Quotes about down (8440 quotes, page 83)

“We had gotten over the feeling that one experience was going to make you enlightened forever. We saw that it wasn't going to be that simple.
And for five years I dealt with the matter of "coming down."”

Ram Dass book Be Here Now

The coming down matter is what led me to the next chapter of this drama. Because after six years, I realized that no matter how ingenious my experimental designs were, and how high I got, I came down.
At one point I took five people and we locked ourselves in a building for three weeks and we took 400 micrograms of LSD every four hours. That is 2400 micrograms of LSD a day, which sounds fancy, but after your fist dose, you build a tolerance; there's a refractory period. We finally were just drinking out of the bottle, because it didn't seem to matter anymore. We'd just stay at a plateau. We were very high. What happened in those three weeks in that house, no one would ever believe, including us. And at the end of the three weeks, we walked out of the house and within a few days, we came down!
And it was a terribly frustrating experience, as if you came into the kingdom of heaven and you saw how it all was and you felt these new states of awareness, and then you got cast out again.
Be Here Now (1971)

Making love , Feeling

“It is like what I said, that the elite of the world have all seceded into outer space, and they have a country up there, and they look down and say, “What is our water doing in their rivers, and what’s our timber doing in their forests?””

Arundhati Roy (1961) Indian novelist, essayist

So there is a psychotic refusal to understand that the survival of the species is connected to the survival of the planet, you know? Because this sort of progress is a kind of church now. It is not amenable to reason. So it is very difficult to know how any real conversation can happen... <Br> A month or two ago, the Supreme Court of India...said that two million indigenous people should be evicted from their forest homes... Because that forest needs to be preserved as a sanctuary. But when, for the last 25 years, people were fighting against projects which were decimating millions of hectares and acres of forest, nobody cared... And when you are talking about evicting two million of the poorest people, stripping them of everything they ever had, there is little outrage. Any sense of talk of equality or justice seems to just have the same effect that blasphemy has in religious societies. That is what capitalism has become—a form of religion that will brook no questioning.

Democracy Now Arundhati Roy: Capitalism Is “a Form of Religion” Stopping Solutions to Climate Change & Inequality https://www.democracynow.org/2019/5/13/arundhati_roy_capitalism_is_a_form, (13 May 2019)
Interviews

World , Water , Country

“…I have to be in this frame of mind where I’m feeling pity for myself, and feeling pity for the world. Once I’ve attained the summit of this, then I have to sit down and write…”

Rawi Hage (1964) Canadian writer

On how he begins the writing process in “Rare Interview With Rawi Hage: ‘I’m Free To Be Difficult’” https://mideastposts.com/middle-east-society/rare-interview-with-rawi-hage-im-now-free-to-be-difficult/ in Mideast Posts (2013 Nov 7)

World , Feeling

“Whichever form of government that democracy will create in the future, the great American experiment will go down in history as the freest and the bravest in the land of the free and the home of the brave.”

Newton Lee American computer scientist

The Transhumanism Handbook, 2019

Democracy , Home , Future , History

“I didn't believe in it for a moment
but I gulped down the wine of my own voice.
And then I wrestled with the darkness inside me,
knocked it down, clawed at it, ripped it to shreds.”

Lalleshwari (1320–1392) Indian writer, mystic and saint

The Poems of Lal Ded, poem 48, p. 10
Poetry

Wine

“I just think my life's been really blessed, because being in show business I've met wonderful people and I've traveled all over the world…I ain't down yet, and I've had a wonderful life, and I still have more life to go.”

Debbie Reynolds (1932–2016) American actress, singer, and dancer

On being in show business (as quoted in “FLASHBACK: Debbie Reynolds Recalls Poor Upbringing and How Gene Kelly Helped Her Career in Early ET Interviews” https://www.etonline.com/news/206086_debbie_reynolds_recalls_poor_upbringing_and_how_gene_kelly_helped_her_career_early_et_interviews (ET Online; 2016 Dec 29)

Business , People , Thinking , World

“From the point of view of the moralist the animal world is on about the same level as a gladiator's show. The creatures are fairly well treated, and set to fight—whereby the strongest, the swiftest and the cunningest live to fight another day. The spectator has no need to turn his thumbs down, as no quarter is given.”

Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–1895) English biologist and comparative anatomist

[The Struggle for Existence: A Programme, The Nineteenth Century, 23, February 1888, 161–180, https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.a0012287587&view=1up&seq=173] (quote from p. 163)
1880s

Fight , Animals , World

“It may seem a strange principle to enunciate as the very first requirement in a Hospital that it should do the sick no harm. It is quite necessary, nevertheless, to lay down such a principle, because the actual mortality in hospitals, especially in those of large crowded cities, is very much higher than any calculation founded on the mortality of the same class of diseases among patients treated out of hospital would lead us to expect. The knowledge of this fact first induced me to examine into the influence exercised by hospital construction on the duration and death-rate of cases received into the wards; and it led me to lay before the Social Science Association a paper reprinted with the present title. Since the publication of the first edition of that paper, great advances have been made in the adoption of sound principles of hospital construction; and there are already a number of examples of new hospitals realizing all, or nearly all, the conditions required for the successful treatment of the sick and maimed poor.”

Florence Nightingale (1820–1910) English social reformer and statistician, and the founder of modern nursing

Notes on Hospitals 3rd Edition (1863), Preface

Success , Knowledge , Exercises , Science

“Life was created in the valleys. It blew up onto the hills on the old terrors, the old lusts, the old despairs. That's why you must walk up the hills so you can ride down.”

William Faulkner book As I Lay Dying

As I Lay Dying (1930)

Despair , Life

“I don't think there is a final theory of anything. It's theories all the way down.”

Jim Peebles (1935) Canadian-American astronomer

[Princeton news conference for James Peeble, winner of the 2019 Nobel Prize in Physics, October 8, 2019, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JiPZrRcdgfU] (quote at 25:26 of 38:15)

Way , Thinking

“Punk rock, at its best, was just stripping down all the corporate rock I was hearing on the radio in the 1980s and getting down to its most basic roots.”

Beto O'Rourke (1972) American politician

[Tilove, Jonathan, Beto Effin’ O’Rourke: On running for Senate with the expletive undeleted First Reading, http://politics.blog.mystatesman.com/2017/09/25/beto-effin-orourke-on-running-for-senate-with-the-expletive-undeleted/, My Statesman, 12 November 2018, en, September 25, 2017] On his days in his rock band, Foss
2017

“Coronavirus numbers are looking MUCH better, going down almost everywhere.”

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

Quoted in * 2020-05-11

Trump points to 'the numbers,' which don't say what he thinks they say

Steve Benen

MSNBC

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/trump-points-numbers-which-don-t-say-what-he-thinks-n1205336
2020s, 2020, May

“Most of us struggle for years against beliefs that have been deeply rooted in our being. We do everything we can think of to try to resist and fight against the beliefs when all we really need to do is sit down and directly pull these roots up so we can see them clearly and then replace them. It may be a bit time consuming, but look at it this way… you have the choice to struggle against them every day of your busy life or to take an hour or two of your time and focus specifically on doing the work necessary to alter them for good so you no longer have to struggle against them.”

Teal Swan (1984) American spiritual teacher

Time , Business , Thinking , Way

“The truth of a story is what the novelist strives for, and quite often the writer is taken down strange and unexpected paths on this search.”

Madeleine L'Engle (1918–2007) American writer

Source: The Rock that Is Higher (1993)

Truth , Search

“Here is your road, tyingyou to its meanings: gorge, boulder, precipice.
Telescoped down, the hard and stone-green river
cutting fast and direct into the town.”

Muriel Rukeyser (1913–1980) poet and political activist

Source: "The Road" U.S. 1 (1938), The Book of the Dead

“There was no way he could anticipate every contingency. When the time came to leap in faith, whether you had your eyes open or closed or screamed all the way down or not made no practical difference.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Source: Vorkosigan Saga, The Warrior's Apprentice (1986), Chapter 19 (p. 320)

Way , Faith , Time

“I can sing in my brain…I sing in my brain all the time. It’s not quite the same as doing it physically. There’s a physical feeling in singing that’s just like skiing down a hill. Except better, because I’m not a very good skier.”

Linda Ronstadt (1946) American pop singer

On how she still sings in her head since retiring from music due to having Parkinson’s disease in “Linda Ronstadt Talks Illness, ‘Trio’ Album in Candid ‘CBS Sunday Morning’ Interview” https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-country/linda-ronstadt-cbs-sunday-morning-interview-789524/ in Rolling Stone (2019 Feb 4)

Singing , Time , Feeling

“I knew this much — that everybody voted Democrat down my way. If you were poor, you voted Democrat and if you were rich you voted Republican.”

Jack Kirby (1917–1994) American comic book artist, writer and editor

Source: 1990, Gary Groth interview

Way

“An artist is the magician put among men to gratify — capriciously — their urge for immortality. The temples are built and brought down around him, continuously and contiguously, from Troy to the fields of Flanders. If there is any meaning in any of it, it is in what survives as art, yes even in the celebration of tyrants, yes even in the celebration of nonentities. What now of the Trojan War if it had been passed over by the artist's touch? Dust. A forgotten expedition prompted by Greek merchants looking for new markets. A minor redistribution of broken pots. But it is we who stand enriched, by a tale of heroes, of a golden apple, a wooden horse, a face that launched a thousand ships — and above all, of Ulysses, the wanderer, the most human, the most complete of all heroes — husband, father, son, lover, farmer, soldier, pacifist, politician, inventor and adventurer.”

Tom Stoppard Travesties

Joyce, Act I
Stoppard called this "the most important" speech in the play
Source: Travesties (1974)

War , Art , Horse , Relation ships

“I don't think either one of them literally want to incite violence. But they have to realize that when they tell people to get up in your face, that there are some crazy unstable people out there. There are truly people who have anger issues. The guy that shot over two hundred rounds from a semi-automatic weapon at us at the ballfield, was an angry guy. He was a guy that would go down to the city council and yell and scream and get angry and red in the face. He once hit a neighbor with the butt of his gun. He had all of these anger issues. But then when people stoke that and say "get up in their face", "go to Washington."”

Rand Paul (1963) American politician, ophthalmologist, and United States Senator from Kentucky

He showed up at the ballfield that day, and as he started shooting at us he yelled "This is for healthcare!", and then when they were finally able to kill him in his pocket was a list of five or six conservative republicans that he came there intending to kill. So instead of saying "get up in their face", we should say let's have constructive dialog. Let's forcefully present our position in a verbal way and in an intellectual way.
2018-10-10
Rand Paul: There Will Be an 'Assassination' If Left Doesn't Ratchet Down the Rhetoric
Discussion on Fox and Friends
http://insider.foxnews.com/2018/10/10/rand-paul-there-will-be-assassination-if-left-doesnt-ratchet-down-rhetoric https://video.foxnews.com/v/5847225479001/?#sp=show-clips

Guy , Thinking , Anger , People

“That noble Lord is of opinion, not only that we ought to exclude Natives from office, but that even by encouraging them to study the arts and learning of Europe, we are preparing the way for the utter destruction of our power in India. I must leave it to the noble Lord to explain what seems to me a rather singular inconsistency in his opinion. I am at a loss to understand how, while utterly contemning education when it is given to Europeans, he should regard it with dread when it is given to Natives. This training, we are told, when given to a European, makes him a bookworm, a twaddler, a man unfit for the active duties of life; but give the same education to the Hindoo, and it arms him with such an accession of intellectual power, that an established government, with an army of 250,000 men, backed by the whole army and navy of England, are to go down inevitably before its irresistible power.”

Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay (1800–1859) British historian and Whig politician

Speech in the House of Commons (24 June 1853) https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1853/jun/24/government-of-india-bill-adjourned#column_758
1850s

Loss , Study , Understanding , Learning

“The natural effect of unfettered market competition is socialism. For a short time the innovator receives a large profit, as a reward for being first to the market. Then, as competitors adopt the innovation, competition drives these profits down to zero and the price gravitates toward the new, lower cost of production made possible by this innovation (that price including, of course, the cost of the producer’s maintenance and the amortization of her capital outlays). So in a free market, the cost savings in labor required to produce any given commodity would quickly be socialized in the form of reduced labor cost to purchase it.”

Kevin Carson (1963) American academic

"Who Owns the Benefit? The Free Market as Full Communism" https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/kevin-carson-who-owns-the-benefit-the-free-market-as-full-communism (2012)

Time , Nature

“When business executives are making the artistic decisions and don't understand animation, things can go awry. Now they call in all of the authority figures they can find and hire them – the cost has gone up. The picture may or may not get better, but definitely, it gets more cumbersome. It's like trying to turn around an army of tanks, instead of being able to move lightly on your feet or being able to listen to what's going on inside of you – because that's what's telling you what to do. It gets bogged down.”

Don Bluth (1937) American animator

Interview with Don Bluth https://www.ign.com/articles/2000/06/13/interview-with-don-bluth-part-1-of-3 (June 13, 2000)

Understanding , Business , Animals , Decision

“The harsh reality is that my sequestered twins are advancing in the opposite direction of my earhair. Mother Nature has me by the balls, literally. They have actually started a race with my ex-wife's tits. And she will prevail, because she will get hers "done" as I continue to disappear into the abyss of recycled toilet brine. In the end, gravity always wins, people. Remember: when you have a heart attack, you fall down, not up.Middle age is upon me, and I don't remember this shit being in the brochure. I have six different doctors on speed dial, and the font size on my smartphone is at ten with a maximum setting of twelve. That doesn't give me much wiggle room for the golden years.”

Brad Garrett (1960) actor, comedian, voice actor

When the Balls Drop https://books.google.com/books?id=lLydBAAAQBAJ&pg=PT0 (2015), Foreword, "Being Forward."

People , Speed , Nature , Heart

“Riding through the city on my bike all day
Cause the filth took away my license
It doesn't get me down and I feel OK
Cause the sights that I'm seeing are pricelessEverything seems to look as it should
But I wonder what goes on behind doors
A fella looking dapper, but he's sitting with a slapper
Then I see it's a pimp and his crack whore.”

Lily Allen (1985) English singer, songwriter, actress, and television presenter

LDN
Song lyrics, Alright, Still (2006)

Whore , Feeling

“Commerce creates wealth, and it is the foundation of the great state. Armies are raised and paid for to win, or to protect the countries' trade, or commerce. Ships are constructed, colonies established, inventions encouraged, governments built up, or pulled down, for Commerce. Commerce cuts the way, and all professions, all arts follow.”

Harry Gordon Selfridge (1858–1947) America born English businessman

The Romance of Commerce (1918), Concerning Commerce

Country , Wealth , Art , Relation ships

“I signed a bill that gives you 10 years in jail if you rip down any federal statue.”

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

2020s, 2020, October

“I've been sad, I've been lost
I've been down and out and lonely
I've been suffering at a job
In a world that tries to own me
But when I wake up every morning
There's an image of a better place
'Cause the harder that we grind
Then the sweeter is the glory”

Aloe Blacc (1979) American soul singer, rapper and musician

Source: Song My Way

World , Sadness , Suffering

“We came down on them like a flood,
We went out among their cities,
We tore down the idol-temples,
We shat on the Buddha's head!”

Mahmud al-Kashgari (1029–1101) Medieval Arab scholar

Translation: English translation from the Turkic language. The Karakhanid Turkic Muslim writer Mahmud al-Kashgari recorded this short poem (in Turkic language) about the conquest of Khotan.
Attributed to Mahmud al-Kashgari in : Elverskog, Johan (2010). Buddhism and Islam on the Silk Road. University of Pennsylvania Press. p. 95. ISBN 978-0-8122-4237-9.

“In our secret depths, wherever we do our unspoken wishing, either we want life to be tidy, clear, fully understood, contained within definite limits, or we long for it to seem larger, wilder, stranger. Faced with some odd incident, either we wish to cut it down or to build it up.
On this level, below that of philosophies and rational opinions, either we reject or ignore the unknown, the apparently inexplicable, the marvellous and miraculous, or we welcome every sign of them. At one extreme is a narrow intolerant bigotry, snarling at anything outside the accepted world-picture, and at the other is an idiotic credulity, the prey of any glib charlatan. At one end the world becomes a prison, at the other a madhouse.”

J.B. Priestley (1894–1984) English writer

Source: Man and Time (1964), Ch. 8, p. 183

World , Life , Secret

“I have pointed out already how ideas seep down to wider and commoner levels of intelligence and feeling until at last they are believed to be solid realities.”

J.B. Priestley (1894–1984) English writer

Source: Man and Time (1964), Ch. 7, p. 159

Intelligence , Idea , Reality , Feeling

“We tend quite rightly to associate an age with its newest and most original ideas, and there is no harm in this as long as we remember that only a few men, at that time, may have actually held those ideas, and that many decades, often amounting to centuries, may pass before those ideas have seeped down to wider and commoner levels of belief, thought, and feeling.”

J.B. Priestley (1894–1984) English writer

Source: Man and Time (1964), Ch. 6, p. 140

Time , Age , Idea , Feeling

“How do we interact with life delicately? Because we're entering a new age of exploration, where we have to take great care, and we have to set examples how we explore. So I've teamed up with roboticist Rob Wood at Harvard University, and we've been designing squishy underwater robot fingers, so we can delicately interact with the marine life down there. The idea is that most of our technologies to explore the deep ocean come from oil and gas and military, who, you know, they're not really caring to be gentle.”

David Gruber American marine biologist

Source: Glow-in-the-dark sharks and other stunning sea creatures https://www.ted.com/talks/david_gruber_glow_in_the_dark_sharks_and_other_stunning_sea_creatures (October 2015)

Universe , Idea , Life , Age

“To shoot down a European is to kill two birds with one stone, to destroy an oppressor and the man he oppresses at the same time.”

Jean Paul Sartre (1905–1980) French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and …

Miscellaneous
Source: The Doctor Prescribed Violence https://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/02/books/the-doctor-prescribed-violence.html, Adam Shatz Sept. 2, 2001, New York Times

Bird , Time

“[P]rivate enterprise and initiative, willing to take risks in the hope of gain, allowed to function in freedom, have produced the greatest wealth ever know in the history of mankind. And that if you stop this process and turn everything over to government, the activity will slow down, inventiveness will cease, and we shall get not equalization of riches, but equalization of poverty.”

Dorothy Thompson (1893–1961) American journalist and radio broadcaster

Dorothy Thompson’s Political Guide: A Study of American Liberalism and its Relationship to Modern Totalitarian States (1938)
Source: A Study of American Liberalism and its Relationship to Modern Totalitarian States (1938)
p. 27

Wealth , Hope , History , Freedom

“In the process of dissipating glamour, the way of the greatest potency is to realise the necessity to act purely as a channel for the energy of the soul. If the disciple can make right alignment and consequent contact with his soul, the results show as increased light. This light pours down and irradiates not only the mind, but the brain consciousness as well. He sees the situation more clearly: he realises the facts of the case as against his "vain imaginings"; and so the "light shines upon his way."”

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

He is not yet able to see truly in the larger sweeps of consciousness; the group glamour and, of course, the world glamour remain to him as yet a binding and bewildering mystery, but his own immediate way begins to clear, and he stands relatively free from the fog of his ancient and distorting emotional miasmas. Alignment, contact with his soul, and then steadfastness, are the keynotes to success.
Source: Glamour: A World Problem (1950), The Nature of Glamor

Soul , Imagination , Light , Way

“For the man crucified on the crossed machine guns
Without name, without resurrection, without stars,
His dark head heavy with death and his flesh long sour
With the smell of his many prisons — John Smith, John Doe,
John Nobody — oh, crack your mind for his name!
Faceless as water, naked as the dust,
Dishonored as the earth the gas-shells poison
And barbarous with portent.
This is he.
This is the man they ate at the green table
Putting their gloves on ere they touched the meat.
This is the fruit of war, the fruit of peace,
The ripeness of invention, the new lamb,
The answer to the wisdom of the wise.
And still he hangs, and still he will not die
And still, on the steel city of our years
The light falls and the terrible blood streams down.”

Stephen Vincent Benét (1898–1943) poet, short story writer, novelist

Source: Litany for Dictatorships (1935)

Peace , Light , War , Star

““Thanks for everything,” she said to the universe, as if it had been at the host of a particularly good party that was just winding down.”

Daniel Abraham (1969) speculative fiction writer from the United States

Source: The Expanse, Tiamat's Wrath (2019), Chapter 32 (p. 339)

Universe

“Every safety measure has been taken, and I know I’m in good hands. The important thing for an actor or performer is to get constant visibility; now with films being stalled, this is the perfect opportunity for us to impress audiences every day. After the show, I will make my Bollywood debut, and down south, I really hope I get a chance to work with Vijay Sethupathi sir.”

Nikki Tamboli (1996) Indian Actress

Bigg Boss 14: Nikki Tamboli wants to work with Vijay Sethupathi after reality show

Perfection , Chance , Making love , Hope

“I’ve never really planned anything in my career, and just taken the chances as they came my way. I like to think of myself as destiny’s child! I’m sure people down south also check out the Hindi version.”

Nikki Tamboli (1996) Indian Actress

Bigg Boss 14: Nikki Tamboli wants to work with Vijay Sethupathi after reality show

Way , Thinking , Chance , People

“It is very difficult to edit something that I direct. It’s having to remake decisions that I’ve already made on set and now have to undo or reimagine. I always warn Directors sitting down with me to edit not to watch the film and footage too much. The ability to have fresh eyes and be able to watch the movie as a viewer is the most valuable tool a director has.”

Misty Talley American film director and editor

Source: The Shark Lady: An Interview with Misty Talley https://www.bigeasymagazine.com/2019/07/01/the-shark-lady-an-interview-with-misty-talley/ (July 1, 2019)

Decision

“Famous old houses seem to have an intuitive perception of the value of corner lots. If it is a possible thing, they always set themselves down on the most desirable spot.”

Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836–1907) American poet, novelist, editor

Source: An Old Town by the Sea (1893), Ch. IV. "A Stroll about Town (continued)", p. 44

Housing

“[C]ircles have been contaminated by hatred and paranoia. Refuse and reject that right now. If you make room in your heart and mind for it, it will take you down, and take down all those that follow you.”

Rod Dreher (1967) American journalist

2020s
Source: "Information and the Cultural Revolution" https://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/information-cultural-revolution-live-not-by-lies/ (January 2021), The American Conservative

Making love , Heart

“When you’re a cartoonist, you sort of have to be, like, sensitive – or maybe open’s a better word – to what’s going on around you. When you’re an attorney, you’re just like a bulldog with your head down.”

Stephan Pastis (1968) American cartoonist

Source: Strip deals wry Pearls of wisdom https://www2.ljworld.com/news/2006/dec/24/strip_deals_wry_pearls_wisdom/?living (December 24, 2006)

“Sadly, almost with terror, I often looked at the threadlike path which I saw, lower down, winding in the valleys and disappearing between the mountains. The day would come when it would lead me back to the sorrowful world that existed beyond the distant hill ranges, and so thinking, an indescribable suffering lay hold of me.”

Alexandra David-Néel (1868–1969) French explorer, spiritualist, Buddhist, anarchist and writer

Magic And Mystery In Tibet

Mountain , Suffering , Distant , Thinking

“I had always said that when I could see the holes in the hands and feet of Jesus myself then I would consider believing. It was very much a standard line – I wouldn’t take anything on belief, I wanted to see the evidence. On that hillside I looked up at the crucifix and Our Lord was there with the holes in his hands and his feet and in that instant – I wouldn’t say I believed, I wouldn’t say I decided to start believing – in that instant, I knew. I knew that I had been looking all these years without seeing Christ crucified. There he was in front of me and I then knew that God and Jesus Christ were true. My life has been upside down ever since. All my original views were turned upside down. It has cost me quite a few friendships and has probably cost me a political career but I cannot un-know what I now know.”

Rob Flello (1966) British politician (born 1966)

Source: The day my atheist convictions were shattered https://catholicherald.co.uk/rob-flello-the-day-my-atheist-convictions-were-shattered/ (October 16, 2020)

God , Life , Christ , Friendship

“Time is truly elastic. If you just rock what you have to do, you'll get it done. And another thing, too, that I learned recently, it kind of put me more at ease with the day-to-day, is just there's some kind of energy and balance and something beautiful in the ups and downs of the day-to-day. You'll get great news and you'll get bad news, and this will all be in the same day, but there's something cohesive and the balance of that is comforting. Learning to be comfortable with the ups and downs of every day and knowing that's just the mystery of life and how it is, you know?”

Booboo Stewart (1994) American actor

Booboo Stewart on the Adorable Gift His GF Gave Him and the Last Thing He Watched https://www.popsugar.com/celebrity/booboo-stewart-last-call-interview-47953476 (November 9, 2020)

Time , Beauty , Bad luck , Learning

“In another January, on New Year′s Day in 1863, Abraham Lincoln signed the emancipation proclamation. When he put pen to paper, the president said, and I quote, “if my name ever goes down into history, it′ll be for this act, and my whole soul is in it.”“My whole soul is in it.””

Joe Biden (1942) 47th Vice President of the United States (in office from 2009 to 2017)

Today, on this January day, my whole soul is in this: bringing America together, uniting our people, uniting our nation. And I ask every American to join me in this cause.<p>Uniting to fight the foes we face, anger, resentment and hatred, extremism, lawlessness, violence, disease, joblessness and hopelessness. With unity, we can do great things, important things.
2021, January, Presidential Inaugural Address (2021)

Soul , History , Quotes

“In the midst of normal activity, whatever it may be, there is a distant Signal, almost like heraldic trumpets. Everyone takes the Signal calmly, and with it, everyone stops speaking or whatever he may be doing. It is the Signal that He (or They) is coming through His Kingdom. There is no awestruck prostration or falling down on one's knees. Rather, the attitude is most matter-of-fact It is an occurrence to which all are accustomed and to comply takes absolute precedence over everything. There are no exceptions.”

Robert Monroe (1915–1995) American founder of The Monroe Institute

Journeys Out of the Body (1971), Chapter 8. Because the Bible Tells Me So

Distant

“And I have known the arms already, known them all —
Arms that are braceleted and white and bare
[But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair! ]
It is perfume from a dress
That makes me so digress?
Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.
And should I then presume?
And how should I begin?”

T.S. Eliot (1888–1965) 20th century English author

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (1915)

Light , Lie , Making love

“After a year and six months, it's no longer me that you want. But, I love you so much it hurts. Never mistreated you once; I poured my heart out to you. Let down my guard, swear to God. I'll blow my brains in your lap, lay here and die in your arms. Drop to my knees and I'm pleading; I'm trying to stop you from leaving. You won't even listen, so...”

Eminem (1972) American rapper and actor

"Space Bound"
2010s, Recovery (2010)

Hurt , God , Heart , Love

“PUT YOUR HAND DOWN!”

Judith Sheindlin (1942) American lawyer, judge, television personality, and author

Quotes from Judge Judy cases, Dress, stand, speak properly

“When we think about how we address problems in this country, we often start from a place of trickle-down justice. So using white folks as the control we say, well, if we make things better for white folks then everybody else is going to get free. But actually it doesn't work that way.... When we talk about the wage gap, we often say women make 78 cents to every dollar that a man makes. You all have heard that before. But those are the statistics for white women and white men. The reality is that black women make something like 64 cents to every 78 cents that white women make. When we talk about Latinas, it goes down to about 58 cents. If we were to talk about indigenous women, if we were to talk about trans women, it would even go further down. So again, if you deal with those who are the most impacted, everybody has an opportunity to benefit from that, rather than dealing with the folks who are not as impacted, and expecting it to trickle down.”

Alicia Garza (1981) Co-founder of the Black Lives Matter International movement

An Interview with the Founders of Black Lives Matter, Ted Talks, https://www.ted.com/talks/alicia_garza_patrisse_cullors_and_opal_tometi_an_interview_with_the_founders_of_black_lives_matter?language=en (October 2016)

Justice , Country , Problem , Thinking

“A suit where I can fall down drunk in a ditch get up the next morning and go on to a wedding; or more likely a funeral at my time of life. I could go to six a week but no man can live on vol-au-vents alone.”

John Cooper Clarke (1951) English performance poet

Series 1 - Textiles (9 Nov 2016)
BBC Radio 4 - Dr John Cooper Clarke at the BBC (Nov 2016)

Life , Time , Wedding

“I always judge people by appearances; don't you anyway? I think clothes are important; that's where the nudist camp falls down.”

John Cooper Clarke (1951) English performance poet

Series 1 - Textiles (9 Nov 2016)
BBC Radio 4 - Dr John Cooper Clarke at the BBC (Nov 2016)

Clothes , Thinking , Appearance , People

“For it may be very plausibly urged on their behalf, that it is impossible to extinguish evil until the origin thereof has been discovered and destroyed. This great river of human Time (rivers were expressly created to feed metaphors, allegories, and navigable canals) which comes flowing down thick with filth and blood from the immemorial past surely cannot be thoroughly cleansed by any purifying process applied to it here in the present for the pollution, if not in its very source (supposing it has a source), or deriving from unimaginable remotenesses of eternity indefinitely beyond its source, at any rate interfused with it countless ages back, and is perennial as the river itself. This immense poison-tree of Life, with its leaves of illusion, blossoms of delirium, apples of destruction, surely cannot be made wholesome and sweet by anything we may do to the branchlets and twigs on which, poor insects, we find ourselves crawling, or to the leaves and fruit on which we must fain feed; for the venom is drawn up in the sap by the taproots plunged in abysmal depths of the past. This toppling and sinking house wherein we dwell cannot be firmly re-established, save by re-establishing from its lowest foundation upwards.”

James Thomson (B.V.) (1834–1882) Scottish writer (1834-1882)

"The Speedy Extinction of Evil and Misery", part VIII, pp. 93–94
Essays and Phantasies (1881)

Tree , Time , Housing , Past

“Work but use your head as well as your hands, trust in God and He will never let you down.”

Timothy Quill (1901–1960) Early Dáil member, cooperative organiser, agriculturalist

The Cork Examiner (1955)

God

“And now I salute thee with awe, with veneration, and wonder, ancient India, of whom I am the adept, the India of the highest splendor of art and philosophy. May thy awakening astonish the Occident, decadent, mean, daily dwindling, slayer of nations, slayer of Gods, slayer of souls, which yet bows down still, ancient India, before the prodigies of thy primordial conceptions!”

Pierre Loti (1850–1923) French writer

Source: attributed and quoted in Josyer, G R. Sanskrit Civilization, International Academy of Sanskrit Research. Mysore 1966 p. 1

https://books.google.com/books/about/A_Tribute_to_Hinduism.html?id=G3AMAQAAMAAJ A tribute to Hinduism: Thoughts and wisdom spanning continents and time about India and her culture

God , Soul , Art

“We are so concerned to flatter the majority that we lose sight of how very often it is necessary, in order to preserve freedom for the minority, let alone for the individual, to face that majority down.”

William F. Buckley Jr. (1925–2008) American conservative author and commentator

The Jeweler’s Eye, New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons (1968) p. 68

Freedom

“I am not going to allow the little flu to knock me down.”

Jair Bolsonaro (1955) Brazilian president elect

Said about the Covid-19 pandemic, as quoted in "Bolsonaro Denies that He Called Covid-19 A "Little Flu" https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/internacional/en/scienceandhealth/2020/11/bolsonaro-denies-that-he-called-covid-19-a-little-flu.shtml, Folha de S.Paulo (March 2020)
2020

“It could be ranchers. Everyone is suspicious, but the biggest suspicion comes from NGOs. [I have] ho proof. NGOs have lost money... they are unemployed. What are they trying to do? Bring me down.”

Jair Bolsonaro (1955) Brazilian president elect

On 22 August 2019, suggesting that NGOs were behind the fires in the Amazon rainforest. Bolsonaro says Brazil lacks resources to fight Amazon fires https://www.ft.com/content/8f9ded3a-c4c8-11e9-a8e9-296ca66511c9. Financial Times (22 August 2019).
2019

Money

“We know very well that we are only allowed to go on eating our dinner, to finish seeing the new play, or to enjoy to the end the ball, the Christmas fete, the promenade, the races or, the hunt, thanks to the policeman's revolver or the soldier's rifle, which will shoot down the famished outcast who has been robbed of his share, and who looks round the corner with covetous eyes at our pleasures, ready to interrupt them instantly, were not policeman and soldier there prepared to run up at our first call for help.”

Leo Tolstoy The Kingdom of God Is Within You

Source: The Kingdom of God is Within You (1894), Chapter XII, Conclusion—Repent Ye, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at Hand

Pleasure , Christmas , Help

“We cannot pretend that we do not see the armed policeman who marches up and down beneath our window to guarantee our security while we eat our luxurious dinner, or look at the new piece at the theater, or that we are unaware of the existence of the soldiers who will make their appearance with guns and cartridges directly our property is attacked.”

Leo Tolstoy The Kingdom of God Is Within You

Source: The Kingdom of God is Within You (1894), Chapter XII, Conclusion—Repent Ye, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at Hand

Appearance , Making love

“The attitude of the ruling classes to the laborers is that of a man who has felled his adversary to the earth and holds him down, not so much because he wants to hold him down, as because he knows that if he let him go, even for a second, he would himself be stabbed, for his adversary is infuriated and has a knife in his hand. And therefore, whether their conscience is tender or the reverse, our rich men cannot enjoy the wealth they have filched from the poor as the ancients did who believed in their right to it. Their whole life and all their enjoyments are embittered either by the stings of conscience or by terror.”

Leo Tolstoy The Kingdom of God Is Within You

Source: The Kingdom of God is Within You (1894), Chapter V, Contradiction Between our Life and our Christian Conscience

Wealth , Life , Men

“You felt something huge and marvelous of which you are part, and in the moments you described, you forgot yourself for you were one with your world and with the sky above it, and even the stars looking down. There is nothing larger or more wonderful than that. Still, there are those who would prefer self. They will accept any belief, no matter how foolish, if it guarantees them personal immortality. I know people like that. But there are others who know themselves well enough to realize how limiting that is.”

Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) American fiction writer

Source: Singer from the Sea (1999), Chapter 24, “People from the Sea” (p. 382)

Personality , Star , People , Self-confidence

“It was not a very original period of my life. I won’t say I fell in with bad company—I more hunted them down.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Source: Vorkosigan Saga, Captain Vorpatril's Alliance (2012), Chapter 11 (p. 231)

Bad luck , Life

“It is impossible for me to express my loathing and horror of the practice men have of killing things for pastime so-called 'hunting,' or 'sport. No one but a barbarian can engage in such pursuits, or can look upon them or know of them without pain and indignation. It makes me want to fight and cry whenever I think of them. And when I see men engaged in such execrable activities (the crippling, killing, and terrifying of whole communities of innocent and happy beings, shooting them down in cold blood, and with hellish enthusiasm), my feeling is that I must stop them at all hazards. And there have been times, when I have come upon men engaged in these fiendish doings, when I would have shot them down if I had been armed, the enormity of their crimes has come over me with such vividness and power.”

J. Howard Moore (1862–1916)

Source: The New Ethics (1907), The Perils of Over-population, pp. 157–158

Sport , Pain , Time , Happiness

“My films are intended as polemical statements against the American 'barrel down' cinema and its dis-empowerment of the spectator. They are an appeal for a cinema of insistent questions instead of false (because too quick) answers, for clarifying distance in place of violating closeness, for provocation and dialogue instead of consumption and consensus.”

Michael Haneke (1942) Austrian film director and screenwriter

From "Film as catharsis". Haneke, Michael – "Film als Katharsis": in Austria (in)felix: zum österreichischem Film der 80er Jahre – Bono, Francesco (ed.), 1992. ISBN 3-901272-00-3

Falseness , Question

“Your experience has so much to do with how you view difference and how you approach being in the world. For example, in the grocery store, if someone comes down the aisle, I always preemptively move to the side—I’ve had many experiences where I get a glare or a huffy scolding or even a racial slur if the person feels I’m in the way. My parents did the same; years of experience as part of a racial minority taught them that to be noticed often means being harassed, so they try to avoid attention of any kind. On the other hand my husband, who is white, continues whatever he’s doing. His reasoning is ‘If I’m in the way, they’ll just ask me to move,’ and he’s right. The world treats him differently, so he sees it very differently.”

Celeste Ng (1980) American novelist

On how she approaches the world differently than her Caucasian husband in “’Memory at its Core’: An Interview with Celeste Ng” https://www.loc.gov/poetry/interviews/celeste-ng.html (Library of Congress; Summer 2018)

Personality , Way , Parent , World

“A carnivorous animal is not an ideal animal, and never can be. The life of a carnivorous animal is a perpetual onslaught. Every meal is a murder. Eating is not the harmless activity it is to one who sits down to fruit and grains. The carnivore must kill somebody, or have somebody else do it for him, in order to eat. It cannot be otherwise. And an animal whose life is one unbroken succession of such necessities, whose stomach is the grave of hundreds and thousands, and even of tens of thousands, of his fellow-beings, may be meritorious in other respects — may preach the Golden Rule, decry war, give money to the missionary, and rail at the rich — but so long as he continues to fill himself every few hours with the blood and vitals of others, he is not only not an ideal animal, but has in reality no just claims on life. Flesh is a painful form of nutrition for any organism, but it is especially so for man, because it is unnecessary, and because man makes so many pretensions and occupies a position in the world of such exceptional responsibility.”

J. Howard Moore (1862–1916)

Source: The New Ethics (1907), The Food of the Future, pp. 131–132

Money , Pain , Success , War

“From the standpoint of economy alone, the diet of the fields and orchards ought to appeal successfully to every one possessed of undoubted sanity. One acre devoted to wheat will support ten times as many men as one devoted to grazing. If men would take the beautiful products of the soil fresh from Nature's hand, instead of sitting down and devouring, in the form of the accumulated residuum or ruminants^ an acre at a meal, the problems o human poverty and over-population would be immensely simplified.”

J. Howard Moore (1862–1916)

Source: The New Ethics (1907), What Shall We Eat?, p. 92

Time , Support , Beauty , Nature

“Here is the chalk." This is a truth; and here and the now hereby characterize the chalk so that we emphasize by saying; the chalk, which means "this." We take a scrap of paper and we write the truth down: "Here is the chalk.”

Martin Heidegger (1889–1976) German philosopher

We lay this written statement beside the thing of which it is the truth. After the lecture is finished both doors are opened, the classroom is aired, there will be a draft, and the scrap of paper, let us suppose, will flutter out into the corridor. A student finds it on his way to the cafeteria, reads the sentence. "Here is the chalk," and ascertains that this is not true at all. Through the draft the truth has become an untruth. Strange that a truth should depend on a gust of wind. ... We have made the truth about the chalk independent of us and entrusted it to a scrap of paper. p. 29-30
What Is A Thing? (1935, 1968)

Truth

“I don't think anyone should tap you on the shoulder and tell you that it's time to sit down and retire. Imagine if I told you, "You know what, you should really hang it up right now."”

Erika Jayne (1969) American singer, actress and television personality

As women, we need to do more to support each other. And I think it's a lot of old rules that are being broken.
Erika Jayne interview to MTV http://www.mtv.com/news/2884785/erika-jayne-interview/ (2016)

Imagination , Thinking , Time

“I think it is possible to get the carbon dioxide emissions down and to get the temperature increase slowed down. It just requires everybody to work together to do it.”

Joanna Haigh (1954) British physicist

"Climate champion Jo Haigh retires after 35 years at Imperial" https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/191071/climate-champion-jo-haigh-retires-after/, Imperial College London, written by Hayley Dunning (May 3, 2019)

Thinking

“From the first place of liquid darkness, within the second
place of air and light, I set down the following record
with its mixture of fact and truths and memories of truths
and its direction always toward the Third Place, where
the starting point is myth.”

Janet Frame (1924–2004) New Zealand author

To the Is-land, chap. 1, ‘‘In the Second Place’’, 1982

Light , Truth , Memory

“It’s not the journey that weighs you down; it’s the baggage.”

Ron English (1959) American artist

Ron English's Fauxlosophy (2016)

“Sit down, son, don't loom.”

Bernard MacLaverty (1942) Irish writer

Short story, "The break", p.20
Short Stories, The Great Profundo and Other Stories (1987)

“If when I die, I am still a dictator, I will certainly go down into the oblivion of all dictators. If, on the other hand, I succeed in establishing a truly stable foundation for a democratic government, I will live forever in every home in China.”

Chiang Kai-shek (1887–1975) Chinese politician and military leader

Taiwan's Modernization: Americanization and Modernizing Confucian Manifestations, Wei-Bin Zhang, 2003, World Scientific, 2003, 177, 9814486132, 23 May 2021 https://books.google.com/books?id=J3BpDQAAQBAJ&pg=PA177,

Home

“Even if the room they rented was smaller than the heifer’s stall and darker than a morning privy, they stayed to look at their number, hear themselves in an audience, feel themselves moving down the street among hundreds of others who moved the way they did, and who, when they spoke, regardless of the accent, treated language like the same intricate, malleable toy designed for their play.”

Toni Morrison book Jazz

Jazz (1991) Ch. 2

Way , Feeling

“We have a bunch of yahoos out in the front of Queen’s Park sitting there protesting that the place isn’t open, as they are breaking the law. And putting everyone in jeopardy, putting themselves in jeopardy, putting workers in jeopardy and god forbid one of them ends up in the hospital down the street.”

Doug Ford (1964) 26th Premier of Ontario

On anti-lockdown protestors in Queen's Park https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/a-bunch-of-yahoos-ont-premier-says-of-people-protesting-covid-19-emergency-measures-1.4911861 (25 April 2020)
2020

God , Law

“In a libertarian society, big business wouldn’t be so big, since they couldn’t destroy their competition through government regulation. Without government control of the airways, more radio and television stations would be available and could not be shut down on political whim.”

Mary Ruwart (1949) American scientist and libertarian activist

Source: Short Answers to the Tough Questions: How to Answer the Questions Libertarians Are Often Asked, (2012), p. 230

Business

“Legislatures have rewritten basic business laws, some whose principles date back thousands of years. Too often the goal has been to thwart competition, artificially inflate prices, hold down wages by decimating unions, reduce worker benefits and... restrict or bar access to the courts by those aggrieved.”

David Cay Johnston (1948) Investigative journalist and author

The Fine Print (2013)

Business , Law

“We've all grown up with the idea that gunning a man down is just fun and games. All of us, as kids, played cops and robbers, with toy pistols or pointing a finger at somebody and saying, "Bang, Bang. You're dead!"”

Sam Peckinpah (1925–1984) American film director and screenwriter

Both the movies and television have perpetuated the idea that shooting a man is clean and quick and simple, and when he falls down there is only a small hole, or a blood-stain, to show how he died. Well, killing a man isn't clean and quick and simple. It's bloody and awful. And maybe if enough people come to realize that shooting somebody isn't just fun and games maybe we'll get somewhere about violence on the screen in the first place. [...] No, I don't like violence. In fact, when I look at the film myself, I find it unbearable. I don't think I'll be able to see it again for five years.
Responding, circa July 1969, to the question, "Why did you make this film?", posed by a film critic for Reader's Digest; as quoted in "Looking Sideways: Photographic Violence Won't Stop Violence" https://www.newspapers.com/image/?clipping_id=78219633 by Whitney Bolton, Fort-Myers News-Press (July 23, 1969), p. 4

Idea , Game , Dead

“I began with the premise that, deep down, everybody wants to censor something. Human beings, no matter how committed to the principles of free speech, have deep-seated distrust of the open marketplace of ideas, especially when they themselves—or the groups to which they belong—are ‘victims’ of the excesses of free speech.”

Alan M. Dershowitz (1938) American lawyer, author

Source: Shouting Fire: Civil liberties in a Turbulent Age (2002), p. 176

Idea

“We have the worst revival of an economy since the Great Depression. And believe me: We're in a bubble right now. And the only thing that looks good is the stock market, but if you raise interest rates even a little bit, that's going to come crashing down.”

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

2016, September 2016, First presidential debate (September 26, 2016)

“How often a person, having inclined his ears to the holy verses, would bow down in humility and would embrace the Truth, while his leader would not do so. Thus every individual must bear his own responsibility, rather than someone else bearing it for him.”

Báb book Persian Bayán

IV, 18
Persian Bayán

Truth , Personality

“Historically the belief in heaven and the belief in utopia are like compensatory buckets in a well: when one goes down the other comes up. When the classic religions decayed, communistic agitation rose in Athens (430 B.C.), and revolution began in Rome (133 B.C.); when these movements failed, resurrection faiths succeeded, culminating in Christianity; when, in our eighteenth century, Christian belief weakened, communism reappeared. In this perspective the future of religion is secure.”

Will Durant book The Story of Civilization

Source: The Story of Civilization (1935–1975), III - Caesar and Christ (1944), Chapter 28, Part 5 (Footnote 2)

Future , Faith , Religion , Communication

“I used to think that comedy came from wanting acceptance, wanting to be liked. Now I know differently. I know it's all down to fear. Fear, ladies and gentlemen, is the only true comedian in town.”

Ian Rankin (1960) Scottish crime writer

The Only True Comedian (2000)

Fear , Thinking

“I think a lot of times in our adult lives, we either block out or straight-up forget about the challenges of being a kid. We know it's all going to work out, but when you're a kid in that moment, it feels like the whole world is coming down on you. I'm going to try to look back and remember that when my kids get in those situations.”

Pierre Bouvier (1979) Canadian musician

Pierre Bouvier of Simple Plan https://www.songfacts.com/blog/interviews/pierre-bouvier-of-simple-plan (February 6, 2020)

Thinking , Time , World , Forgetting

“It doesn’t matter if radio thinks it’s a dying genre, or if there are people who thinks it sounds like ‘this or this or that’. If you write a good song, and it’s pop-punk, people will like it; because pop-punk doesn’t really mean a whole lot: it just means that it’s got that pop catchiness to it, but it’s got that punk energy and speed, and stuff that makes you want to jump up and down or drive a car real fast; and that’s something that will never get old.”

Pierre Bouvier (1979) Canadian musician

Simple Plan: The 13th Floor Interview https://www.13thfloor.co.nz/simple-plan-the-13th-floor-interview/ (February 7, 2018)

Thinking , Cars , Making love , People

“Knowledge breaks down the barriers of prejudice and opens doors for embrace.”

Valter Bitencourt Júnior (1994) Brazilian poet and writer

Knowledge

“Driving down child mortality in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was in no way a single project, but it can be seen as a unified human accomplishment—maybe even our greatest human achievement, at least for pediatricians and parents.”

Perri Klass (1958) American pediatrician and writer

[Introduction, A Good Time to Be Born: How Science and Public Health Gave Children a Future, https://books.google.com/books?id=fNjVDwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q=unified&f=false, 13 October 2020, W. W. Norton, 978-0-393-61000-0] (ebook)

Parent , Way

“The moral value of quantification is that it treats all lives as equally valuable, so actions that bring down the highest numbers of homicides prevent the greatest amount of human tragedy.”

Steven Pinker book Enlightenment Now

Source: Enlightenment Now (2018), p. 173

“You cannot change anything in your life with intention alone, which can become a watered-down, occasional hope that you'll get to tomorrow. Intention without action is useless.”

Caroline Myss (1952) author from the United States

Hope , Water , Life , Change

“People who look down from some high peak on a vast sea below, probably feel what my mind has felt, looking out from the sublime words of the Lord as from a mountain-top at the inexhaustible depth of their meaning.”

Gregory of Nyssa (335–395) bishop of Nyssa

Homilies on the Beautitudes VI: 1, tr. S. Hall, in H. R. Drobner and A. Viciano (edd.), Gregory of Nyssa: Homilies on the Beatitudes: An English Version and Supporting Studies (Brill, Leiden, 2000).

Mountain , People , Sea , Feeling

“A man walks down the street
He says why am I short of attention
Got a short little span of attention
And woe my nights are so long”

Paul Simon (1941) American musician, songwriter and producer

You Can Call Me Al
Song lyrics, Graceland (1986)

Night

“A thing may happen and be a total lie; another thing may not happen and be truer than the truth. For example: Four guys go down a trail. A grenade sails out. One guy jumps on it and takes the blast, but it's a killer grenade and everybody dies anyway. Before they die, though, one of the dead guys says, "The fuck you do that for?"”

Tim O'Brien book The Things They Carried

and the jumper says, "Story of my life, man" and other guys start to smile but he's dead. That's a true story that never happened.
The Things They Carried (1990), How to Tell a True War Story

Truth , Lie , Dead , Guy