Quotes about drop (1092 quotes, page 10)

“There had been a lot of death in the newspapers lately. […] and then before Christmas that Pan Am Flight 103 ripping open like a rotten melon five miles above Scotland and dropping all these bodies and flaming wreckage all over the golf course and the streets of this little town like Glockamorra, what was its real name, Lockerbie. Imagine sitting there in your seat being lulled by the hum of the big Rolls-Royce engines and the stewardesses bringing the clinking drinks caddy and the feeling of having caught the plane and nothing to do now but relax and then with a roar and a giant ripping noise and scattered screams this whole cozy world dropping away and nothing under you but black space and your chest squeezed by the terrible unbreathable cold, that cold you can scarcely believe is there but that you sometimes actually feel still packed into the suitcases, stored in the unpressurised hold, when you unpack your clothes, the dirty underwear and beach towels with the merciless chill of death from outer space still in them. […] Those bodies with hearts pumping tumbling down in the dark. How much did they know as they fell, through air dense like tepid water, tepid gray like this terminal where people blow through like dust in an air duct, to the airline we're all just numbers on the computer, one more or less, who cares? A blip on the screen, then no blip on the screen. Those bodies tumbling down like wet melon seeds.”

John Updike book Rabbit at Rest

Rabbit at Rest (1990)

Death , People , World , Feeling

“I shut my eyes and clenched my hands behind me and saw, in lightning flashes, myself doing ferocious things, like pushing him down an endless flight of stairs, or dropping him without warning into a bottomless well, or stringing him up to a stout beam and leaving him to dangle, or — or other things of the sort; no guns, no knives, no baseball bats, nothing to cause outright bloodshed, just silent, grim, sudden murder by hand was my intention. All this was far beyond my bodily powers of course, and I like to believe beyond my criminal powers too. For I woke when we struck the searing hot light of the August morning as if I had come out of a nightmare, horrified at my own thoughts and feeling as if I had got some incurable wound to my very humanity — as indeed I had. However inflicted, a wound there was, with painful scar tissue, left upon my living self by that appalling event. My conscience stirs as if, in my impulse to do violence to my enemy, I had assisted at his crime.”

Katherine Anne Porter (1890–1980) American journalist, essayist, short story writer, novelist, and political activist

The Never-Ending Wrong (1977)

Pain , Feeling , Light

“Those who urge an alliance with Assad cite the example of Joseph Stalin, the Soviet despot who became an ally of Western democracies against Nazi Germany. I never liked historical comparisons and like this one even less. To start with, the Western democracies did not choose Stalin as an ally; he was thrusted upon them by the turn of events. When the Second World War started Stalin was an ally of Hitler thanks to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. The Soviet Union actively participated in the opening phase of the war by invading Poland from the east as the Germans came in from the West. Before that, Stalin had rendered Hitler a big service by eliminating thousands of Polish army officers in The Katyn massacre. Between September 1939 and June 1941, when Hitler invaded the Soviet Union, Stalin was an objective ally of Hitler. Stalin switched sides when he had no choice if he wanted to save his skin. The situation in Syria today is different. There is no alliance of democracies which, thanks to Obama’s enigmatic behavior, lack any strategy in the Middle East. Unlike Stalin, Assad has not switched sides if only because there is no side to switch to. Assad regards ISIS as a tactical ally against other armed opposition groups. This is why Russia is now focusing its air strikes against non-ISIS armed groups opposed to Assad. More importantly, Assad has none of the things that Stalin had to offer the Allies. To start with Stalin could offer the vast expanse of territory controlled by the Soviet Union and capable of swallowing countless German divisions without belching. Field Marshal von Paulus’ one-million man invasion force was but a drop in the ocean of the Soviet landmass. In contrast, Assad has no territorial depth to offer. According to the Iranian General Hossein Hamadani, who was killed in Aleppo, Assad is in nominal control of around 20 percent of the country. Stalin also had an endless supply of cannon fodder, able to ship in millions from the depths of the Urals, Central Asia and Siberia. In contrast, Assad has publicly declared he is running out of soldiers, relying on Hezbollah cannon fodder sent to him by Tehran. If Assad has managed to hang on to part of Syria, it is partly because he has an air force while his opponents do not. But even that advantage has been subject to the law of diminishing returns. Four years of bombing defenseless villages and towns has not changed the balance of power in Assad’s favor. This may be why his Russian backers decided to come and do the bombing themselves. Before, the planes were Russian, the pilots Syrian. Now both planes and pilots are Russian, underlining Assad’s increasing irrelevance. Stalin’s other card, which Assad lacks, consisted of the USSR’s immense natural resources, especially the Azerbaijan oilfields which made sure the Soviet tanks could continue to roll without running out of petrol. Assad in contrast has lost control of Syria’s oilfields and is forced to buy supplies from ISIS or smugglers operating from Turkey. There are other differences between Stalin then and Assad now. Adulated as “the Father of the Nation” Stalin had the last word on all issues. Assad is not in that position. In fact, again according to the late Hamadani in his last interview published by Iranian media, what is left of the Syrian Ba’athist regime is run by a star chamber of shadowy characters who regard Assad as nothing but a figurehead.”

Amir Taheri (1942) Iranian journalist

Opinion: No, Bashar Al-Assad is no Joseph Stalin http://english.aawsat.com/2015/10/article55345413/opinion-no-bashar-al-assad-is-no-joseph-stalin, Ashraq Al-Awsat (16 Oct, 2015).

War , World , Law , Behavior

“This is the very contrary of dropping out. Most people can't wait to get home to their house or apartment and shut that door and turn on the TV. To me, that's dropping out.”

Leonard Cohen (1934–2016) Canadian poet and singer-songwriter

On his living at a Zen center, as quoted in Los Angeles Times (24 September 1995)

People , Home , Waiting , Housing

“I can hardly believe we are talking about a possibility so inconceivable as that other universes exist—and that the Geometers originate there!"
In this, Zh'vaern seemed to speak for the entire table.
Except for Jad. "The words fail. There is one universe, by the definition of universe. It is not the cosmos we see through our eyes and our telescopes—that is but a single Narrative, a thread winding through a Hemn space shared by many other Narratives besides ours. Each Narrative looks like a cosmos alone, to any consciousness that partakes of it. The Geometers came from other Narratives—until they came here, and joined ours."
Having dropped this bomb, Fraa Jad excused himself, and went to the toilet.
"What on earth is he going on about?" Fraa Lodoghir demanded. "It sounded like literary criticism!”

Neal Stephenson book Anathem

Part 10, "Messal"
Anathem (2008)

Universe

“[At an anti-vivisection demonstration]I went up to the ringleader, a tall, thin crusty with little braided beaded fussiness in his hair.'I can't express to you all just how diametrically opposed I am to what you're saying. I mean, this sounds like a rhetorical figure, but it's not - I really mean this: I would genuinely go into any field and kill every single horse, cow, goat, sheep, dog, cat, rabbit, gerbil, if I honestly believed in my heart for just one moment, just one moment, that it might be a bit of a laugh.' By now, I had the fellow's Oxfam lapels in my fists. 'BECAUSE I AM SO BORED AND TIRED OF EVERYTHING SINCE SHE LEFT!!'Dropping my head onto his bony vegan shoulder, I sobbed loud and long, in great, wracking heaves and gasps. When I finally ceased and straightened up, my hands were full of small, plastic lapel-badges.”

Robert Newman (1964) British comedian, born 1964

Dependence Day (1994).

Dogs , Cats , Heart , Horse

“It began to rain harder. The last snow was under attack by these heavy, wide-spaced drops. All that remained underfoot of months of frost and freezing was a light crust that crumbled as he walked. The sidewalk was soon completely washed by this slow, tenacious rain. Its smooth, shining surface reflected the midnight lights and tangles of naked branches.”

Gabrielle Roy book The Tin Flute

Source: The Tin Flute (1945), P. 210

Light

“Watching old movies is like spending an evening with those people next door. They bore us, and we wouldn't go out of our way to see them; we drop in on them because they're so close. If it took some effort to see old movies, we might try to find out which were the good ones, and if people saw only the good ones maybe they would still respect old movies. As it is, people sit and watch movies that audiences walked out on thirty years ago. Like Lot's wife, we are tempted to take another look, attracted not by evil but by something that seems much more shameful — our own innocence.”

Pauline Kael book Kiss Kiss Bang Bang

"Movies on Television".
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (1968)

People , Way , Effort , Evil

“Now that the dogs of war are calling for the head of Senator Al Franken I believe it is time to speak up on behalf of all heterosexual males. As a candidate for Governor let me save my opponents some research time. In my last fifty years I was sexually intimate with approximately 50 very attractive females. It ranged form a gorgeous personal secretary to Senator Bob Taft (Senior) who was my first true love and we made passionate love in the hayloft of her parents barn in Gallipolis and ended with a drop dead gorgeous red head who was senior advisor to Peter Lewis at Progressive Insurance in Cleveland.
Now can we get back to discussing legalizing marijuana and opening the state hospital network to combat the opioid crisis. I am sooooo disappointed by this national feeding frenzy about sexual indiscretions decades ago.
Peace.”

Bill O'Neill (1947) Ohio judge

Facebook post, 11-17-2017 AM

Love , War , Peace , Dogs

“Thare iz a grate deal ov charity in this world so koldly rendered that it fairly hurts, it iz like lifting a drowning man out ov the water bi the hair ov the hed, and then letting him drop on the ground.”

Josh Billings (1818–1885) American humorist

Josh Billings: His Works, Complete (1873)

World , Water , Hurt

“…he often wondered when exactly her feeling for him finally overwhelmed those she'd had for Kevin…
He wasn't sure; capturing a specific instant like that was no more possible than locating a specific drop of water in the ocean.”

Nicholas Sparks (1965) American writer and novelist

Travis Parker, Chapter 15, p. 193-194
2000s, The Choice (2007)

Feeling , Water

“In former days this maxim was displayed in Business Offices, "Call upon a Businessman, at business hours, on business only. Go about your business and thus enable him to finish his own business. This is purely a business matter." There are two reasons why some people don't mind their own business; one is that they haven't any mind and the other that they haven't any business. However, now the Businessman is plagued at all hours by a spate of visitors with no business in view, who just drop in for free information or hospitality and more often than not for contributions to all sorts of charities, often of doubtful flavour or unauthorised.”

Peter de Noronha (1897–1970) Indian businessman

Peter de Noronha, The Pageant of Life (1964), Pages 134-135,
The Pageant of Life (1964), Businessmen

People , Business

“I’m wide awake, I’ll drop you off for saying that, For days and two weeks, It was you who was defending such a lie, Oh what a lie, Was it a lie? ~ "Sense"”

Pete Yorn (1974) American musician

Song lyrics

Lie , Sense

“A woman who taught at Berkeley dropped in on me once and saw a book burning in the fireplace. She pointed at it in terror, and I explained that it was a crummy ghostwritten life of a movie star and that it was an act of sanitation to burn it rather than sending it out into the world which was already clogged with too many copies of it. But she said, "You shouldn’t burn books" and began to cry.”

Pauline Kael (1919–2001) American film critic

The New Republic, December 24, 1966

Life , Books , World , Star

“Alfie was an organizer. He would telephone the other kids a week before that first practice session (which he euphemistically called spring training), and he would knock on their doors the morning of, and they would look out the windows and say, "Hey, it's snowing," and he would say, "It's not snowing all that hard. See you in a half-hour." So we would gather our tired, cold bodies together, throw on our baseball clothes—old shirts, old pants, sneakers, old baseball gloves—and grab a couple of bats and scuffed-up balls, and we would pile onto the subway and ride to Van Cortland Park. We would run to make sure we'd be first to claim a ball field. Of course we were first. Nobody else was that crazy. My brother would direct practice for a couple of hours, batting practice, catching fungoes, fielding, practicing our curves and drops on the sidelines, fingers aching from contact with batted or thrown baseballs. We threw ourselves across that hard bone of a field so we would be ready when the spring suns finally thawed the ground at our feet. If the still-awake dreams of hunting lions in Africa were the peak moments of my night life, those frozen ball fields of February were the highlights of my days.”

Arnold Hano (1922) American writer

Recalling his late brother, from "Life with Alfie," https://books.google.com/books?id=PWEEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA233&dq=%22Alfie+was+an+organizer%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CBQQ6AEwAGoVChMIiqWJ2oHaxwIVipANCh2Utw2g#v=onepage&q=%22Alfie%20was%20an%20organizer%22&f=false in Orange Coast Magazine (November 1990), pp. 233–234
Other Topics

Life , Dreams , Spring , Sun

“I hated school, and dropped out of college. I got picked on a lot in school, and had a lot of trouble making friends.”

Bram Cohen (1975) American programmer, creator of BitTorrent

Hate , School

“The prototypical WASP is flabby in body and mind. He is fearful and easily cowed. He erupts in tears at a drop of a hat. He is gripped by the culture of apology, and flagellates over sins he has not committed. His eternal state of expiation is driven not by goodness, but by insufferable self-righteousness.”

Ilana Mercer South African writer

“Sacrificing Kids to PC Pietism,” http://www.ilanamercer.com/phprunner/public_article_list_view.php?editid1=607 WorldNetDaily.com, July 1, 2011.
2010s, 2011

Fear , Tear

“Old hates lie in wait for the infant
till he grows into a man.
Then they leap upon him
when he puts his father's coat on.
When the father's bones drop into the grave,
the lice flock up as the dark earth turns,
to feed on a son's guilt-love.

No man can look in his son's face,
for what was done to him, he does in turn,
and he carries the hate in his blood;
ghosts of times forgotten,
tragedies unseen, unspoken,wait in the past's proud flesh,
and nothing will shake them off.”

Jane Roberts (1929–1984) American Writer

Source: The God of Jane: A Psychic Manifesto (1981), p. 28

Love , Hate , Lie , Time

“Just slip out the back, Jack, make a new plan, Stan
Don't need to be coy, Roy, just listen to me
Hop on the bus, Gus, don't need to discuss much
Just drop off the key, Lee, and get yourself free.”

Paul Simon (1941) American musician, songwriter and producer

50 Ways to Leave Your Lover
Song lyrics, Still Crazy After All These Years (1975)

“According to Eshin's "Essentials of Salvation," the Ten Pleasures are but a drop in the ocean when compared to the joys of the Pure Land.”

Yukio Mishima (1925–1970) Japanese author

"The Priest of Shiga Temple and His Love" in Death in Midsummer, and Other Stories (1966), p. 59.

Pleasure , Joy

“My school was a happy place. All of us who started our schooling there completed our studies till the eighth standard. I don't remember even a single person dropping out. These days, when i visit schools, both big and small, all across the country, i tell them that true quality does not come from a great building or great facilities or great advertisements. It happens when education is imparted with love by great teachers.”

A. P. J. Abdul Kalam (1931–2015) 11th President of India, scientist and science administrator

My Journey: Transforming Dreams into Actions

Love , Education , School , Study

“What was this dream we had, a dream of music,
Music that rose from the opening earth like magic
And shook its beauty upon us and died away?
The long cold streets extend once more before us.
The red sun drops, the walls grow grey.”

Conrad Aiken (1889–1973) American novelist and poet

The House of Dust (1916 - 1917)

Beauty , Dreams , Music , Sun

“Once there ruled in the distant city of Wirani a king who was both mighty and wise. And he was feared for his might and loved for his wisdom. Now, in the heart of that city was a well, whose water was cool and crystalline, from which all the inhabitants drank, even the king and his courtiers; for there was no other well. One night when all were asleep, a witch entered the city, and poured seven drops of strange liquid into the well, and said, “From this hour he who drinks this water shall become mad.” Next morning all the inhabitants, save the king and his lord chamberlain, drank from the well and became mad, even as the witch had foretold. And during that day the people in the narrow streets and in the market places did naught but whisper to one another, “The king is mad. Our king and his lord chamberlain have lost their reason. Surely we cannot be ruled by a mad king. We must dethrone him.” That evening the king ordered a golden goblet to be filled from the well. And when it was brought to him he drank deeply, and gave it to his lord chamberlain to drink. And there was great rejoicing in that distant city of Wirani, because its king and its lord chamberlain had regained their reason.”

Khalil Gibran (1883–1931) Lebanese artist, poet, and writer

The Madman (1918)

Love , Wisdom , People , Fear

“Once after a dinner party, Gregory Peck and I drove Fred Astaire home. Fred lived in a colonial house that had a long porch with many pillars. When we dropped him off, he danced along the whole front porch, then opened the door, tipped his hat to us, and disappeared. Wow! Greg and I couldn't speak for a few minutes. It was a beautiful way to say thank you.”

Fred Astaire (1899–1987) American dancer, singer, actor, choreographer and television presenter

Kirk Douglas in Douglas, Kirk. Let's Face It. Wiley, 2007. ISBN 9780470084694, p. 26.

Beauty , Way , Home , Dance

“And we learn this truth from His sight: That all we taste, in comparison with that which remains out of our reach, Is no more than a single drop of water compared with the whole sea…. We hunger for God’s Infinity, which we cannot devour, And we aspire to His Eternity, which we cannot attain…. In this storm of love, our activity is above reason and is in no wise. Love desires that which is impossible to her; And reason teaches that love is within her rights, but can neither counsel nor persuade her.”

John Ruysbroeck (1293–1381) Flemish mystic

The Sparkling Stone (c. 1340)

Love , Hunger , God , Truth

“The Slav is never able to build anything himself. In the long run, he's not capable of it. I'll come back to this later. With the exception of a few phenomena produced by Asia every couple of centuries, through that mixture of two heredities which may be fortunate for Asia but is unfortunate for us Europeans — with the exception, therefore, of an Attilla, a Ghenghis Khan, a Tamerlaine, a Lenin, a Stalin — the mixed race of the Slavs is based on a sub-race with a few drops of blood of our blood, blood of a leading race; the Slav is unable to control himself and create order. He is able to argue, able to debate, able to disintegrate, able to offer resistance against every authority and to revolt. But these human shoddy goods are just as incapable of maintaining order today as they were 700 or 800 years ago, when they called in the Varangians, when they called in the Ruriks.”

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

The Posen speech to SS officers (6 October 1943)
1940s

“Taxation is nothing but organized robbery, and there the subject should be dropped.”

Frank Chodorov (1887–1966) American libertarian thinker

Source: The Economics of Society, Government, and State (1946), p. 116.

“It is my opinion, that this kingdom has no right to lay a tax upon the colonies. At the same time I assert the authority of this kingdom over the colonies to be sovereign and supreme in every circumstance of Government and legislation whatsoever. The colonists are the subjects of this kingdom, equally entitled with yourselves to all the natural rights of mankind and the peculiar privileges of Englishmen… The Americans are the sons, not the bastards, of England. Taxation is no part of the governing or legislative power… When, therefore, in this House we give and grant, we give and grant what is our own. But in an American tax, what do we do? We, your Majesty's Commons for Great Britain, give and grant to your Majesty,— what? Our own property?— No! We give and grant to your Majesty, the property of your Majesty's Commons of America… The distinction between legislation and taxation is essentially necessary to liberty… There is an idea in some, that the colonies are virtually represented in this House… Is he represented by any knight of the shire, in any county in this kingdom?… Or will you tell him that he is represented by any representative of a borough?— a borough which perhaps its own representatives never saw.— This is what is called the rotten part of the constitution. It cannot continue a century. If it does not drop, it must be amputated… I rejoice that America has resisted. Three millions of people so dead to all the feelings of liberty, as voluntarily to let themselves be made slaves, would have been fit instruments to make slaves of all the rest… The gentleman asks, When were the colonies emancipated? I desire to know when were they made slaves?”

William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham (1708–1778) British politician

Speech in the House of Commons on the Stamp Act (14 January 1766), quoted in William Pitt, The Speeches of the Right Honourable the Earl of Chatham in the Houses of Lords and Commons: With a Biographical Memoir and Introductions and Explanatory Notes to the Speeches (London: Aylott & Jones, 1848), pp. 71-6.

People , Feeling , Idea , Nature

“On the tongue of such an one they shed a honeyed dew, and from his lips drop gentle words.”

Hesiod Greek poet

Source: The Theogony (c. 700 BC), line 82.

“Doctors is all swabs…and that doctor there, why, what do he know about seafaring men? I been in places hot as pitch, and mates dropping round with Yellow Jack, and the blessed land a-heaving like the sea with earthquakes — what do the doctor know of lands like that?”

Robert Louis Stevenson book Treasure Island

and I lived on rum, I tell you.
Source: Treasure Island (1883), Ch. 3, The Black Spot.

Men , Sea

““…The temple of Nagarkot, which is outside the city, was taken at the very outset… On this occasion many mountaineers became food for the flashing sword. And that golden umbrella, which was erected on the top of the cupola of the temple, they riddled with arrows… And black cows, to the number of 200, to which they pay boundless respect, and actually worship, and present to the temple, which they look upon as an asylum, and let loose there, were killed by the Musulmans. And, while arrows and bullets were continually falling like drops of rain, through their zeal and excessive hatred of idolatry they filled their shoes full of blood and threw it on the doors and walls of the temple… the army of Husain Quli Khan was suffering great hardships. For these reasons he concluded a treaty with them… and having put all things straight he built the cupola of a lofty mosque over the gateway of Rajah Jai Chand.”186”

`Abd al-Qadir Bada'uni book Muntakhab-ut-Tawarikh

Jalalu’d-Din Muhammad Akbar Padshah Ghazi (AD 1556-1605) Nagarkot Kangra (Himachal Pradesh)
Muntakhab-ut-Tawarikh

Food , Shoe , Mountain , Suffering

“To him… who had examined the laws of light merely in a drop of water, the brilliant phenomenon of the rainbow would be totally unintelligible.”

Adolphe Quetelet (1796–1874) Belgian astronomer, mathematician, statistician and sociologist

Introductory
A Treatise on Man and the Development of His Faculties (1842)

Law , Light , Water

“Mark how fleeting and paltry is the estate of man - yesterday in embryo, tomorrow a mummy or ashes. So for the hairsbreadth of time assigned to thee, live rationally, and part with life cheerfully, as drops the ripe olive, extolling the season that bore it and the tree that matured it.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

IV, 48
Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book IV

Life , Tree , Time , Parting

“A scrimmage in a Border Station—
A canter down some dark defile—
Two thousand pounds of education
Drops to a ten-rupee jezail—
The Crammer's boast, the Squadron's pride,
Shot like a rabbit in a ride!”

Rudyard Kipling Arithmetic on the Frontier

Arithmetic on the Frontier, Stanza 3.
Departmental Ditties and other Verses (1886)

Education

“This does not mean that scientists can't be religious. We can encompass irrational beliefs without regret and without obligation—I can, actually, look at my kids in a different way than I would an experimental subject under my microscope. I also do not pretend that I view my children rationally and objectively, untainted by emotion or history, and I'm not ashamed of that at all. So, a scientist should have no problem demanding one standard of logic and evidence in the lab, and dropping that demand when they go to church on Sunday.”

PZ Myers (1957) American scientist and associate professor of biology

An essay talking about religious scientists: * http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2006/06/what_should_a_scientist_think.php
What should a scientist think about religion?
Pharyngula
2006-06-29

Children , Way , History , Problem

“Each member of the corner gang has his own position in the gang structure. Although the positions may remain unchanged over long periods of time, they should not be conceived in static terms. To have a position means that the individual has a customary way of interacting with other members of the group. When the pattern of interactions changes, the positions change. The positions of the members are interdependent, and one position cannot change without causing some adjustments in the other positions. Since the group is organized around the men with the top positions, some of the men with low standing may change positions or drop out without upsetting the balance of the group. For example, when Lou Danaro and Fred Mackey stopped participating in the activities of the Nortons, those activities continued to be organized in much the same manner as before, but when Doc and Danny dropped out, the Nortons disintegrated…”

William Foote Whyte book Street Corner Society

Source: Street Corner Society, 1943, pp. 255-63, as cited in: Mercer (1958, p. 39)

Men , Way , Change , Time

“Let opening roses knotted oaks adorn,
And liquid amber drop from every thorn.”

Alexander Pope Pastorals

Autumn, line 36.
Pastorals (1709)

“We had an inspection today of the brigade. The Twenty-third was pronounced the crack regiment in appearance, … [but] I could see only six to ten in a company of the old men. They all smiled as I rode by. But as I passed away I couldn’t help dropping a few natural tears. I felt as I did when I saw them mustered in at Camp Chase.”

Rutherford B. Hayes (1822–1893) American politician, 19th President of the United States (in office from 1877 to 1881)

Letter to Lucy Webb Hayes (17 December 1864)
Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1922 - 1926)

Men , Smile , Nature , Tear

“At length their long kiss severed, with sweet smart:
And as the last slow sudden drops are shed
From sparkling eaves when all the storm has fled,
So singly flagged the pulses of each heart.”

Dante Gabriel Rossetti The House of Life

Nuptial Sleep.
The House of Life (1870—1881)

Kiss , Heart

“In the interior of the atom, Bohr had tried the plan of retaining the particle-electron and modifying the classical mechanics. Heisenberg took the opposite course, his procedure amounting in effect to retaining the classical mechanics, at least in form, and modifying the electron. Actually, the electron dropped out all together, because it exists only as a matter of inference and not of direct observation. For the same reason, the new theory contains no mention of atoms, nuclei, protons, or of electricity in any shape or form. The existences of all these are matters of inference, and Heisenberg's purely mathematical theory could no more make contact with them than with the efficiency of a turbine or with the price of wheat.”

James Jeans (1877–1946) British mathematician and astronomer

Physics and Philosophy (1942)

Mathematics

“Just why are we so poor? Why can I never sleep at night? Because bombs keep dropping! Why does my mother have to torture herself like that? Why didn't anyone give my dad a break? Why is there a war? Why? Why? Why?”

Klaus Kinski (1926–1991) German actor

On his childhood. p. 40
Kinski Uncut : The Autobiography of Klaus Kinski (1996)

War , Sleep , Night

“I don’t know if you have had the same experience, but a thing I have found in life is that from time to time, as you jog along, there occur moments which you are able to recognize immediately with the naked eye as high spots. Something tells you that they are going to remain etched, if etched is the word I want, for ever on the memory and will come back to you at intervals down the years, as you are dropping off to sleep, banishing that drowsy feeling and causing you to leap on the pillow like a gaffed salmon.”

P.G. Wodehouse book The Code of the Woosters

The Code of the Woosters (1938)

Life , Feeling , Sleep , Memory

“Mr. Lévesque was saying that part of my name was Elliott and since Elliot was an English name, it was perfectly understandable that I was for the No side, because, really, you see, I was not as much of a Quebecer as those who are going to vote Yes. That, my dear friends, is what contempt is…. It means saying that the Quebecers on the No side are not as good Quebecers as the others and perhaps they have a drop or two of foreign blood, while the people on the Yes side have pure blood in their veins.… Of course my name is Pierre Elliott Trudeau. Yes, Elliott was my mother's name. It was the name borne by the Elliotts who came to Canada more than 200 years ago. It is the name of the Elliotts who, more than 100 years ago, settled in Saint-Gabriel de Brandon, where you can still see their graves in the cemetery. That is what the Elliotts are. My name is a Quebec name — but my name is a Canadian name also.”

Pierre Trudeau (1919–2000) 15th Prime Minister of Canada

Speech in Paul Sauvé Arena, Montreal, Quebec, six days before the Quebec referendum on independence. (14 May 1980)

People , Understanding , Parting

“The hooded clouds, like friars,
Tell their beads in drops of rain.”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) American poet

Midnight Mass, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

“When the Twin Towers collapsed do you know what was in the basement? […] Lots of gold. Do you know where it is? […] Nobody does. It disappeared. Did those buildings drop down to cover a great crime being committed? Somebody is taking all this gold out of the Twin Tower basement. Makes you wonder.”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

3 April 2006
Truth Radio

“And the poor in their fireless lodgings, dropping the sheets
Of the evening paper: "Our day is our loss, O show us
History the operator, the
Organiser, Time the refreshing river." And the nations combine each cry, invoking the life
That shapes the individual belly and orders
The private nocturnal terror:
"Did you not found the city state of the sponge,"Raise the vast military empires of the shark
And the tiger, establish the robin's plucky canton?
Intervene. Descend as a dove or
A furious papa or a mild engineer, but descend."”

W. H. Auden book Spain

Source: Spain (1937), Lines 33–44

Life , History , Loss , Time

“Our technological revolution is quickly making degrees irrelevant for many of even the top jobs. Bill Gates didn’t graduate from college. Tumblr founder David Karp dropped out of high school. So did blip. tv founder Mike Hudack. Dropping out of the standard school curriculum is not a dead end if it leads you toward a trade where you can earn a living and be proud of your achievements.”

John Carney

" What Obama Should Have Told The Kids Today http://www.businessinsider.com/john-carney-what-obama-should-have-told-the-kids-today-2009-9," The Business Insider magazine, 8 September 2009.

School , Dead

“He'd learned that the object of a school fight was not to gain points for style but to force your enemy to give in, which meant hurting him more than he was hurting you. He knew that you had to be willing to hurt someone else, too, and he'd found out that not many people were, when it came to it; but he knew that he was.
So this wasn't unfamiliar to him, but he hadn't fought against a nearly grown man armed with a knife before, and at all costs he must keep the man from picking it up now that he'd dropped it.”

Philip Pullman His Dark Materials trilogy

Source: His Dark Materials, The Subtle Knife (1997), Ch. 8 : The Tower of the Angels

People , School , Learning , Fight

“Manchester United dropped points, Liverpool dropped points, Chelsea dropped points, Everton dropped points, so in a way we haven't lost anything at all really, although we dropped all three.”

Bobby Robson (1933–2009) English association football player and manager

"Sir Bobby Robson: his most memorable quotes," 2009

Way

“Questions and answers click into each other like cogs of a machine. Each person has nothing but quite definite tasks. The various professions are concentrated at definite places. One eats while in motion. Amusements are concentrated in other parts of the city. And elsewhere again are the towers to which one returns and finds wife, family, gramophone, and soul. Tension and relaxation, activity and love are meticulously kept separate in time and are weighed out according to formulae arrived at in extensive laboratory work. If during any of these activities one runs up against a difficulty, one simply drops the whole thing; for one will find another thing or perhaps, later on, a better way, or someone else will find the way that one has missed. It does not matter in the least, but nothing wastes so much communal energy as the presumption that one is called upon not to let go of a definite personal aim. In a community with energies constantly flowing through it, every road leads to a good goal, if one does not spend too much time hesitating and thinking it over. The targets are set up at a short distance, but life is short too, and in this way one gets a maximum of achievement out of it. And man needs no more for his happiness; for what one achieves is what moulds the spirit, whereas what one wants, without fulfillment, only warps it. So far as happiness is concerned it matters very little what one wants; the main thing is that one should get it. Besides, zoology makes it clear that a sum of reduced individuals may very well form a totality of genius.”

Robert Musil book The Man Without Qualities

The Man Without Qualities (1930–1942)

Love , Life , Family , Way

“The Brahmins are a dynasty and a caste. Brahma is the sun and its rays Brahmins. The Brahmans left the mouth of God as the purest of their verbs, and the Sudras were born from the feet, as the vilest dust. It is not for the sudra or touch the outcast Brahmins, is not given as the roots touch the flowers, or the sole of the foot touching the mouth. The hands that touch the outcast Brahmin in print in him the indelible stamp of hell, the purity of the Brahmin is like the dew drop on the sheet, which only disappears forever when you touch him.”

Francisco Luís Gomes (1829–1869) Indo-Portuguese physician, writer, historian, economist, political scientist and MP in the Portuguese parli…

Os Brâmanes, p. 474
Os Brâmanes (1866)

God , Flowers , Hell , Sun

“Sometimes goldfinches one by one will drop
From low hung branches; little space they stop;
But sip, and twitter, and their feathers sleek;
Then off at once, as in a wanton freak:
Or perhaps, to show their black, and golden wings
Pausing upon their yellow flutterings.”

John Keats (1795–1821) English Romantic poet

"I Stood Tiptoe", l. 87
Poems (1817)

“They went by daily marches through the hills, from stage to stage, and when they arrived at their destination at early dawn they surrounded Kambayat and the idolaters were awakened from their sleepy state of carelessness and were taken by surprise, not knowing where to go, and mothers forgot their children and dropped them from their embrace. The Muhammadan forces began to 'kill and slaughter on the right and on the left unmercifully, throughout the impure land, for the sake of Islam,' and blood flowed in torrents. They plundered gold and silver to an extent greater than can be conceived, and an immense number of brilliant precious stones, such as pearls, diamonds, rubies, and emeralds, etc. as well as a great variety of cloths, both silk and cotton, stamped, embroidered, and coloured.”

Alauddin Khalji (1266–1316) Ruler of the Khalji dynasty

Elliot and Dowson, Vol. III : Elliot and Dowson, History of India as told by its own Historians, 8 Volumes, Allahabad Reprint, 1964. pp. 43 Also quoted in Jain, Meenakshi (2011). The India they saw: Foreign accounts.
Quotes from The History of India as told by its own Historians

Children , Clothes

“The smallest effort is not lost,
Each wavelet on the ocean tost
Aids in the ebb-tide or the flow;
Each rain-drop makes some floweret blow;
Each struggle lessens human woe.”

Charles Mackay (1814–1889) British writer

"The Old and the New".
Voices from the Crowd, and Town Lyrics (1857)

Effort

“Well, it wasn’t that I sought out voice acting. I started in the voice world because at puberty I went from a very high voice to drop down to what’s considered “an announcer voice.” And so I said, I’ve got this “announcer voice,” so I’ll go into broadcasting. And so I went to college and majored in radio and TV, and minored in theater. As time went on, I got more interested in the less regimented and more creative world of theater as opposed to broadcasting. I got my degree, but I decided that I wanted to be an actor.”

Rodger Bumpass (1951) American character actor and voice actor

World , Time

“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]

“The moon, full-orbed, forsakes her watery cave,
And lifts her lovely head above the wave;
The snowy splendours of her modest ray
Stream o'er the glistening waves, and quivering play;
Around her, glittering on the heaven's arched brow,
Unnumbered stars, enclosed in azure, glow,
Thick as the dew-drops of the April dawn,
Or May-flowers crowding o'er the daisy lawn;
The canvas whitens in the silvery beam,
And with a mild pale-red the pendants gleam;
The masts' tall shadows tremble o'er the deep;
The peaceful winds a holy silence keep;
The watchman's carol, echoed from the prows,
Alone, at times, awakes the still repose.”

William Julius Mickle (1734–1788) British writer

Book I, lines 417–430 (pp. 23–24)
The Lusiad; Or, The Discovery of India: an Epic Poem (1776)

Love , Peace , Star , Flowers

“Al-Harith bin Hisham asked Allah’s Apostle O Allah’s Messenger How is the Divine Inspiration revealed to you? Allah’s Messenger replied, Sometimes it is like the ringing of a bell, this form of Inspiration is the hardest of all and then this state passes off after I have grasped what is inspired. Sometimes the Angel comes in the form of a man and talks to me and I grasp whatever he says. Aisha added: Verily I saw the Prophet being inspired Divinely on a very cold day and noticed the Sweat dropping from his forehead.”

Aisha (605–678) Muhammad's wife

Sahih Bukhari vol 1 book 1 hadith 2

Angels

“Disciple: The truth be praised! Dear Lord, tell me, does anything (of this self) still remain in the happy, detached person?
Truth: Without a doubt it happens that, when the good and loyal servant is led into the joy of his Lord, he becomes drunk from the limitless overabundance of God's house. What happens to a drunken man happens to him, though it cannot really be described, that he so forgets his self that he is not at all his self and consequently has got rid of his self completely and lost himself entirely in God, becoming one spirit in all ways with him, just as a small drop of water does which has been dropped into a large amount of wine. Just as the drop of water loses itself, drawing the taste and colour of the wine to and into itself, so it happens that those who are in full possession of blessedness lose all human desires in an inexpressible manner, and they ebb away from themselves and are immersed completely in the divine will. Otherwise, if something of the individual were to remain of which he or she were not completely emptied, scripture could not be true in stating that God shall When the good and loyal servant is led into the joy of his Lord, he becomes drunk from the limitless overabundance of God's house. What happens to a drunken man happens to him, though it cannot really be described, that he so forgets his self that he is not at all his self become all things in all things. Certainly one's being remains, but in a different form, in a different resplendence, and in a different power. This is all the result of total detachment from self.”

Henry Suso (1295–1366) Dominican friar and mystic

The Exemplar, The Little Book of Truth

God , Truth , Way , Water

“When they see us coming, the birdies all try an' hide,
But they still go for peanuts when coated with cyanide.
My pulse will be quickenin',
With each drop of strych-a-nine,
We feed to a pigeon
it just takes a smidgen
To poison a pigeon in the park.”

Tom Lehrer (1928) American singer-songwriter and mathematician

"Poisoning Pigeons in the Park"
An Evening (Wasted) With Tom Lehrer (1959)

“Next time you’re at a swanky cocktail party and you want to impress somebody, try dropping Manson’s law of avoidance on them:
The more something threatens your identity, the more you will avoid it.”

Mark Manson (1984) American writer and blogger

Source: The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck (2016), Chapter 6, “You’re Wrong About Everything (But So Am I)” (p. 136)

Law , Time

“The development of air power in its broadest sense, and including the development of all means of combating missiles that travel through the air, whether fired or dropped, is the first essential to our survival in war.”

Hugh Trenchard, 1st Viscount Trenchard (1873–1956) Royal Flying Corps commander and first Royal Air Force Chief of the Air Staff

Given by Trenchard in 1946. As listed on Skygod.com - Great Aviation Quotes http://www.skygod.com/quotes/airpower.html

War , Travel , Sense

“I have heard the mavis singing
Its love-song to the morn;
I've seen the dew-drop clinging
To the rose just newly born.”

Charles Jefferys (1807–1865) British music publisher

Mary of Argyle, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Love , Singing

“"That's what Jagulars always do", said Pooh, much interested. "They call 'Help! Help!' and then when you look up, they drop on you."”

A.A. Milne book The House at Pooh Corner

The House at Pooh Corner (1928)

Help

“Playing the lottery is gambling, and I'm not a gambler. I assessed my life, knew I wanted to become a successful writer, and believed that I had a winner for a story. All I imagined was getting a huge publishing deal and attending the premier of my movie. In fact, every time my wife and I went to the movies, I'd tell her that, one day, we'll be in a theater in Hollywood watching MEG. Does that mean that I wasn't scared? Of course not. The process is similar to crawling out on a limb of a very high tree. You know you're out there and that it's a huge drop if you fall. Out along the weakest branches grows the fruit. If you really intend on making it all the way out to the fruit, you can't hold onto the trunk, you have to let go. At the same time, you have to be smart enough not to look down (negatives), which, of course, everyone you know is screaming at you to do. If you don't want to fall, then keep looking at the fruit. This all may sound hooky, but it works and it's how I've chosen to live my life, ever since I was 13 years old.”

Steve Alten (1959) American writer

Interview with Steve Alten http://www.screenwritersutopia.com/article/d14867f2 (March 11th, 2004)

Life , Way , Imagination , Tree

“From that time, the universe has steadily become more complex and less reducible to a central control. With as much obstinacy as though it were human, it has insisted on expanding its parts; with as much elusiveness as though it were feminine, it has evaded the attempt to impose on it a single will. Modern science, like modern art, tends, in practice, to drop the dogma of organic unity. Some of the mediaeval habit of mind survives, but even that is said to be yielding before the daily evidence of increasing and extending complexity. The fault, then, was not in man, if he no longer looked at science or art as an organic whole or as the expression of unity. Unity turned itself into complexity, multiplicity, variety, and even contradiction.”

Henry Adams (1838–1918) journalist, historian, academic, novelist

Mont Saint Michel and Chartres (1904)

Art , Universe , Science , Time

“The ambassador [of Russia] and the grandees who accompanied him were so gorgeous that all London crowded to stare at them, and so filthy that nobody dared to touch them. They came to the court balls dropping pearls and vermin.”

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

Vol. V, ch. 23
History of England (1849–1861)

“Come not, when I am dead,
To drop thy foolish tears upon my grave,
To trample round my fallen head,
And vex the unhappy dust thou wouldst not save.
There let the wind sweep and the plover cry;
But thou, go by.

Child, if it were thine error or thy crime
I care no longer, being all unblest:
Wed whom thou wilt, but I am sick of Time,
And I desire to rest.
Pass on, weak heart, and leave me where I lie:
Go by, go by.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892) British poet laureate

"Come not, when I am dead" (1850)

Lie , Error , Tear , Wedding

“At the earlier briefing, Ari, you said that the President deplored the taking of innocent lives. Does that apply to all innocent lives in the world? And I have a follow-up… My follow-up is, why does he want to drop bombs on innocent Iraqis? …”

Helen Thomas (1920–2013) American author and journalist

White House briefing, 2003-01-06.

World

“However closely we may associate thought with the physical machinery of the brain, the connection is dropped as irrelevant as soon as we consider the fundamental property of thought—that it may be correct or incorrect. …that involves recognising a domain of the other type of law—laws which ought to be kept, but may be broken.”

Arthur Stanley Eddington (1882–1944) British astrophysicist

Science and the Unseen World (1929)
Context: However closely we may associate thought with the physical machinery of the brain, the connection is dropped as irrelevant as soon as we consider the fundamental property of thought—that it may be correct or incorrect.... that involves recognising a domain of the other type of law—laws which ought to be kept, but may be broken.<!--V, p.57-58

Law

“Sixteen hours ago an American airplane dropped one bomb on Hiroshima and destroyed its usefulness to the enemy.”

Harry Truman (1884–1972) American politician, 33rd president of the United States (in office from 1945 to 1953)

Announcing the Bombing of Hiroshima (1945)
Context: Sixteen hours ago an American airplane dropped one bomb on Hiroshima and destroyed its usefulness to the enemy. That bomb had more power than 20,000 tons of TNT. It had more than two thousand times the blast power of the British "Grand Slam" which is the largest bomb ever yet used in the history of warfare.
The Japanese began the war from the air at Pearl Harbor. They have been repaid many fold. And the end is not yet.

“The beloved does not drink a single drop of water without seeing His Face in the cup.”

Mansur Al-Hallaj (858–922) Persian mystic, revolutionary writer and teacher of Sufism

As quoted in Mystical Dimensions of Islam http://uncpress.unc.edu/browse/book_detail?title_id=583 (1978) by Annemarie Schimmel
Context: The beloved does not drink a single drop of water without seeing His Face in the cup. Allah is He Who flows between the pericardium and the heart, just as the tears flow from the eyelids.

Drink , Water

“I have not one drop of blood in my veins but what is American.”

John Adams (1735–1826) 2nd President of the United States

To an ambassador (1785), as quoted in The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: Autobiography http://books.google.com/books?id=lWcsAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA392 (1851), by Charles F. Adams, p. 392.
1780s
Context: Neither my father or mother, grandfather or grandmother, great grandfather or great grandmother, nor any other relation that I know of, or care a farthing for, has been in England these one hundred and fifty years; so that you see I have not one drop of blood in my veins but what is American.

“The market is not finished. The market still has over nine thousand points to drop.”

Stephen Colbert (1964) American political satirist, writer, comedian, television host, and actor

On the Financial crisis of 2008 The Colbert Report (6 October 2008)
Context: The market is not finished. The market still has over nine thousand points to drop. We'll get to Christmas at least.

“I think the government should be spying on all Arabs, engaging in torture as a televised spectator sport, dropping daisy cutters wantonly throughout the Middle East and sending liberals to Guantanamo.”

Ann Coulter (1961) author, political commentator

2005
Context: I think the government should be spying on all Arabs, engaging in torture as a televised spectator sport, dropping daisy cutters wantonly throughout the Middle East and sending liberals to Guantanamo.
But if we must engage in a national debate on half-measures: After 9-11, any president who was not spying on people calling phone numbers associated with terrorists should be impeached for being an inept commander in chief.
With a huge gaping hole in lower Manhattan, I'm not sure why we have to keep reminding people, but we are at war. (Perhaps it's because of the media blackout on images of the 9-11 attack. We're not allowed to see those because seeing planes plowing into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon might make us feel angry and jingoistic.)
Among the things that war entails are: killing people (sometimes innocent), destroying buildings (sometimes innocent) and spying on people (sometimes innocent).
That is why war is a bad thing. But once a war starts, it is going to be finished one way or another, and I have a preference for it coming out one way rather than the other.

Thinking , Sport

“She clad herself in a russet gown,
She was no longer Lady Clare:
She went by dale, and she went by down,
With a single rose in her hair.

The lily-white doe Lord Ronald had brought
Leapt up from where she lay.
Dropped her head in the maiden's hand.
And followed her all the way.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson Lady Clare

Lady Clare (1842)

Way

“I don't mind anybody dropping out of anything, but it's the imposition on somebody else I don't like.”

George Harrison (1943–2001) British musician, former member of the Beatles

Quoted in Dark Horse: The Life and Art of George Harrison, Geoffrey Giuliano, Da Capo Press, , p. 80. http://books.google.com/books?id=0PLygywwfL8C&pg=PA80&dq=if+you+drop+out+you+put+yourself+further+away+from+the+goal+of+life+than+if+you+were+to+keep+working&hl=en&sa=X&ei=0a6NT_nKD6PC2QX434mQDA&ved=0CDAQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=if%20you%20drop%20out%20you%20put%20yourself%20further%20away%20from%20the%20goal%20of%20life%20than%20if%20you%20were%20to%20keep%20working&f=false
Context: I don't mind anybody dropping out of anything, but it's the imposition on somebody else I don't like. The moment you start dropping out and then begging off somebody else to help you, then it's no good. It doesn't matter what you are as long as you work. It doesn't matter if you chop wood as long as you chop and keep chopping. Then you get what's coming to you. You don't have to drop out. In fact, if you drop out you put yourself further away from the goal of life than if you were to keep working.

“There is no “how to drop it”, because that is only another form of continuity. To drop opinion, belief, attachment, greed, or envy is to die — to die every day, every moment. If there is the coming to an end of all ambition from moment to moment, then you will know the extraordinary state of being nothing, of coming to the abyss of an eternal movement, as it were, and dropping over the edge — which is death.”

Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895–1986) Indian spiritual philosopher

Vol. XI, p. 242
Posthumous publications, The Collected Works
Context: When death comes, it does not ask your permission; it comes and takes you; it destroys you on the spot. In the same way, can you totally drop hate, envy, pride of possession, attachment to beliefs, to opinions, to ideas, to a particular way of thinking? Can you drop all that in an instant? There is no “how to drop it”, because that is only another form of continuity. To drop opinion, belief, attachment, greed, or envy is to die — to die every day, every moment. If there is the coming to an end of all ambition from moment to moment, then you will know the extraordinary state of being nothing, of coming to the abyss of an eternal movement, as it were, and dropping over the edge — which is death. I want to know all about death, because death may be reality; it may be what we call God — that most extraordinary something that lives and moves and yet has no beginning and no end.

Death , Envy

“I have been a course, I have been an eagle.
I have been a coracle in the seas:
I have been compliant in the banquet.
I have been a drop in a shower;
I have been a sword in the grasp of the hand
I have been a shield in battle.
I have been a string in a harp,
Disguised for nine years,
in water, in foam.
I have been sponge in the fire,
I have been wood in the covert”

Taliesin (534–599) Welsh bard

Book of Taliesin (c. 1275?), The Battle of the Trees

Water , Sea

“The moment when a man's head drops off is seldom or never, I am inclined to think, precisely the most agreeable of his life.”

Nathaniel Hawthorne book The Scarlet Letter

Introduction: The Custom-House
The Scarlet Letter (1850)
Context: The moment when a man's head drops off is seldom or never, I am inclined to think, precisely the most agreeable of his life. Nevertheless, like the greater part of our misfortunes, even so serious a contingency brings its remedy and consolation with it, if the sufferer will but make the best, rather than the worst, of the accident which has befallen him.

Life , Thinking

“Schooling, which we engage in and which supposedly creates equal opportunities, has become the unique, never-before-attempted way of dividing the whole society into classes. Everybody knows at which level of his twelve or sixteen years of schooling he has dropped out, and in addition knows what price tag is attached to the higher schooling he has gotten. It's a history of degrading the majority of people.”

Ivan Illich (1926–2002) austrian philosopher and theologist

We the People interview (1996)
Context: The latent function of schooling, that is, the hidden curriculum, which forms individuals into needy people who know that they have now satisfied a little bit of their needs for education, is much more important... The idea that people are born with needs, that needs can be translated into rights, that these rights can be translated into entitlements, is a development of the modem world and it's reasonable, it's acceptable, it's obvious only for people who have had some of their educational needs awakened or created, then satisfied, and then learned that they have less than others. Schooling, which we engage in and which supposedly creates equal opportunities, has become the unique, never-before-attempted way of dividing the whole society into classes. Everybody knows at which level of his twelve or sixteen years of schooling he has dropped out, and in addition knows what price tag is attached to the higher schooling he has gotten. It's a history of degrading the majority of people.

People , School , Way , History

“I, who said forty years ago that we should have had Socialism already but for the Socialists, am quite willing to drop the name if dropping it will help me to get the thing.”

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright

The Intelligent Woman's Guide To Socialism, Capitalism, Sovietism, and Fascism (1928)
1920s
Context: It is far more likely that by the time nationalization has become the rule, and private enterprise the exception, Socialism (which is really rather a bad name for the business) will be spoken of, if at all, as a crazy religion held by a fanatical sect in that darkest of dark ages, the nineteenth century. Already, indeed, I am told that Socialism has had its day, and that the sooner we stop talking nonsense about it and set to work, like the practical people we are, to nationalize the coal mines and complete a national electrification scheme, the better. And I, who said forty years ago that we should have had Socialism already but for the Socialists, am quite willing to drop the name if dropping it will help me to get the thing. What I meant by my jibe at the Socialists of the eighteen-eighties was that nothing is ever done, and much is prevented, by people who do not realize that they cannot do everything at once.

Help

“No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man's and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. With infinite complacency men went to and fro over this globe about their little affairs, serene in their assurance of their empire over matter. It is possible that the infusoria under the microscope do the same”

H. G. Wells book The War of the Worlds

Book I, Ch. 1: The Eve of the War
The War of the Worlds (1898)
Context: No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man's and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. With infinite complacency men went to and fro over this globe about their little affairs, serene in their assurance of their empire over matter. It is possible that the infusoria under the microscope do the same... Yet, across the gulf of space, minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts that perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us.

Men , World , Intelligence , Business

“Little drops of water,
Little grains of sand,
Make the mighty ocean
And the pleasant land. Thus the little minutes,
Humble though they be,
Make the mighty ages
Of eternity.”

Julia Abigail Fletcher Carney Little Things

"Little Things" in the Myrtle (1845). This poem came to be published uncredited as a children's rhyme and hymn in many 19th century magazines and books, sometimes becoming variously attributed to Ebenezer Cobham Brewer, Daniel Clement Colesworthy, and Frances S. Osgood, but the earliest publications of it clearly are those of Carney, according to Our Woman Workers: Biographical Sketches of Women Eminent in the Universalist Church for Literary, Philanthropic and Christian Work (1881) by E. R. Hanson, as well as Familiar Quotations 9th edition (1906) edited by John Bartlett, The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (1999) by Elizabeth Knowles and Angela Partington, and The Yale Book of Quotations (2006), ed. Fred R. Shapiro.

Age , Water

“The world globes itself in a drop of dew.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

1840s, Essays: First Series (1841), Compensation
Context: The universe is represented in every one of its particles. Every thing in nature contains all the powers of nature. Every thing is made of one hidden stuff; as the naturalist sees one type under every metamorphosis, and regards a horse as a running man, a fish as a swimming man, a bird as a flying man, a tree as a rooted man. Each new form repeats not only the main character of the type, but part for part all the details, all the aims, furtherances, hindrances, energies, and whole system of every other. Every occupation, trade, art, transaction, is a compend of the world, and a correlative of every other. Each one is an entire emblem of human life; of its good and ill, its trials, its enemies, its course and its end. And each one must somehow accommodate the whole man, and recite all his destiny.
The world globes itself in a drop of dew.

World

“America, in the assembly of nations, since her admission among them, has invariably, though often fruitlessly, held forth to them the hand of honest friendship, of equal freedom, of generous reciprocity. She has uniformly spoken among them, though often to heedless and often to disdainful ears, the language of equal liberty, of equal justice, and of equal rights. She has, in the lapse of nearly half a century, without a single exception, respected the independence of other nations while asserting and maintaining her own. She has abstained from interference in the concerns of others, even when conflict has been for principles to which she clings, as to the last vital drop that visits the heart.”

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

Independence Day address (1821)
Context: America, in the assembly of nations, since her admission among them, has invariably, though often fruitlessly, held forth to them the hand of honest friendship, of equal freedom, of generous reciprocity. She has uniformly spoken among them, though often to heedless and often to disdainful ears, the language of equal liberty, of equal justice, and of equal rights. She has, in the lapse of nearly half a century, without a single exception, respected the independence of other nations while asserting and maintaining her own. She has abstained from interference in the concerns of others, even when conflict has been for principles to which she clings, as to the last vital drop that visits the heart. She has seen that probably for centuries to come, all the contests of that Aceldama the European world, will be contests of inveterate power, and emerging right. Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own. She will commend the general cause by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example. She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force. The frontlet on her brows would no longer beam with the ineffable splendor of freedom and independence; but in its stead would soon be substituted an imperial diadem, flashing in false and tarnished lustre the murky radiance of dominion and power. She might become the dictatress of the world; she would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit.... Her glory is not dominion, but liberty. Her march is the march of the mind. She has a spear and a shield: but the motto upon her shield is, Freedom, Independence, Peace. This has been her Declaration: this has been, as far as her necessary intercourse with the rest of mankind would permit, her practice.

Friendship , Justice , Freedom , Heart

“I could point to that liquid and say to you, I have taken my drop of water from the immensity of creation, and I have taken it full of the elements appropriated to the development of inferior beings. And I wait, I watch, I question it, begging it to recommence for me the beautiful spectacle of the first creation. But it is dumb, dumb since these experiments were begun several years ago; it is dumb because I have kept it from the only thing man cannot produce, from the germs which float in the air, from Life, for Life is a germ and a germ is Life. Never will the doctrine of spontaneous generation recover from the mortal blow of this simple experiment.”

Louis Pasteur (1822–1895) French chemist and microbiologist

Translation from The Life of Pasteur, pp. 141-142 https://archive.org/stream/cu31924012227595#page/n153/mode/2up
Original in French: Et par conséquent, messieurs pourrais-je dire, en vous montrant ce liquide : J’ai pris dans l’immensité de la création ma goutte d’eau, et je l’ai prise toute pleine de la gelée féconde, c’est-à-dire, pour parler le langage de la science, toute pleine des éléments appropriés au développement des êtres inférieurs, Et j’attends, et j’observe, et je l’interroge, et je lui demande de vouloir bien recommencer pour moi la primitive création ; ce serait un si beau spectacle ! Mais elle est muette ! Elle est muette depuis plusieurs années que ces expériences sont commencées. Ah ! c’est que j’ai éloigné d’elle, et que j’éloigne encore en ce moment, la seule chose qu’il n’ait pas été donné à l’homme de produire, j’ai éloigné d’elle les germes qui flottent dans l’ait" j’ai éloigné d’elle la vie, car la vie c’est le germe et le germe c’est la vie. Jamais la doctrine de la génération spontanée ne se relèvera du coup mortel que Cette simple expérience lui porte.
Soirées scientifiques de la Sorbonne (1864)
Context: Here is an infusion of organic matter, as limpid as distilled water, and extremely alterable. It has been prepared to-day. To-morrow it will contain animalculae, little infusories, or flakes of mouldiness. I place a portion of that infusion into a flask with a long neck, like this one. Suppose I boil the liquid and leave it to cool. After a few days, mouldiness or animalculae will develop in the liquid. By boiling, I destroyed any germs contained in the liquid or against the glass; but that infusion being again in contact with air, it becomes altered, as all infusions do. Now suppose I repeat this experiment, but that, before boiling the liquid, I draw (by means of an enameller's lamp) the neck of the flask into a point, leaving however, its extremity open. This being done, I boil the liquid in the flask, and leave it to cool. Now the liquid of this second flask will remain pure not only two days, a month, a year, but three or four years — for the experiment I am telling you about is already four years old, and the liquid remains as limpid as distilled water. What difference is there, then, between those two vases? They contain the same liquid, they both contain air, both are open! Why does one decay and the other remain pure? The only difference between them is this : in the first case, the dusts suspended in air and their germs can fall into the neck of the flask and arrive into contact with the liquid, where they find appropriate food and develop; thence microscopic beings. In the second flask, on the contrary, it is impossible, or at least extremely difficult, unless air is violently shaken, that dusts suspended in air should enter the vase; they fall on its curved neck. When air goes in and out of the vase through diffusions or variations of temperature, the latter never being sudden, the air comes in slowly enough to drop the dusts and germs that it carries at the opening of the neck or in the first curves. This experiment is full of instruction; for this must be noted, that everything in air save its dusts can easily enter the vase and come into contact with the liquid. Imagine what you choose in the air — electricity, magnetism, ozone, unknown forces even, all can reach the infusion. Only one thing cannot enter easily, and that is dust, suspended in air. And the proof of this is that if I shake the vase violently two or three times, in a few days it contains animalculae or mouldiness. Why? because air has come in violently enough to carry dust with it. And, therefore, gentlemen, I could point to that liquid and say to you, I have taken my drop of water from the immensity of creation, and I have taken it full of the elements appropriated to the development of inferior beings. And I wait, I watch, I question it, begging it to recommence for me the beautiful spectacle of the first creation. But it is dumb, dumb since these experiments were begun several years ago; it is dumb because I have kept it from the only thing man cannot produce, from the germs which float in the air, from Life, for Life is a germ and a germ is Life. Never will the doctrine of spontaneous generation recover from the mortal blow of this simple experiment.

Life , Beauty , Question , Water

“The recruit must be carefully and sedulously taught when meeting the enemy, even at a trot or canter, to use no force whatever, otherwise his sword will bury itself to the hilt, and the swordsman will either be dragged from his horse, or will be compelled to drop his weapon — if he can.”

Richard Francis Burton (1821–1890) British explorer, geographer, translator, writer, soldier, orientalist, cartographer, ethnologist, spy, lin…

A New System of Sword Exercise for Infantry (1876)
Context: The recruit must be carefully and sedulously taught when meeting the enemy, even at a trot or canter, to use no force whatever, otherwise his sword will bury itself to the hilt, and the swordsman will either be dragged from his horse, or will be compelled to drop his weapon — if he can. Upon this point I may quote my own System of Bayonet Exercise (p. 27): —
"The instructor must spare no pains in preventing the soldier from using force, especially with the left or guiding arm, as too much exertion generally causes the thrust to miss. A trifling body-stab with the bayonet (I may add with the sword) is sufficient to disable a man; and many a promising young soldier has lost his life by burying his weapon so deep in the enemy's breast that it could not be withdrawn quickly enough to be used against a second assailant. To prevent this happening, the point must be delivered smartly, with but little exertion of force, more like a dart than a thrust, and instantly afterwards the bayonet must be smartly withdrawn." In fact the thrust should consist of two movements executed as nearly simultaneously as possible; and it requires long habit, as the natural man, especially the Englishman, is apt to push home, and to dwell upon his slouching push.

Horse

“Moore's new book, Dude, Where's My Country?, contains ten chapters of fulminations convincing the convinced. However, Moore does include one chapter on how to argue with a conservative. As if. Approached by someone like Michael Moore, a conservative would drop a quarter in Moore's Starbucks cup and hurriedly walk away.”

P. J. O'Rourke (1947) American journalist

"I Agree With Me" (July/August 2004)

Books , Country

“Each spilt drop of blood, in any country under whose flag one has not been born, is an experience passed on to those who survive,”

Ernesto Che Guevara (1928–1967) Argentine Marxist revolutionary

Message to the Tricontinental (1967)
Context: Each spilt drop of blood, in any country under whose flag one has not been born, is an experience passed on to those who survive, to be added later to the liberation struggle of his own country. And each nation liberated is a phase won in the battle for the liberation of one's own country.

Country

“You stomp the competition with the bass line. You rattle windows. You drop the melody line, and shout the lyrics. You put in foul language and come down hard on each cussword.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Lullaby

Source: Lullaby (2002), Chapter 3
Context: You turn up your music to hide the noise. Other people turn up their music to hide yours. You turn up yours again. Everyone buys a bigger stereo system. This is the arms race of sound You don't win with a lot of treble. This isn't about quality. It's about volume. This isn't about music. This is about winning. You stomp the competition with the bass line. You rattle windows. You drop the melody line, and shout the lyrics. You put in foul language and come down hard on each cussword. You dominate. This is really about power.

“Poor people feel out of place in such magnificent buildings. They drop into the nearest seat; like poor relations, they sit on the extreme edge of the chair. At the table of Christ they are below the salt. They are constantly humiliated.”

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer

"The Brooklyn Divines." Brooklyn Union (Brooklyn, NY), 1883.
Context: Another thing is the magnificence of the churches. The church depends absolutely upon the rich. Poor people feel out of place in such magnificent buildings. They drop into the nearest seat; like poor relations, they sit on the extreme edge of the chair. At the table of Christ they are below the salt. They are constantly humiliated. When subscriptions are asked for they feel ashamed to have their mite compared with the thousands given by the millionaire. The pennies feel ashamed to mingle with the silver in the contribution plate. The result is that most of them avoid the church. It costs too much to worship God in public. Good clothes are necessary, fashionably cut.

People , Feeling , Christ

“The Wine of Life keeps oozing drop by drop,
The Leaves of Life keep falling one by one.”

Omar Khayyám (1048–1131) Persian poet, philosopher, mathematician, and astronomer

The Rubaiyat (1120)
Context: Whether at Naishapur or Babylon,
Whether the Cup with sweet or bitter run,
The Wine of Life keeps oozing drop by drop,
The Leaves of Life keep falling one by one.

Life , Wine

“I'm your narrator. It's my task to say
Just where and how things happen in our play,
Set the bare stage with words instead of props
And keep on talking till the curtain drops.”

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

Narrator
A Child is Born (1942)
Context: I'm your narrator. It's my task to say
Just where and how things happen in our play,
Set the bare stage with words instead of props
And keep on talking till the curtain drops. …
It's an old task — old as the human heart,
Old as those bygone players and their art
Who, in old days when faith was nearer earth,
Played out the mystery of Jesus' birth
In hall or village green or market square
For all who chose to come and see them there,
And, if they knew that King Herod, in his crown,
Was really Wat, the cobbler of the town,
And Tom, the fool, played Abraham the Wise,
They did not care. They saw with other eyes.
The story was their own — not far away,
As real as if it happened yesterday,
Full of all awe and wonder yet so near,
A marvelous thing that could have happened here
In their own town — a star that could have blazed
On their own shepherds, leaving them amazed,
Frightened and questioning and following still
To the bare stable — and the miracle.

“What do we mean by the Revolution? The war? That was no part of the revolution; it was only an effect and consequence of it. The revolution was in the minds of the people, and this was effected from 1760–1775, in the course of fifteen years, before a drop of blood was shed at Lexington.”

John Adams (1735–1826) 2nd President of the United States

Letter to Thomas Jefferson (24 August 1815), The Works of John Adams; he later expressed similar sentiments in a letter to Hezekiah Niles (13 February 1818)
1810s
Context: As to the history of the revolution, my ideas may be peculiar, perhaps singular. What do we mean by the Revolution? The war? That was no part of the revolution; it was only an effect and consequence of it. The revolution was in the minds of the people, and this was effected from 1760–1775, in the course of fifteen years, before a drop of blood was shed at Lexington.

War , People , Parting

“And yet it is hard to believe that anything
in nature could stand revealed as solid matter.
The lightning of heaven goes through the walls of houses,
like shouts and speech; iron glows white in fire;
red-hot rocks are shattered by savage steam;
hard gold is softened and melted down by heat;
chilly brass, defeated by heat, turns liquid;
heat seeps through silver, so does piercing cold;
by custom raising the cup, we feel them both
as water is poured in, drop by drop, above.”
Etsi difficiile esse videtur credere quicquam in rebus solido reperiri corpore posse. transit enim fulmen caeli per saepta domorum, clamor ut ad voces; flamen candescit in igni dissiliuntque ferre ferventi saxa vapore. tum labefactatus rigor auri solvitur aestu; tum glacies aeris flamma devicta liquescit; permanat calor argentum penetraleque frigus quando utrumque manu retinentes pocula rite sensimus infuso lympharum rore superne.

Lucretius (-94–-55 BC) Roman poet and philosopher

Book I, lines 487–496 (Frank O. Copley)
De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things)

Feeling , Nature , Water , Housing

“Individual societies begin in harmonious adaptation to the environment and, like individuals, quickly get trapped into nonadaptive, artificial, repetitive sequences.
When the individual's behavior and consciousness get hooked to a routine sequence of external actions, he is a dead robot, and it is time for him to die and be reborn. Time to "drop out," "turn on," and "tune in."”

Timothy Leary (1920–1996) American psychologist

This period of robotization is called the Kali Yuga, the Age of Strife and Empire...
The Purpose of Life is Religious Discovery
Start your own Religion (1967)

Behavior , Time , Dead

“Well it wasn't a formal hanging. It was kind of subtle. I had covered him … his first press conference. He dropped down into the press room and started taking questions and everyone asked about the tax cut and I sort of — Ari Fleischer later told me I blindsided him because I said to him, "Mister President, why don't you respect the wall of separation between church and state?" Well, there's a video of him that is so funny. He jerked back as if he had been hit! I mean both barrels! And he said, "I do respect—" I said, "Well if you did, why would you have a religious office in the White House?" (I'm exaggerating, but anyway) and "you're a secular official." And he said "I am secular." Well, anyway, I got a call from Ari after that. After that there was a formal news conference and I did ask him a Middle East question and it wasn't the question per se. They just don't like my boorishness.”

Helen Thomas (1920–2013) American author and journalist

Phone interview on The Majority Report, 2004-04-02

Jerk , Question , Housing

“Suppose Germany had developed two bombs before we had any bombs. And suppose Germany had dropped one bomb, say, on Rochester and the other on Buffalo, and then having run out of bombs she would have lost the war. Can anyone doubt that we would then have defined the dropping of atomic bombs on cities as a war crime, and that we would have sentenced the Germans who were guilty of this crime to death at Nuremberg and hanged them?”

Leó Szilárd (1898–1964) Physicist and biologist

"President Truman Did Not Understand" http://www.peak.org/~danneng/decision/usnews.html in U.S. News & World Report (15 August 1960)
Variant: If the Germans had dropped atomic bombs on cities instead of us, we would have defined the dropping of atomic bombs on cities as a war crime, and we would have sentenced the Germans who were guilty of this crime to death at Nuremberg and hanged them.
As quoted in The Decision to Drop the Atomic Bomb (1996) by Dennis Wainstock, p. 122
Context: Suppose Germany had developed two bombs before we had any bombs. And suppose Germany had dropped one bomb, say, on Rochester and the other on Buffalo, and then having run out of bombs she would have lost the war. Can anyone doubt that we would then have defined the dropping of atomic bombs on cities as a war crime, and that we would have sentenced the Germans who were guilty of this crime to death at Nuremberg and hanged them?
But, again, don't misunderstand me. The only conclusion we can draw is that governments acting in a crisis are guided by questions of expediency, and moral considerations are given very little weight, and that America is no different from any other nation in this respect.

Death , War

“When kindness has left people, even for a few moments, we become afraid of them, as if their reason had left them. When it has left a place where we have always found it, it is like shipwreck; we drop from security into something malevolent and bottomless.”

Willa Cather book My Mortal Enemy

Part I, Ch. 6
My Mortal Enemy (1926)
Context: Now everything was in ruins. The air was still and cold like the air in a refrigerating-room. What I felt was fear; I was afraid to look or speak or move. Everything about me seemed evil. When kindness has left people, even for a few moments, we become afraid of them, as if their reason had left them. When it has left a place where we have always found it, it is like shipwreck; we drop from security into something malevolent and bottomless.

People

Quotes about drop page 10

Quotes about drop
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