it I don't know; I would like above all things to be less of a burden to you... I hope to make such progress that you will be able to show my stuff boldly without compromising yourself. And then I will take myself off somewhere down south, to get away from the sight of so many painters that disgust me as men.”

Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890) Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890)

Quote in his letter to brother Theo, from environment of Paris, Summer 1887; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935 https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_1996_300061887.pdf, (letter 462) p. 22
1880s, 1887

Gene Roddenberry photo
Frederik Pohl photo
Richard D. Ryder photo
Amir Khusrow photo

“They pursued die enemy to the gates and set everything on fire. They burnt down all those gardens and groves. That paradise of idol-worshippers became like hell. The fire-worshippers of Bud were in alarm and flocked round their idols…”

Amir Khusrow (1253–1325) Indian poet, writer, musician and scholar

About Sultan Mubarak Shah Khalji (AD 1316-1320) in Warrangal (Andhra Pradesh) Elliot and Dowson, History of India as told by its own Historians,Vol. III, p. 559
Nuh Siphir

Raymond Chandler photo
Chris Cornell photo
Luís de Camões photo
George Wallace photo

“If any demonstrator ever lays down in front of my car, it'll be the last car he'll ever lay down in front of.”

George Wallace (1919–1998) 45th Governor of Alabama

Said at a speech, footage of which is shown in the documentary George Wallace, part of PBS' American Experience

William S. Burroughs photo
John Quincy Adams photo

“30th [June 1841]. Morning visit from John Ross, chief of the Cherokee Nation, with Vann and Benn, two others of the delegation. Ross had written to request an interview with me for them on my appointment as Chairman of the Committee on Indian Affairs. I was excused from that service at my own request, from a full conviction that its only result would be to keep a perpetual harrow upon my feelings, with a total impotence to render any useful service. The policy, from Washington to myself, of all the Presidents of the United States had been justice and kindness to the Indian tribes—to civilize and preserve them. With the Creeks and Cherokees it had been eminently successful. Its success was their misfortune. The States within whose borders their settlements were took the alarm, broke down all the treaties which had pledged the faith of the nation. Georgia extended her jurisdiction over them, took possession of their lands, houses, cattle, furniture, negroes, and drove them out from their own dwellings. All the Southern States supported Georgia in this utter prostration of faith and justice; and Andrew Jackson, by the simultaneous operation of fraudulent treaties and brutal force, consummated the work. The Florida War is one of the fruits of this policy, the conduct of which exhibits one (un)interrupted scene of the most profligate corruption. All resistance against this abomination is vain. It is among the heinous sins of this nation, for which I believe God will one day bring them to judgement—but as His own time and by His own means.”

John Quincy Adams (1767–1848) American politician, 6th president of the United States (in office from 1825 to 1829)

Diary entry (30 June 1841)

Cindy Sheehan photo

“They can't ignore us, and they can't put us down. Thank God for the Internet, or we wouldn't know anything, and we would already be a fascist state.”

Cindy Sheehan (1957) American antiwar activist

media conference call http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/215159/cindy-sheenan-without-internet-u-s-would-be-fascist-state/byron-york, August 11, 2005.
2005

Christopher Hitchens photo
Vivian Stanshall photo

“Seems a novel enough way to commit suicide. Pass me m' pistol. See if I can't bring the blighter down in the lake.”

Vivian Stanshall (1943–1995) English musician, artist and author

observing a hang glider pilot
Sir Henry at Rawlinson End (1978)

Irene Dunne photo
Pauline Kael photo
Margaret Thatcher photo
Anthony Burgess photo
Halldór Laxness photo

“Icelanders! You are the descendants of Nordic vikings! Down with Irish slaves!”

Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) Icelandic author

The True Icelanders of Sviðinsvík
Heimsljós (World Light) (1940), Book Three: The House of the Poet

Brad Garrett photo

“I don't think we're politically correct when we're private. I don't know what politically correct means. I'm just watching this thing going down in Baltimore, all the officers charged in the Freddie Gray death and I just think it's wonderful and sad at the time because this has been happening since the beginning of time in America and if it wasn't for cell phones these cops would be getting off.”

Brad Garrett (1960) actor, comedian, voice actor

Interviewed by Nicki Gostin, " 'Everybody Loves Raymond' star Brad Garrett talks costars, religion and politics http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2015/05/05/everybody-loves-raymond-star-brad-garrett-talks-costars-religion-and-politics/," (5 May 2015).

Fyodor Tyutchev photo
Anna Akhmatova photo
Orrin H. Pilkey photo
Muhammad photo

“Jabir B. Abdillah reported that once he was on an expedition with the Prophet salla Allahu ʿalayhi wa sallam, and when they were close to the city of Madinah, he sped on his mount. The Prophet salla Allahu ʿalayhi wa sallam asked him why he was in such a hurry to return home. Jabir replied, “I am recently married!” The Prophet salla Allahu ʿalayhi wa sallam asked, “To an older lady or a younger one?” [the Arabic could also read: “To a widow or a virgin?”], to which he replied, “A widow.” The Prophet salla Allahu ʿalayhi wa sallam said, “But why didn’t you marry a younger girl, so that you could play with her, and she could play with you, and you could make her laugh, and she could make you laugh?”He said, “O Messenger of Allah! My father died a martyr at Uhud, leaving behind daughters, so I did not wish to marry a young girl like them, but rather an older one who could take care of them and look after them.” The Prophet salla Allahu ʿalayhi wa salam replied, “You have made the correct choice.”Jabir continues, “So when we were about to enter the city, the Prophet salla Allahu ʿalayhi wa sallam said to me, "Slow down, and enter at night, so that she who has not combed may comb her hair, and she who has not shaved may shave her private area."”

Muhammad (570–632) Arabian religious leader and the founder of Islam

Then he said to me, "When you enter upon her, then be wise and gentle.”
Narrated Jabir bin 'Abdullah [Reported by al-Bukhari and Muslim, with various wordings, in their two Sahihs]
Sunni Hadith

Robert Smith (musician) photo
John Hodgman photo
Hans Reichenbach photo
John Bright photo
Theodor Herzl photo
John Masefield photo
George W. Bush photo
Thomas Chandler Haliburton photo

“It seems to me, all created critters look down on each other. The British and French look down on the Yankees, and colonists look down upon niggers and Indians, while we look down upon them all. It's the way of the world, I do suppose; but the road ain't a pleasant one.”

Thomas Chandler Haliburton (1796–1865) Canadian-British politician, judge, and author

Sam Slick, in Sam Slick's wise saws and modern instances: or, What he said, did, or invented, Volumen 1 https://archive.org/details/samslickswisesaw00haliuoft (1853), p. 185, Hurst and Blackett.

Bill Bryson photo
Arshile Gorky photo

“I got turned down for a role on UPN and I was really, really down… now how sad is that to be depressed for not getting a role on UPN?”

Don Stark (1954) American actor

Interview from 1998 https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0823155/bio?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm.

“I learned my trade by going out every evening as a young man," he told art historian Rosamond Bernier. "I went to every pretty house in France and Italy and other places too, and I remembered them all, even down to what was on each little table.”

Vincent Fourcade (1934–1992) French artist

"Vincent Fourcade - CELEBRATING THE PLEASURES OF MAGNIFICENT EXCESS", by Mitchell Owens, Architectural Digest, January 2000, v. 57 #1, p. 169 – one of twenty five persons named by the magazine "Interior Design Legends".

Sufjan Stevens photo

“Once when we moved away,
She came to Romulus for a day.
Her Chevrolet broke down.
We prayed it'd never be fixed or be found.”

Sufjan Stevens (1975) American singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist

"Romulus"
Lyrics, Michigan (2003)

Frances Kellor photo
Michael Hudson (economist) photo
Ann Coulter photo

“Oh, and just one more point that a lot of Americans don’t know. We’re so used to, ‘Oh colonialism,’ no, the Boers, the ones who are there, were there before the Zulus, they got there first. The Zulus came down like a hundred years later. I mean we are witnessing a straight out genocide.”

Ann Coulter (1961) author, political commentator

Coulter on South African ‘Genocide’: ‘No One Under Fifty Is Getting News from the Mainstream Media Anymore’
2018-04-05
Brietbart News
http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2018/04/05/ann-coulter-south-african-genocide-white-farmers-breitbart-news-town-hall/
2018

Tom Tancredo photo
Joanna MacGregor photo
Lyndon B. Johnson photo
Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo

“We know not of its presence, though its power
Be on the gradual round of every hour,
Now flinging down an empire, now a flower.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

(1837 1) (Vol. 49) Necessity
The Monthly Magazine

Ernst Bloch photo
Ben Croshaw photo
Lionel Richie photo

“Sail on down the line,
About half a mile or so.
And I don't really wanna know ah
Where you're going.
Maybe once or twice you see
Time after time I tried
Hold on to what we got.
But now you're going
And I don't mind.”

Lionel Richie (1949) American singer-songwriter, musician, record producer and actor

Sail On (1979).
Song lyrics, With the Commodores

Samuel Butler photo
David Morrison photo
Carl Sagan photo
John Ralston Saul photo
Daniel Handler photo
Michael Chabon photo
Frances Burney photo
Vangelis photo
Homér photo

“So here the twins were laid low at Aeneas' hands,
down they crashed like lofty pine trees axed.”

V. 559–560 (tr. Robert Fagles).
Iliad (c. 750 BC)

Tina Fey photo
Eugène-Melchior de Vogüé photo

“Let us not expect Russia to do what she is incapable of, to restrict herself within certain limits, to concentrate her attention upon one point, or bring her conception of life down to one doctrine. Her literary productions must reflect the moral chaos which she is passing through.”

Eugène-Melchior de Vogüé (1848–1910) French diplomat, orientalist, travel writer, archaeologist, philanthropist and literary critic

Russian Novelists (1887), page 214 (translated by Jane Loring Edmands)

James Freeman Clarke photo
Lim Guan Eng photo

“If this is a lecture and the lecturer writes down one thing and you take down something else, how are you going to pass your exams?”

Lim Guan Eng (1960) Finance Minister of Malaysia

Lim Guan Eng (2018) cited in " Guan Eng hits out at BN media for ‘twisting facts’ https://www.themalaysianinsight.com/s/32089/" on The Malaysian Insight, 12 January 2018

Emily Dickinson photo
Iltutmish photo
Harry Turtledove photo
Rodger Bumpass photo
Miguel de Unamuno photo
Aristotle Onassis photo

“Sometimes, to please the ladies, we drop down our weapons pretending we are civilized.”

Aristotle Onassis (1906–1975) Greek shipping magnate

Quoted in Peter Evans, Ari: Life and Times of Aristotle Socrates Onassis, (1978),
During his wedding (Terrace Room - Plaza) with Tina Livanos about [Stavros Niarchos]

Louis Kronenberger photo

“On a very rough-and-ready basis we might define an eccentric as a man who is a law unto himself, and a crank as one who, having determined what the law is, insists on laying it down to others. An eccentric puts ice cream on steak simply because he likes it; should a crank do so, he would endow the act with moral grandeur and straightaway denounce as sinners (or reactionaries) all who failed to follow suit […] Cranks, at their most familiar, are a sort of peevish prophets, and it's not enough that they should be in the right; others must also be in the wrong.”

Louis Kronenberger (1904–1980) American critic and writer

"The One and the Many", Company Manners: A Cultural Inquiry into American Life (1954). Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill. 229 pages
Essay also appeared in Perspectives USA, Spring 1954 http://books.google.com/books?id=2UMIAQAAMAAJ&q=%22We+might+define+an+eccentric+as+a+man+who+is+a+law+unto+himself+and+a+crank+as+one+who+having+determined+what+the+law+is+insists+on+laying+it+down+to+others%22&pg=PA30#v=onepage
Company Manners: A Cultural Inquiry into American Life (1954)

Harry Turtledove photo
Robert G. Ingersoll photo
Matthew Arnold photo
Laurence Sterne photo

“The Accusing Spirit which flew up to heaven's chancery with the oath, blush'd as he gave it in; and the Recording Angel as he wrote it down, dropp'd a tear upon the word, and blotted it out forever.”

Book VI (1761-1762), Ch. 8. Compare: "But sad as angels for the good man’s sin, Weep to record, and blush to give it in", Thomas Campbell, Pleasures of Hope, part ii, line 357.
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (1760-1767)

Elias Canetti photo

“You keep taking note of whatever confirms your ideas—better to write down what refutes and weakens them!”

Elias Canetti (1905–1994) Bulgarian-born Swiss and British jewish modernist novelist, playwright, memoirist, and non-fiction writer

J. Agee, trans. (1989), p. 60
Das Geheimherz der Uhr [The Secret Heart of the Clock] (1987)

Aleister Crowley photo
Willie Nelson photo
Daniel Handler photo
Winston S. Churchill photo

“For five years I have talked to the House on these matters – not with very great success. I have watched this famous island descending incontinently, fecklessly, the stairway which leads to a dark gulf. It is a fine broad stairway at the beginning, but after a bit the carpet ends. A little farther on there are only flagstones, and a little farther on still these break beneath your feet. [ … ] Look back upon the last five years – since, that is to say, Germany began to rearm in earnest and openly to seek revenge … historians a thousand years hence will still be baffled by the mystery of our affairs. They will never understand how it was that a victorious nation, with everything in hand, suffered themselves to be brought low, and to cast away all that they had gained by measureless sacrifice and absolute victory – gone with the wind! Now the victors are the vanquished, and those who threw down their arms in the field and sued for an armistice are striding on to world mastery. That is the position – that is the terrible transformation that has taken place bit by bit.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech in the House of Commons (24 March 1938) "Foreign Affairs and Rearmament" http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1938/mar/24/foreign-affairs-and-rearmament#column_1454, 12 days after the Anschluss (the Nazi annexation of Austria).
The 1930s

John Fante photo
John Green photo
Winston S. Churchill photo
John Ireland (bishop) photo
Bernard Cornwell photo
Jared Leto photo
Calvin Coolidge photo
Sarah Orne Jewett photo
John Lancaster Spalding photo

“However firmly thou holdest to thy opinions, if truth appears on the opposite side, throw down thy arms at once.”

John Lancaster Spalding (1840–1916) Catholic bishop

Source: Means and Ends of Education (1895), Chapter 1 "Truth and Love"