Quotes about ear (1051 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

“I speak and speak, … but the listener retains only the words he is expecting. … It is not the voice that commands the story: it is the ear.”

Marco Polo (1254–1324) Venetian explorer and merchant noted for travel to central and eastern Asia

Io parlo parlo ... ma chi m'ascolta ritiene solo le parole che aspetta. ... Chi comanda al racconto non è la voce: è l'orecchio.
Marco Polo to Kublai Khan, in Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities (1974), ch. 9
In fiction

“The most important things are the hardest things to say. They are the things you get ashamed of, because words diminish them - words shrink things that seemed limitless when they were in your head to no more than living size when they're brought out. But it's more than that, isn't it? The most important things lie too close to wherever your secret heart is buried, like landmarks to a treasure your enemies would love to steal away. And you may make revelations that cost you dearly only to have people look at you in a funny way, not understanding what you've said at all, or why you thought it was so important that you almost cried while you were saying it. That's the worst, I think. When the secret stays locked within not for want of a teller, but for want of an understanding ear.”

Stephen King book The Body

Different Seasons (1982), The Body

Love , People , Lie , Secret

“Friendship is a priceless gift that cannot be bought nor sold, but its value is far greater than a mountain made of gold; for gold is cold & lifeless - it can neither see nor hear, in time of trouble its powerless to cheer — it has no ears to listen, no heart to understand, it cannot bring you comfort or reach out a helping hand. So when you ask God for a gift, be thankful if sends not diamonds, pearls or riches but the love of real true friends.”

Muhammad Ali (1942–2016) African American boxer, philanthropist and activist

Response to Harold Bell, question about his view on friendship in an Interview (video) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InSFYdFaS3E.

Love , God , Friendship , Mountain

“Sometimes fate is like a small sandstorm that keeps changing directions. You change direction but the sandstorm chases you. You turn again, but the storm adjusts. Over and over you play this out, like some ominous dance with death just before dawn. Why? Because this storm isn't something that blew in from far away, something that has nothing to do with you. This storm is you. Something inside of you. So all you can do is give in to it, step right inside the storm, closing your eyes and plugging up your ears so the sand doesn't get in, and walk through it, step by step. There's no sun there, no moon, no direction, no sense of time. Just fine white sand swirling up into the sky like pulverized bones. That's the kind of sandstorm you need to imagine.”

Haruki Murakami book Kafka on the Shore

Source: Kafka on the Shore (2002), Chapter One

Death , Fate , Imagination , Sense

“The man who has no sense of history, is like a man who has no ears or eyes”

Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) Führer and Reich Chancellor of Germany, Leader of the Nazi Party

History , Sense

“You're short on ears and long on mouth.”

John Wayne (1907–1979) American film actor

“Happy will be those who give ear to the words of the dead. The reading of good works and the observing of their precepts.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci (1938), XLV Prophecies

Reading , Dead , Happiness

“Letters are signs of things, symbols of words, whose power is so great that without a voice they speak to us the words of the absent; for they introduce words by the eye, not by the ear.”
Litterae autem sunt indices rerum, signa verborum, quibus tanta vis est, ut nobis dicta absentium sine voce loquantur. Verba enim per oculos non per aures introducunt.

Isidore of Seville book Etymologiae

Bk. 1, ch. 3, sect. 1; p. 96.
Etymologiae

“When I hear Kannada, my heart leaps up and I am all ears.”

Kuvempu (1904–1994) Kannada novelist, poet, playwright, critic, and thinker

Quoted in A Few inches of Ivory, 24 November 2013, Jstor Organization http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/23001425?uid=3738256&uid=2129&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&sid=21102981873241,

Heart

“I raise my glass to the Awful Truth,
Which you can't reveal to the Ears of Youth,
Except to say it isn't worth a dime,
And the whole damn place goes crazy twice,
And it's once for the Devil and once for Christ”

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

Truth , Youth , Christ

“When the bird of the heart begins to sing, too often will reason stop up her ears.”

Hans Christian Andersen (1805–1875) Danish author, fairy tale writer, and poet

Bird , Singing , Heart

“A piece of art is not a loaf of bread. When someone steals a loaf of bread from the store, that's it. The loaf of bread is gone. When someone downloads a piece of music, it's just data until the listener puts that music back together with their own ears, their mind, their subjective experience. How they perceive your work changes your work.”

Jeff Tweedy (1967) musician

Interviewed in 2004 http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,65688,00.html

Art , Music , Change

“We have two ears and one mouth, so we should listen more than we say.”

Zeno of Citium (-334–-263 BC) ancient Greek philosopher

As quoted in Diogenes Laërtius Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, vii. 23.
Variant translation: The reason why we have two ears and only one mouth is that we may listen the more and talk the less.

Peaceful

“How is it possible that a being with such sensitive jewels as the eyes, such enchanted musical instruments as the ears, and such fabulous arabesque of nerves as the brain can experience itself anything less than a god.”

Alan Watts (1915–1973) British philosopher, writer and speaker

Page 138
The Book on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are (1966)

God , Music

“Some friends are more significant and important than other friends. A special friend can often change your life for the better. You will know when this special person enters your life because of the respect you have for them. They will never lie or set you aside for someone or something else. You will have undying trust in this person that any words spoken will never find another ear. They always returned calls at the earliest possible time. They will check in often to see what is going on in your life and just talk. Your accomplishments will be applauded with praise and losses will never be repeated. This friend has you melted within their heart as you do theirs. When you find such a person be sure to return the love and understand they have gifted you and your life.”

Gandolfo – (RJ Intindola)

1983

Loss , Time , Understanding , Personality

“What do you think an artist is? An imbecile who only has eyes, if he is a painter, or ears if he is a musician, or a lyre in every chamber of his heart if he is a poet, or even, if he is a boxer, just his muscles? Far from it: at the same time he is also a political being, constantly aware of the heartbreaking, passionate, or delightful things that happen in the world, shaping himself completely in their image. How could it be possible to feel no interest in other people, and with a cool indifference to detach yourself from the very life which they bring to you so abundantly? No, painting is not done to decorate apartments. It is an instrument of war.”

Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer

Life , War , People , World

“Dreams like a podcast,
Downloading truth in my ears.
They tell me cool stuff."
"Apollo?" I guess, because I figured nobody else could make a haiku that bad.
He put his finger to his lips. "I'm incognito. Call me Fred."
"A god named Fred?”

Rick Riordan (1964) American writer

God , Truth , Dreams

“I have loved in life and I have been loved.
I have drunk the bowl of poison from the hands of love as nectar,
and have been raised above life's joy and sorrow.
My heart, aflame in love, set afire every heart that came in touch with it.
My heart has been rent and joined again;
My heart has been broken and again made whole;
My heart has been wounded and healed again;
A thousand deaths my heart has died, and thanks be to love, it lives yet.
I went through hell and saw there love's raging fire,
and I entered heaven illumined with the light of love.
I wept in love and made all weep with me;
I mourned in love and pierced the hearts of men;
And when my fiery glance fell on the rocks, the rocks burst forth as volcanoes.
The whole world sank in the flood caused by my one tear;
With my deep sigh the earth trembled, and when I cried aloud the name of my beloved,
I shook the throne of God in heaven.
I bowed my head low in humility, and on my knees I begged of love,
"Disclose to me, I pray thee, O love, thy secret."
She took me gently by my arms and lifted me above the earth, and spoke softly in my ear,
"My dear one, thou thyself art love, art lover,
and thyself art the beloved whom thou hast adored.”

Hazrat Inayat Khan (1882–1927) Indian Sufi

Source: The Dance of the Soul

Love , Life , Death , Men

“Sometimes when I'm alone
I Cry,
Cause I am on my own.
The tears I cry are bitter and warm.
They flow with life but take no form
I Cry because my heart is torn.
I find it difficult to carry on.
If I had an ear to confide in,
I would cry among my treasured friend,
but who do you know that stops that long,
to help another carry on.
The world moves fast and it would rather pass by.
Then to stop and see what makes one cry,
so painful and sad.
And sometimes…
I Cry
and no one cares about why.”

Tupac Shakur (1971–1996) rapper and actor

Life , Pain , World , Sadness

“If you have insight, you use your inner eye, your inner ear, to pierce to the heart of things, and have no need of intellectual knowledge.”

Zhuangzi (-369–-286 BC) classic Chinese philosopher

Knowledge , Heart

“Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me,
Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ on my right, Christ on my left
Christ where I lie, Christ where I sit, Christ where I arise
Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of every man who speaks of me,
Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me.”

Saint Patrick (385–461) 5th-century Romano-British Christian missionary and bishop in Ireland

Variant:
Christ for my guardianship today: against poison, against burning, against drowning, against wounding, that there may come to me a multitude of rewards;
Christ with me,
Christ before me,
Christ behind me,
Christ in me,
Christ over me,
Christ to right of me,
Christ to left of me,
Christ in lying down,
Christ in sitting,
Christ in rising up,
Christ in the heart of every person who may think of me,
Christ in the mouth of every person who may speak of me,
Christ in every eye, which may look on me!
Christ in every ear, which may hear me!
The Lorica of Patrick

Lie , Thinking , Heart , Christ

“I need an easy friend
I do, with an ear to lend.”

Kurt Cobain (1967–1994) American musician and artist

About a Girl.
Song lyrics, Bleach (1989)

“People think God is a man. People think God has got ears, nose, teeth and he rises daily in the morning, brushes his teeth and washes his mouth. And he is an old man and he has a beard. All these things people think. But no, God is energy. God is perfect and pure energy.”

Prem Rawat (1957) controversial spiritual leader

Central Hall, Westminster, London, UK, November 2, 1971
1970s

God , People , Thinking , Perfection

“The city, that monster with a hundred mouths and a thousand ears, a monster that knows nothing but says everything, had written me off.”

Jean-Dominique Bauby book The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

Le scaphandre et le papillon (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly: A Memoir of Life in Death), trans. Jeremy Leggatt (Vintage, 1998, ISBN 0-375-70121-4), p. 82

“I made a change from a common thief, to up-close and personal with Robin Leach, and I'm far from cheap. I smoke skunk with my peeps all day, spread love it's the Brooklyn way. The moet and alize keeps me pissy. Girls used to diss me, now they write letters cuz they miss me. I never thought it could happen this rapping stuff. I was too used to packing gats and stuff. Now honeys play me close like butter played toast, from the Mississippi down to the East Coast. Condos in queens, indoor for weeks. sold out seats to hear Biggy Smalls speak. Living life without fear, putting 5 carats in my baby girls ears. Lunchies, brunchies. Interviews by the pool, considered a fool 'cause I dropped out of high school. Stereotypes of a black male misunderstood and it's still all good.”

The Notorious B.I.G. (1972–1997) American rapper

Song lyrics, Ready to Die (1994), "Juicy"

Love , Life , Fear , School

“The passions, whether violent or not, should never be so expressed as to reach the point of causing disgust; and music, even in situations of the greatest horror, should never be painful to the ear but should flatter and charm it, and thereby always remain music.”

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791) Austrian Romantic composer

Letter by Mozart, as quoted in a journal entry (12 December 1856) The Journal of Eugene Delacroix as translated by Walter Pach (1937), p. 521. The quote is not found in any authentic letter by Mozart.

Pain , Music , Passion

“Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice.”

William Shakespeare Hamlet

Polonius, Act I, scene iii.
Hamlet (1600–1)

“When I was in school, martial arts made you a dork, and I became self-conscious that I was too masculine. I was a 16-year-old girl with ringworm and cauliflower ears. People made fun of my arms and called me "Miss Man." It wasn't until I got older that I realized: These people are idiots. I'm fabulous.”

Ronda Rousey (1987) American judoka, mixed martial artist, professional wrestler and actress

"6 Feminist Quotes From Ronda Rousey That Prove She's More Than Just A Trash Talker", in Bustle.com (3 August 2015) http://www.bustle.com/articles/101566-6-feminist-quotes-from-ronda-rousey-that-prove-shes-more-than-just-a-trash-talker

People , School , Art , Girl

“The caressing, melodious tones of humility and flattery never sang in the ears of the clerk Senhor José, these have never had a place in the chromatic scale of feelings normally shown to him.”

José Saramago book All the Names

Source: All the Names (1997), p. 8

Feeling

“I had a thought for no one's but your ears:
That you were beautiful, and that I strove
To love you in the old high way of love;”

W.B. Yeats (1865–1939) Irish poet and playwright

St. 5
In The Seven Woods (1904), Adam's Curse http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1431/
Context: I had a thought for no one's but your ears:
That you were beautiful, and that I strove
To love you in the old high way of love;
That it had all seemed happy, and yet we'd grown
As weary-hearted as that hollow moon.

Love , Beauty , Way

“When I am dead, bury me
In my beloved Ukraine,
My tomb upon a grave mound high
Amid the spreading plain,
So that the fields, the boundless steppes,
The Dnieper's plunging shore
My eyes could see, my ears could hear
The mighty river roar.

When from Ukraine the Dnieper bears
Into the deep blue sea
The blood of foes… then will I leave
These hills and fertile fields --
I'll leave them all and fly away
To the abode of God,
And then I'll pray…. But until that day
I know nothing of God.

Oh bury me, then rise ye up
And break your heavy chains
And water with the tyrants' blood
The freedom you have gained.
And in the great new family,
The family of the free,
With softly spoken, kindly word
Remember also me.”

Taras Shevchenko Testamento

Taras Shevchenko Zapovit, 1845 (Shevchenko's "Testament"), Translated by John Weir, Toronto, 1961; Online at

God , Family , Freedom , Water

“Music is associated not only with speculation but with morality. When rhythms and modes reach an intellect through the ear, they doubtless affect and reshape that mind according to their particular character.”

Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius (480) philosopher of the early 6th century

Christopher Callahan (October 2000), Music in Medieval Medical Practice: Speculations and Certainties https://symposium.music.org/index.php/40/item/2168-music-in-medieval-medical-practice-speculations-and-certainties#16
De Institutione Musica

Music

“seeing with the eyes of another, listening with the ears of another, and feeling with the heart of another.”

Alfred Adler (1870–1937) Medical Doctor, Psychologist, Psychiatrist, Psychotherapist, Personality Theorist

Feeling , Heart

“You just come along with me and have a good time. The Galaxy's a fun place. You'll need to have this fish in your ear.”

Douglas Adams The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy pentalogy

Source: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Fish , Time

“Ninety percent of true love is acute, ear-burning embarrassment.”

Terry Pratchett book Wyrd Sisters

Source: Wyrd Sisters

Love

“Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice; Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment.”

William Shakespeare Hamlet

Source: Hamlet

“there they laugh: they do not understand me; I am not the mouth for these ears.”

Friedrich Nietzsche book Thus Spoke Zarathustra

Source: Thus Spoke Zarathustra

Understanding

“The dwarfs can turn lead into gold…
It reached the pointy ears of the dwarfs.
-Can we?
-Damned if I know. I can't.
-Yeah, but if you could, you wouldn't say. I wouldn't say, if I could.
-Can you?
-No!
-Ah-ha!”

Terry Pratchett book The Truth

Source: The Truth

“If you develop an ear for sounds that are musical it is like developing an ego. You begin to refuse sounds that are not musical and that way cut yourself off from a good deal of experience.”

John Cage (1912–1992) American avant-garde composer

Music , Way

“So it always is: when you escape to a desert the silence shouts in your ear.”

Graham Greene book The Quiet American

Source: The Quiet American

Silence

“Banning books gives us silence when we need speech. It closes our ears when we need to listen. It makes us blind when we need sight.”

Stephen Chbosky (1970) American writer

Books , Silence

“When we lose people we love, we should never disturb their souls, whether living or dead. Instead. we should find consolation in an object that reminds you of them, something… I don't know… even an earring”

Orhan Pamuk book The Museum of Innocence

Source: The Museum of Innocence

Love , People , Soul , Dead

“It is folly to say you know what is happening to other people. Only they know, if they exist. They have their own Universes of their own eyes and ears.”

Douglas Adams book The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

Source: The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

People , Universe

“He's probably their battle poet, too."
"You mean he makes up heroic songs about famous battles?"
"No, no. He recites poems that frighten the enemy…. When a well-trained gonnagle starts to recite, the enemy's ears explode.”

Terry Pratchett book The Wee Free Men

Source: The Wee Free Men

Training

“Drag your thoughts away
from your troubles…
by the ears, by the heels,
or any other way you can manage it.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Way

“I long to hear the story of your life, which must captivate the ear strangely.”

William Shakespeare The Tempest

Source: The Tempest

Life

“There's nothing militant about Jesus. I don't read anything like that in any of the gospels. Peter drew his sword and cut off the servant's ear, and Jesus said, "Put back thy sword, Peter." But Peter has had his sword out and at work ever since.”

Joseph Campbell The Power of Myth

Source: The Power of Myth

Reading

“How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank
Here we will sit, and let the sounds of music
Creep in our ears; soft stillness, and the night
Become the touches of sweet harmony”

William Shakespeare (1564–1616) English playwright and poet

Music , Sleep , Night

“Rumour is information distilled so finely that it can filter through anything. It does not need doors and windows -- sometimes it does not need people. It can exist free and wild, running from ear to ear without ever touching lips.”

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author

People

“It is my soul that calls upon my name;
How silver-sweet sound lovers' tongues by night,
like softest music to attending ears!
-Romeo”

William Shakespeare book Romeo and Juliet

Source: Romeo and Juliet

Music , Soul , Lovers , Night

“For it was not into my ear you whispered, but into my heart. It was not my lips you kissed, but my soul.”

Judy Garland (1922–1969) actress, singer and vaudevillian from the United States

love , Good Morning , Cute , Romantic

“No one can draw more out of things, books included, than he already knows. A man has no ears for that to which experience has given him no access.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

Books , Drawing

“One of the most poisonous of all Satan’s whispers is simply, “Things will never change.” That lie kills expectation, trapping our heart forever in the present. To keep desire alive and flourishing, we must renew our vision for what lies ahead. Things will not always be like this. Jesus has promised to “make all things new.” Eye has not seen, ear has not heard all that God has in store for his lovers, which does not mean “we have no clue so don’t even try to imagine,” but rather, you cannot outdream God. Desire is kept alive by imagination, the antidote to resignation. We will need imagination, which is to say, we will need hope.”

John Eldredge

Source: The Sacred Romance Drawing Closer To The Heart Of God

God , Lie , Hope , Imagination

“O! she doth teach the torches to burn bright
It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night
Like a rich jewel in an Ethiop's ear;
Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear.

- Romeo”

William Shakespeare book Romeo and Juliet

Source: Romeo and Juliet

Beauty , Night

“It’s quite easy to accidentally overhear people talking downstairs if you hold an upturned glass to the floorboards and accidentally put your ear to it.”

Terry Pratchett book A Hat Full of Sky

Source: A Hat Full of Sky

People

“Keep your eyes open, Fireheart. Keep your ears pricked. Keep looking behind you. Because one day I'll find you, and then you'll be crowfood.”

Erin Hunter

Source: Forest of Secrets

“The eye of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not seen, man's hand is not able to taste, his tongue to conceive, nor his heart to report, what my dream was.”

William Shakespeare A Midsummer Night's Dream

Source: A Midsummer Night's Dream

Dreams , Heart

“Down a path worn into the woods, past a stream and a hollowed-out log full of pill bugs and termites, was a glass coffin. It rested right on the ground, and in it slept a boy with horns on his head and ears as pointed as knives.”

Holly Black book The Darkest Part of the Forest

Source: The Darkest Part of the Forest

Boy , Past

“A knavish speech sleeps in a fool's ear.”

William Shakespeare Hamlet

Source: Hamlet

Fools , Sleep

“Once she remembered trying to box her own ears for having cheated herself in a game of croquet she was playing against herself, for this curious child was very fond of pretending to be two people.”

Lewis Carroll (1832–1898) English writer, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer

Source: Alice's Adventures In Wonderland And Through The Looking Glass

People , Game , Cheating , Box

“In such business
Action is eloquence, and the eyes of th’ ignorant
More learned than the ears.”

William Shakespeare (1564–1616) English playwright and poet

Business , Learning

“We women, as some one says, love with our ears, just as you men love with your eyes…”

Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray

Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

Love , Women , Men

“That, lad," he said proudly, "was some of the worst poetry I have heard for a long time. It was offensive to the ear and a torrrture to the soul…. We'll make a gonnagle out of ye yet!”

Terry Pratchett book The Wee Free Men

Source: The Wee Free Men

Soul , Time

“We're not really intruding," he called down. "This is all a big misunderstanding."
"Stop right there!" shouted one of them.
Skulduggery held his hand to an ear he didn't have.
"What's that?"
"Stop!"
"Keep going?"
"STOP!"
"OK, we'll keep going.”

Derek Landy (1974) Irish children's writer

Source: Death Bringer

“In peace there's nothing so becomes a man as modest stillness and humility; but when the blast of war blows in our ears, then imitate the action of the tiger; stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood, disguise fair nature with hard-favor'd rage.”

William Shakespeare Henry V

Source: Henry V

War , Peace , Nature , Rage

“During my most recently controlled near-death experience, I got to interview William Shakespeare. We did not hit it off. He said the dialect I spoke was the ugliest English he had ever heard, “fit to split the ears of groundlings.””

Kurt Vonnegut book God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian

He asked if it had a name, and I said “Indianapolis.”
God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian (1999)

Death

“I was obviously floating in the atmosphere; companioned not only by the strange child and the radiant pair, but by a constantly increasing throng of half-luminous, vine-crowned youths and maidens with wind-blown hair and joyful countenance. We slowly ascended together, as if borne on a fragrant breeze which blew not from the earth but from the golden nebulae, and the child whispered in my ear that I must look always upward to the pathways of light, and never backward to the sphere I had just left.”

H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author

Fiction, The Crawling Chaos (1921)

Youth , Light

“profanity and obscenity entitle people who don't want unpleasant information to close their ears and eyes to you.”

Kurt Vonnegut book Hocus Pocus

Hocus Pocus (1990)

People

“This song of the waters is audible to every ear, but there is other music in these hills, by no means audible to all. To hear even a few notes of it you must first live here for a long time, and you must know the speech of hills and rivers. Then on a still night, when the campfire is low and the Pleiades have climbed over rimrocks, sit quietly and listen for a wolf to howl, and think hard of everything you have seen and tried to understand. Then you may hear it—a vast pulsing harmony—its score inscribed on a thousand hills, its notes the lives and deaths of plants and animals, its rhythms spanning the seconds and the centuries.”

Aldo Leopold book A Sand County Almanac

Source: A Sand County Almanac, 1949, "Chihuahua and Sonora: The Green Lagoons", p. 149.

Death , Music , Understanding , Thinking

“Oh child that didst despise thy life so much
When it seemed only thine to keep or lose,
How the fine ear felt fall the first low word
"Value life, and preserve life for My sake!"”

Robert Browning The Ring and the Book

Book X : The Pope.
The Ring and the Book (1868-69)

Life

“I know what I'm about to say now is controversial, but I have to say it. This nation cannot continue turning a blind eye and a deaf ear to the taking of some 4,000 unborn children's lives every day. That's one every 21 seconds. One every 21 seconds. We cannot pretend that America is preserving her first and highest ideal, the belief that each life is sacred, when we've permitted the deaths of 15 million helpless innocents since the Roe versus Wade decision. 15 million children who will never laugh, never sing, never know the joy of human love, will never strive to heal the sick, feed the poor, or make peace among nations. Abortion has denied them the first and most basic of human rights. We are all infinitely poorer for their loss. There's another grim truth we should face up to: Medical science doctors confirm that when the lives of the unborn are snuffed out, they often feel pain, pain that is long and agonizing. This nation fought a terrible war so that black Americans would be guaranteed their God-given rights. Abraham Lincoln recognized that we could not survive as a free land when some could decide whether others should be free or slaves. Well, today another question begs to be asked: How can we survive as a free nation when some decide that others are not fit to live and should be done away with? I believe no challenge is more important to the character of America than restoring the right to life to all human beings. Without that right, no other rights have meaning. "Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for such is the kingdom of God."”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

I will continue to support every effort to restore that protection including the Hyde-Jepsen respect life bill. I've asked for your all-out commitment, for the mighty power of your prayers, so that together we can convince our fellow countrymen that America should, can, and will preserve God's greatest gift.
Remarks at the Annual Convention of the National Religious Broadcasters (30 January 1984) http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=40394 · YouTube - Remarks at the Annual Convention of the National Religious Broadcasters https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Elph9CfsKs
1980s, First term of office (1981–1985)

Love , Life , Death , God

“A few truths, for those who have ears and eyes and care to know the truth:
1.) The hurricane that hit New Orleans and Mississippi and Alabama was an astonishing tragedy. The suffering and loss of life and peace of mind of the residents of those areas is acutely horrifying.
2.) George Bush did not cause the hurricane. Hurricanes have been happening for eons. George Bush did not create them or unleash this one.
3.) George Bush did not make this one worse than others. There have been far worse hurricanes than this before George Bush was born.”

Ben Stein (1944) actor, writer, commentator, lawyer, teacher, humorist

Get Off His Back, The American Spectator, 2 September 2005, 2011-09-03 http://spectator.org/archives/2005/09/02/get-off-his-back-updated,
referring to Hurricane Katrina

Life , Truth , Peace , Suffering

“Nature has given us two ears but only one mouth.”

Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister

Book 6, chapter 24.
Books, Coningsby (1844), Henrietta Temple (1837)

Nature

“To read a poem is to hear it with our eyes; to hear it is to see it with our ears.”

Octavio Paz (1914–1998) Mexican writer laureated with the 1990 Nobel Prize for Literature

Alternating Current (1967)

Reading

“But when the country, into which I had just set my foot, was set on fire about my ears, it was time to stir. It was time for every man to stir.”

Thomas Paine (1737–1809) English and American political activist

The Crisis No. VII
1770s, The American Crisis (1776–1783)

Time , Country

“Pardon, old fathers, if you still remain
Somewhere in ear-shot for the story’s end.”

W.B. Yeats (1865–1939) Irish poet and playwright

Responsibilities - Introduction http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1572/
Responsibilities (1914)

“In between these four whitewashed walls, on this tiled floor, notice the broken corners, how some tiles have been worn smooth, how many feet have passed this way, and look how interesting this trail of ants is, travelling along the joins as if they were valleys, while up above, projected against the white sky of the ceiling and the sun of the lamp, tall towers are moving, they are men, as the ants well know, having, for generations, experienced the weight of their feet and the long, hot spout of water that falls from a kind of pendulous external intestine, ants all over the world have been drowned or crushed by these, but it seems they will escape this fate now, for the men are occupied with other things. […]
Let's take this ant, or, rather, let's not, because that would involve picking it up, let us merely consider it, because it is one of the larger ones and because it raises its head like a dog, it's walking along very close to the wall, together with its fellow ants it will have time to complete its long journey ten times over between the ants' nest and whatever it is that it finds so interesting, curious or perhaps merely nourishing in this secret room […]. One of the men has fallen to the ground, he's on the same level as the ants now, we don't know if he can see them, but they see him, and he will fall so often that, in the end, they will know by heart his face, the color of his hair and eyes, the shape of his ear, the dark arc of his eyebrow, the faint shadow at the corner of his mouth, and later, back in the ants' nest, they will weave long stories for the enlightenment of future generations, because it is useful for the young to know what happens out there in the world. The man fell and the others dragged him to his feet again, shouting at him, asking two different questions at the same time, how could he possibly answer them even if he wanted to, which is not the case, because the man who fell and was dragged to his feet will die without saying a word. Only moans will issue from his mouth, and in the silence of his soul only deep sighs, and even when his teeth are broken and he has to spit them out, which will prompt the other two men to hit him again for soiling state property, even then the sound will be of spitting and nothing more, that unconscious reflex of the lips, and then the dribble of saliva thickened with blood that falls to the floor, thus stimulating the taste buds of the ants, who telegraph from one to the other news of this singularly red manna fallen from such a white heaven.
The man fell again. It's the same one, said the ants, the same ear shape, the same arc of eyebrow, the same shadow at the corner of the mouth, there's no mistaking him, why is it that it is always the same man who falls, why doesn't he defend himself, fight back. […] The ants are surprised, but only fleetingly. After all, they have their own duties, their own timetables to keep, it is quite enough that they raise their heads like dogs and fix their feeble vision on the fallen man to check that he is the same one and not some new variant in the story. The larger ant walked along the remaining stretch of wall, slipped under the door, and some time will pass before it reappears to find everything changed, well, that's just a manner of speaking, there are still three men there, but the two who do not fall never stop moving, it must be some kind of game, there's no other explanation […]. [T]hey grab him by the shoulders and propel him willy-nilly in the direction of the wall, so that sometimes he hits his back, sometimes his head, or else his poor bruised face smashes into the whitewash and leaves on it a trace of blood, not a lot, just whatever spurts forth from his mouth and right eyebrow. And if they leave him there, he, not his blood, slides down the wall and he ends up kneeling on the ground, beside the little trail of ants, who are startled by the sudden fall from on high of that great mass, which doesn't, in the end, even graze them. And when he stays there for some time, one ant attaches itself to his clothing, wanting to take a closer look, the fool, it will be the first ant to die, because the next blow falls on precisely that spot, the ant doesn't feel the second blow, but the man does.”

José Saramago book Raised from the Ground

Source: Raised from the Ground (1980), pp. 172–174

Men , Fate , Secret , World

“The sayings … which are of importance for the whole end of salvation, and are enveloped in a wonderful and super-celestial depth of thought, should not be taken as they strike the careless ear, but with an effort of mind to reach the very spirit of the Saviour.”

Clement of Alexandria (150–215) Christian theologian

Source: The Rich Man's Salvation, p. 283.

Effort

“You have no mind to be unkind,"
Said echo in her ear:
"No mind to bring a living thing
To suffering or fear.
For all that's bad, or mean or sad, you have no mind,
my dear.”

Lewis Carroll (1832–1898) English writer, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer

"To Janet Merriman", quoted in Letters of Lewis Carroll to his Child-Friends (1933) p. 81

Sadness , Fear , Suffering

“For no syren did ever so charm the ear of the listener, as the listening ear has charmed the soul of the syren.”

Henry Taylor (1800–1886) English playwright and poet

Source: The Statesman (1836), Ch. 31. p. 239

Soul

“Sometimes you want to whisper in God's ear, "God, we know you are in charge, but why don't you make it slightly more obvious?"”

Desmond Tutu (1931) South African churchman, politician, archbishop, Nobel Prize winner

Wallenberg Lecture (2008)

God

“India's education had two aims, both organically linked. One was to strengthen our body and mind, our nerves and vitality. If the Indian teaching on this subject is followed faithfully, it ensures full, vigorous, healthy and long life. Similarly, it ensures health and unimpaired senses and a mind with undiminished powers. According to the Hindu Psychology, a man's mind and senses are powers of the soul. Therefore, they should be strengthened, widened, deepened, purified. "May I see and hear clearly and abundantly", is the repeated prayer in the, several Upanishads. Another variant of this prayer is: "May our eyes see the good, our ears hear the good." To see and hear and desire better, purer, finer and deeper is the first aim of Indian education. This means strengthening character, controlling desires and impulses, increasing powers of concentration and will. Not only this opens up our hidden powers, but this is even the basis of any fruitful life at all. If our senses and mind run their unbridled course, uninformed by any higher light, they will lead to self-destruction. But purified in the light of the soul, they become a blessing.”

Ram Swarup (1920–1998) Indian historian

On Hinduism (2000)

Life , Health , Education , Soul

“The law of gravity thus asserts itself when a house falls about our ears.”

Karl Marx (1818–1883) German philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist and revolutionary socialist

Vol. I, Ch. 1, Section 4, pg. 86.
(Buch I) (1867)

Law , Housing

“Tormented by spiritual thirst,
I dragged myself through a somber desert.
And a six-winged seraph
Appeared to meet me at the crossing of the ways.
He touched my eyes
With fingers as light as a dream:
And my prophetic eyes opened
Like those of a frightened eagle.
He touched my ears
And they were filled with noise and ringing:
And I heard the shuddering of the heavens,
And the flight of the angels in the heights,
And the movement of the beasts of the sea under the waters,
And the sound of the vine growing in the valley.
He bent down to my mouth
And tore out my tongue,
Sinful, decitful, and given to idle talk;
with the right hand steeped in blood
He inserted the tongue of a wise serpent,
Into my benumbed mouth.
He clove my breast with a sword,
And plucked out my quivering heart,
And thrust a coal of live fire
Into my gaping breast.
Like a corpse I lay in the desert.
And the voice of God called out to me:
'Arise, O prophet, see and hear,
Be filled with my will,
Go forth over land and sea,
And set the hearts of men on fire with your Word.”

Aleksandr Pushkin The Prophet

English translation found in New Society, Volume 8, (1966). New Society Limited. p. 413.
Also quoted by Kahn, Andrew (2006). The Cambridge Companion to Pushkin. Cambridge University Press, p. 84.
The Prophet (1826)

Men , God , Dreams , Angels

“You are taking the wrong sow by the ear.”

Miguel de Cervantes (1547–1616) Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright

Source: Don Quixote de la Mancha (1605–1615), Part I, Book III, Ch. 4.

“The master was never impressed by diplomas or degrees. He scrutinized the person, not the certificate.
He was once heard to say, 'When you have ears to hear a bird in song, you don't need to look at its credentials.”

Anthony de Mello (1931–1987) Indian writer

Source: Anthony De Mello : Writings (1999), p. 76

Bird , Personality

“I am so submerged in the sweet fire of love I see without eyes, and I hear without ears. I feel without feeling and taste without tasting. I know neither form nor measure; for without seeing I yet behold an operation so divine that I cannot grasp anything except the whole of love, which melts all the marrow of my soul and body.”

Catherine of Genoa (1447–1510) Italian author and nurse

Love , Feeling , Soul

“I do not want to make a stone horse that is trying to and cannot smell the air. How lovely is the horse’s sensitive nose, the dogs moving ears and deep eyes; but to me these are not stone forms and the love of them and the emotion can only be expressed in more abstract terms. I do not want to make a machine that cannot fulfil its essential purpose; but to make exactly the right relation of masses, a living thing in stone, to express my awareness and thought of these things.”

Barbara Hepworth (1903–1975) English sculptor

Quote of Hepworth in her text: 'Unit One', 1934; as cited in Voicing our visions, - Writings by women artists, ed. by Mara R. Witzling, Universe New York 1991, p. 278
1932 - 1946

Love , Dogs , Horse

“You have taken far too much trouble over your opera. Here in England that is mere waste of time. What the English like is something that they can beat time to, something that hits them straight on the drum of the ear.”

George Frideric Handel (1685–1759) German, later British Baroque composer

Richard Alexander Streatfeild Handel (2005) p. 195, citing Anton Schmid Christoph Willibald Ritter von Gluck (1854) p. 29
In conversation with Gluck.

Time

“The odour rising from the newly opened depths was intolerable, and at length the quick-eared Hawkins thought he heard a nasty, slopping sound down there. Everyone listened, and everyone was listening still when It lumbered slobberingly into sight and gropingly squeezed Its gelatinous green immensity through the black doorway into the tainted outside air of that poison city of madness.”

H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author

Fiction, The Call of Cthulhu (1926)

Madness

“Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones.”

William Shakespeare Julius Caesar

Antony, Act III, scene ii.
Julius Caesar (1599)

Men , Evil

“I love seeing Lady Gaga’s boobs and bum. I love seeing Katy Perry’s boobs and bum. Love it. But that’s not what my music is about. I don’t make music for eyes, I make music for ears.”

Adele (singer) (1988) British singer-songwriter

Adele in Rolling Stone http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/adele-opens-up-about-her-inspirations-looks-and-stage-fright-20120210, April 28, 2011.

Love , Music

“About ten months ago a report reached my ears that a certain Fleming had constructed a spyglass by means of which visible objects, though very distant from the eye of the observer, were distinctly seen as if nearby. Of the truly remarkable effect several experiences were related, to which some persons gave credence while others denied them. A few days later a report was confirmed to me in a letter from a noble Frenchman in Paris, Jacques Badovere, which caused me to apply myself wholeheartedly to inquire into means by which I might arrive at the invention of a similar instrument. This I did shortly afterwards, my basis being the theory of refraction. First I prepared a tube of lead, at the ends I fitted two glass lenses, both plane on one side while on the other side one was spherically convex and the other concave. Then placing my eye near the concave lens I perceived objects satisfactorily large and near, for they appeared three times closer and nine times larger than when seen with the naked eye alone. Next I constructed another one, more accurate, which represented objects as enlarged more than sixty times. Finally, sparing neither labor nor expense, I succeeded in constructing for myself so excellent an instrument that objects seen by means of it appeared nearly one thousand times larger and over thirty times closer than when regarded with our natural vision.”

Galileo Galilei book Sidereus Nuncius

Translation by Stillman Drake in Discoveries and Opinions of Galileo (1957)
Sidereus Nuncius (Venice, 1609)

Nature , Distant , Appearance , Time

“Then I would sing a little in the synagogue. See, if you're a singer, you love to turn your own ears on. You look for those rooms where the reverb is great. I remember the synagogue had a lot of wood and it was a great room. And it was a captive audience and you could sing these minor key songs and make them cry, and that was a thrill.”

Art Garfunkel (1941) American singer, poet, and actor

http://www.artgarfunkel.info/more.html

Love , Singing , Cry

“Listen to learned men, but do so only with one ear!… Let the other be always ready to receive the sweet accents of the voice of your heavenly Friend!”

André-Marie Ampère (1775–1836) French physicist and mathematician

Écoute les savants, mais ne les écoute que d'une oreille!... Que l'autre soit toujours prête à recevoir les doux accents de la voix de ton ami céleste!
Ampère's Meditation, September 1805

Men , Learning

“Joy and happiness are the indicators of balance in a human machine, just as a change in the familiar hum in a mechanism immediately indicates an abnormalcy to the practiced ear of the mechanic. An inner joyousness, amounting to ecstasy, is the normal condition of the genius mind. Any lack of that joyousness develops body-destroying toxins. That inner ecstasy of the mind is the secret fountain of perpetual youth and strength in any man. He who finds it finds omnipotence and omniscience.”

Walter Russell (1871–1963) American philosopher

The Man who Tapped the Secrets of the Universe

Secret , Youth , Change , Joy