Quotes about egg
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Robert Crumb photo
Warren Farrell photo
Patrik Baboumian photo
Josh Billings photo

“Men are often praized for their sagassity, but all the fore sight in the world kant tell a dubble yelked egg untill it iz broken.”

Josh Billings (1818–1885) American humorist

Josh Billings: His Works, Complete (1873)

Kapil Sibal photo

“Telecom was the golden goose which laid the golden egg. The Supreme Court ensured that the golden goose will never lay golden egg again for a little while.”

Kapil Sibal (1948) Indian lawyer and politician

On the Supreme Court's decision to cancel 2G spectrum licences, as quoted in Telecom sector not to lay 'golden egg' for a while, thanks to Supreme Court: Kapil Sibal http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2013-04-03/news/38248797_1_telecom-sector-golden-egg-apex-court, The Economic Times (3 April 2013)

Ralph Waldo Emerson photo
Sadhguru photo
Margaret Cho photo
Kerry McCarthy photo
Adolf Eichmann photo
John C. Wright photo

“Broken oaths are bad luck eggs.”
That was so weird, I did not know what to say. So I said, “Eggs?”

“They hatch bad luck.”
Source: Orphans of Chaos (2005), Chapter 5, “To Walk with Owls” Section 3 (p. 86)

Ted Hughes photo

“Pike, three inches long, perfect
Pike in all parts, green tigering the gold.
Killers from the egg: the malevolent aged grin.”

Ted Hughes (1930–1998) English poet and children's writer

"Pike", line 1
Lupercal (1960)

Bernard Cornwell photo
Doug Stanhope photo
Lil Wayne photo

“I beg your pardon I egg your noggin got nina up in my glove compartment.”

Lil Wayne (1982) American rapper, singer, record executive and businessman

Same Damn Tune
Official Mix tapes, Dedication 4 (2012)

Michael Savage photo

“Trains, planes, cars, rockets, telescopes, tires, telephones, radios, television, electricity, atomic energy, computers, and fax machines. All miracles made possible by the minds and spirits of men with names like Ampere, Bell, Caselli, Edison, Ohm, Faraday, Einstein, Cohen, Teller, Shockley, Hertz, Marconi, Morse, Popov, Ford, Volta, Michelin, Dunlop, Watt, Diesel, Galileo, and other "dead white males." … The great majority of advancements past and present have been brought about by the genius and inventiveness of that most "despicable" of colors and genders, the dreaded white male, or, to be exact, by specific, individual white males. This is not to discredit the many contributions coming from nonwhites, but fact is fact. Our most important and consequential inventions have come almost exclusively from white males. … If you eliminate, suppress, or debase the while male, you kill the goose that laid the golden egg. If you ace him out with "affirmative" action, exile him from the family, teach him that he's a blight on mankind, then bon voyage to our society. We will devolve into a Third World cesspool. Where has there ever before in history been a group of human beings who have brought about the likes of the Magna Carta, the U. S. Constitution, and the countless life-saving and life-improving inventions that we now enjoy? … Does this mean we should sit back and let ourselves be governed by someone just because he's a white male? Of course, it doesn't. It means simply that we shouldn't suppress anyone, including white males. Let our God-given gifts run free in a free and just society, free from the oppression and tyranny of social engineers. If anyone has gifts beyond our own—be he a white male or other—be grateful. Maybe we have gifts that in some small way can contribute something of value as well. One way or another, we're all in the same boat. Few of us have truly outstanding gifts. And most of us have to humbly accept that there are others around who are more gifted than we are. In a Democratic society, it's not for Big Brother to decide who shall thrive and who shall struggle in the hive.”

Michael Savage (1942) U.S. radio talk show host, Commentator, and Author

Source: The Savage Nation: Saving America from the Liberal Assault on Our Borders, Language and Culture (2003), pp. 136–138; "White Male Inventions" http://www.dadi.org/ms_dwm.htm (December 15, 1999)

Ryan Adams photo
Dorothy Thompson photo
Babe Ruth photo
Russell Brand photo

“I’m now vegan, goodbye eggs, hello Ellen.”

Russell Brand (1975) British comedian, actor, and author

Twitter tweet (23 October 2011) https://twitter.com/rustyrockets/status/128301029530939393
Twitter (2011, 2013)

Colin Spencer photo

“Further, it should be clear that meat in itself as protein is not much superior to eggs or nuts and could not alter the evolution of the brain – if this were so, this miracle food would have continued to enlarge humans’ brain size in succeeding years when much greater amounts of meat were consumed.”

Colin Spencer (1933) British writer

The Heretic's Feast: A History of Vegetarianism (Hanover and London: University Press of New England, 1996), p. 16 https://books.google.it/books?id=rIjZo-cvifAC&pg=PA16.

David Zabriskie photo
Maxime Bernier photo
Samuel Taylor Coleridge photo
John Dryden photo

“And new-laid eggs, which Baucis' busy care
Turn'd by a gentle fire and roasted rare.”

John Dryden (1631–1700) English poet and playwright of the XVIIth century

Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book viii. Baucis and Philemon, Line 97.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Henry George photo

“No amount of force will break an egg-shell if exerted on one side alone. So capital could not squeeze labor as long as labor was free to natural opportunities, and in a world where these natural materials and opportunities were as free to all as is the air to us, there could be no difficulty in finding employment, no willing hands conjoined with hungry stomachs, no tendency of wages toward the minimum on which the worker could barely live. In such a world we would no more think of thanking anybody for furnishing us employment than we here think of thanking anybody for furnishing us with appetites.
That the Creator might have put us in the kind of world I have sought to imagine, as readily as in this kind of a world, I have no doubt. Why he has not done so may, however, I think, be seen. That kind of a world would be best for fools. This is the best for men who will use the intelligence with which they have been gifted. Of this, however, I shall speak hereafter. What I am now trying to do by asking my readers to endeavor to imagine a world in which natural opportunities were "as free as air," is to show that the barrier which prevents labor from freely using land is the nether millstone against which labor is ground, the true cause of the difficulties which are apparent through the whole industrial organization.”

Henry George (1839–1897) American economist

Source: Social Problems (1883), Ch. 13 : Unemployed Labor

Roy Hilligenn photo
John Cheever photo

“My veins are filled, once a week with a Neapolitan carpet cleaner distilled from the Adriatic and I am as bald as an egg. However I still get around and am mean to cats.”

John Cheever (1912–1982) American novelist and short story writer

Letter to Philip Roth (May 10, 1982); The Letters of John Cheever (1989).

Will Cuppy photo
Ray Comfort photo

“I think he must have an egg-timer - every four minutes, he blows the whistle.”

Jack Gibson (1929–2008) Australian rugby league player and coach

On Queensland referee Barry Gomersall.

Alan Guth photo

“Posthumous fame, book fame, nerd fame is not like the good kind of fame. It might last for centuries and let antique egg heads torture the young from the grave, but it just doesn't pay the bills.”

Laura Penny (1975) Canadian journalist

Source: More Money than Brains (2010), Chapter Seven, If You're So Smart, Why Ain't You Rich?, p. 206 (See also: Henry David Thoreau, Karl Marx, James Joyce, Herman Mellville...)

Haruki Murakami photo
D.H. Lawrence photo
Mick Mulvaney photo
Oliver Wendell Holmes photo
John Fante photo
Peter Greenaway photo
Anthony Fitzherbert photo
Judith Martin photo

“Civilized life begins with a boiled egg sitting upright in an egg cup.”

Judith Martin (1938) American etiquette expert

Miss Manners column "Egg On Their Face", June 19, 2005

Tenzin Gyatso photo

“Thousands — millions and billions — of animals are killed for food. That is very sad. We human beings can live without meat, especially in our modern world. We have a great variety of vegetables and other supplementary foods, so we have the capacity and the responsibility to save billions of lives. I have seen many individuals and groups promoting animal rights and following a vegetarian diet. This is excellent. Certain killing is purely a "luxury." … But perhaps the saddest is factory farming. The poor animals there really suffer. I once visited a poultry farm in Japan where they keep 200,000 hens for two years just for their eggs. During those two years, they are prisoners. Then after two years, when they are no longer productive, the hens are sold. That is really shocking, really sad. We must support those who are attempting to reduce that kind of unfair treatment. An Indian friend told me that his young daughter has been arguing with him that it is better to serve one cow to ten people than to serve chicken or other small animals, since more lives would be involved. In the Indian tradition, beef is always avoided, but I think there is some logic to her argument. Shrimp, for example, are very small. For one plate, many lives must be sacrificed. To me, this is not at all delicious. I find it really awful, and I think it is better to avoid these things. If your body needs meat, it may be better to eat bigger animals. Eventually you may be able to eliminate the need for meat. I think that our basic nature as human beings is to be vegetarian — making every effort not to harm other living beings. If we apply our intelligence, we can create a sound, nutritional program. It is very dangerous to ignore the suffering of any sentient being.”

Tenzin Gyatso (1935) spiritual leader of Tibet

Interview in Worlds in Harmony: Dialogues on Compassionate Action, Berkeley: Parallax Press, 1992, pp. 20-21.

Francis Bacon photo
Charles Lyell photo
Jerry Coyne photo
William Cowper photo

“Remorse, the fatal egg by Pleasure laid.”

William Cowper (1731–1800) (1731–1800) English poet and hymnodist

Source: The Progress of Error (1782), Line 240.

Ingrid Newkirk photo
Neal D. Barnard photo

“One of my earliest recollections in life was being taken for holidays to the little farm where my father had been born. … The cows "gave" milk, the hens "gave" eggs … but I couldn't for the life of me see what the pigs "gave", and they seemed … such friendly creatures, always glad to see me, and grateful for almost anything that was thrown to them in the sty. … I still have vivid recollections of the whole process from start to finish, including all the screams of course, which were only feet away from where this pig's companion still lived. And then, when the pig had finally expired, the women came out, one after another, with buckets of this scalding water, and the body of the pig was scraped – all the hairs were taken away. The thing that shocked me, along with the chief impact of the whole setup, was that my Uncle George, of whom I thought very highly, was part of the crew, and I suppose at that point I decided that farms, and uncles, had to be re-assessed. They weren't all they seemed to be, on the face of it, to a little, hitherto uninformed boy. And it followed that this idyllic scene was nothing more than Death Row. A Death Row where every creature's days were numbered by the point at which it was no longer of service to human beings.”

Donald Watson (1910–2005) English vegan activist

Interview with George D. Rodger (15 December 2002), in VeganSociety.com https://www.vegansociety.com/sites/default/files/DW_Interview_2002_Unabridged_Transcript.pdf.

Arundhati Roy photo

“He is Karna, whom the world has abandoned. Karna Alone. Condemned goods. A prince raised in poverty. Born to die unfairly, unarmed and alone at the hands of his brother. Majestic in his complete despair. Praying on the banks of the Ganga. Stoned out of his skull.
Then Kunti appeared. She too was a man, but a man grown soft and womanly, a man with breasts, from doing female parts for years. Her movements were fluid. Full of women. Kunti, too, was stoned. High on the same shared joints. She had come to tell Karna a story.
Karna inclined his beautiful head and listened.
Red-eyed, Kunti danced for him. She told him of a young woman who had been granted a boon. A secret mantra that she could use to choose a lover from among the gods. Of how, with the imprudence of youth, the woman decided to test it to see if it really worked. How she stood alone in an empty field, turned her face to the heavens and recited the mantra. The words had scarcely left her foolish lips, Kunti said, when Surya, the God of Day, appeared before her. The young woman, bewitched by the beauty of the shimmering young god, gave herself to him. Nine months later she bore him a son. The baby was born sheathed in light, with gold earrings in his ears and a gold breastplate on his chest, engraved with the emblem of the sun.
The young mother loved her first-born son deeply, Kunti said, but she was unmarried and couldn't keep him. She put him in a reed basket and cast him away in a river. The child was found downriver by Adhirata, a charioteer. And named Karna.
Karna looked up to Kunti. Who was she? Who was my mother? Tell me where she is. Take me to her.
Kunti bowed her head. She's here, she said. Standing before you.
Karna's elation and anger at the revelation. His dance of confusion and despair. Where were you, he asked her, when I needed you the most? Did you ever hold me in your arms? Did you feed me? Did you ever look for me? Did you wonder where I might be?
In reply Kunti took the regal face in her hands, green the face, red the eyes, and kissed him on his brow. Karna shuddered in delight. A warrior reduced to infancy. The ecstasy of that kiss. He dispatched it to the ends of his body. To his toes. His fingertips. His lovely mother's kiss. Did you know how much I missed you? Rahel could see it coursing through his veins, as clearly as an egg travelling down an ostrich's neck.
A travelling kiss whose journey was cut short by dismay when Karna realised that his mother had revealed herself to him only to secure the safety of her five other, more beloved sons - the Pandavas - poised on the brink of their epic battle with their one hundred cousins. It is them that Kunti sought to protect by announcing to Karna that she was his mother. She had a promise to extract.
She invoked the Love Laws.”

pages 232-233.
The God of Small Things (1997)

W. S. Gilbert photo

“As innocent as a new-laid egg.”

Engaged.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Allie (wrestler) photo
Peter Singer photo
Harlan F. Stone photo
Luis Buñuel photo
Charles Stuart Calverley photo
John Ralston Saul photo
Ogden Nash photo

“It is the sin of omission, the second kind of sin,
That lays eggs under your skin.”

Ogden Nash (1902–1971) American poet

"Portrait of the Artist as a Prematurely Old Man" (1959)

Peter D. Schiff photo
Karl Pilkington photo

“I'm surprised that I won the race to the egg. I'm not a good swimmer. If I was back in there now I'd go forget it, let them lot go first.”

Karl Pilkington (1972) English television personality, social commentator, actor, author and former radio producer

The Moaning of Life, Karl on Kids

Melania Trump photo

“You can see from the tape, the cameras were not on—it was only a mic. And I wonder if they even knew that the mic was on. Because they were kind of, ah, boy talk. And he was led on. Like egg on from the host to say, uh, dirty and bad stuff.”

Melania Trump (1970) Slovenian model, wife of Donald Trump and First Lady of the United States

Regarding the leaked Access Hollywood tape of Donald Trump and Billy Bush; Interview with Anderson Cooper http://time.com/4534216/melania-donald-trump-billy-bush-boy-talk/ (October 17, 2016)

Willem de Sitter photo

“To help us to understand three-dimensional spaces, two-dimensional analogies may be very useful… A two-dimensional space of zero curvature is a plane, say a sheet of paper. The two-dimensional space of positive curvature is a convex surface, such as the shell of an egg. It is bent away from the plane towards the same side in all directions. The curvature of the egg, however, is not constant: it is strongest at the small end. The surface of constant positive curvature is the sphere… The two-dimensional space of negative curvature is a surface that is convex in some directions and concave in others, such as the surface of a saddle or the middle part of an hour glass. Of these two-dimensional surfaces we can form a mental picture because we can view them from outside… But… a being… unable to leave the surface… could only decide of which kind his surface was by studying the properties of geometrical figures drawn on it. …On the sheet of paper the sum of the three angles of a triangle is equal to two right angles, on the egg, or the sphere, it is larger, on the saddle it is smaller. …The spaces of zero and negative curvature are infinite, that of positive curvature is finite. …the inhabitant of the two-dimensional surface could determine its curvature if he were able to study very large triangles or very long straight lines. If the curvature were so minute that the sum of the angles of the largest triangle that he could measure would… differ… by an amount too small to be appreciable… then he would be unable to determine the curvature, unless he had some means of communicating with somebody living in the third dimension…. our case with reference to three-dimensional space is exactly similar. …we must study very large triangles and rays of light coming from very great distances. Thus the decision must necessarily depend on astronomical observations.”

Willem de Sitter (1872–1934) Dutch cosmologist

Kosmos (1932)

E. B. White photo

“An unhatched egg is to me the greatest challenge in life.”

E. B. White (1899–1985) American writer

Letter to Reginald Allen (5 March 1973)

Mike Rosen photo
Douglas Adams photo

“You will need to know the difference between Friday and a fried egg. It's quite a simple difference, but an important one.”

The Salmon of Doubt (2002)
Context: For Children: You will need to know the difference between Friday and a fried egg. It's quite a simple difference, but an important one. Friday comes at the end of the week, whereas a fried egg comes out of a chicken. Like most things, of course, it isn't quite that simple. The fried egg isn't properly a fried egg until it's been put in a frying pan and fried. This is something you wouldn't do to a Friday, of course, though you might do it on a Friday. You can also fry eggs on a Thursday, if you like, or on a cooker. It's all rather complicated, but it makes a kind of sense if you think about it for a while.

Fay Weldon photo

“Go to work on an egg.”

Fay Weldon (1931) English author, essayist and playwright

Advertising slogan originated by the Mather & Crowther agency for the British Egg Marketing Board, and used from 1957. http://www.gotoworkonanegg.com/
Fay Weldon wrote to Nigel Rees in 1981: "I was certainly in charge of copy [at Mather & Crowther] at the time…Who invented it, it would be hard to say. It is perfectly possible, indeed probable, that I put those six particular words together in that particular order but I would not swear to it." (The "Quote…Unquote" Newsletter, July 1992, p. 2).

Bill Bailey photo
Alfred, Lord Tennyson photo
Joseph Chamberlain photo

“You can not have omelettes without breaking eggs”

Joseph Chamberlain (1836–1914) British businessman, politician, and statesman

The True Conception of Empire http://www.bartleby.com/268/5/14.html (31 March 1897). Speech given to the Royal Colonial Institute.
The phrase "omlets are not made without breaking eggs" first appeared in English in 1796. It is from the French, "on ne saurait faire d'omelette sans casser des œufs" (1742 and earlier), attributed to François de Charette.
1890s
Context: You can not have omelettes without breaking eggs; you can not destroy the practises of barbarism, of slavery, of superstition, which for centuries have desolated the interior of Africa, without the use of force; but if you will fairly contrast the gain to humanity with the price which we are bound to pay for it, I think you may well rejoice in the result of such expeditions as those which have recently been conducted with such signal success in Nyassaland, Ashanti, Benin, and Nupé—expeditions which may have, and indeed have, cost valuable lives, but as to which we may rest assured that for one life lost a hundred will be gained, and the cause of civilization and the prosperity of the people will in the long run be eminently advanced.

Margaret Thatcher photo

“When you take into public ownership a profitable industry, the profits soon disappear. The goose that laid the golden eggs goes broody. State geese are not great layers.”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

Speech to Finchley Conservatives (31 January 1976) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/102947
Leader of the Opposition
Context: The Socialists tell us that there are massive profits in a particular industry and they should not go to the shareholders—but that the public should reap the benefits. Benefits? What benefits? When you take into public ownership a profitable industry, the profits soon disappear. The goose that laid the golden eggs goes broody. State geese are not great layers. The steel industry was nationalised some years ago in the public interest—yet the only interest now left to the public is in witnessing the depressing spectacle of their money going down the drain at a rate of a million pounds a day.

Haruki Murakami photo

“If there is a hard, high wall and an egg that breaks against it, no matter how right the wall or how wrong the egg, I will stand on the side of the egg.”

Haruki Murakami (1949) Japanese author, novelist

Jerusalem Prize acceptance speech, (2009)
Context: If there is a hard, high wall and an egg that breaks against it, no matter how right the wall or how wrong the egg, I will stand on the side of the egg. Why? Because each of us is an egg, a unique soul enclosed in a fragile egg. Each of us is confronting a high wall. The high wall is the system which forces us to do the things we would not ordinarily see fit to do as individuals... We are all human beings, individuals, fragile eggs. We have no hope against the wall: it's too high, too dark, too cold. To fight the wall, we must join our souls together for warmth, strength. We must not let the system control us -- create who we are. It is we who created the system.

Denis Diderot photo

“Do you see this egg? With this you can topple every theological theory, every church or temple in the world.”

Denis Diderot (1713–1784) French Enlightenment philosopher and encyclopædist

“Conversation Between D’Alembert and Diderot”, as quoted in Selected Writings (1966) edited by Lester G. Crocker, and The Enlightenment and the Intellectual Foundations of Modern Culture (2004) by Louis K Dupré, p. 30
Variant translation: See this egg. It is with this that all the schools of theology and all the temples of the earth are to be overturned.
As quoted in Diderot, Reason and Resonance (1982) by Élisabeth de Fontenay, p. 217
D’Alembert’s Dream (1769)
Context: Do you see this egg? With this you can topple every theological theory, every church or temple in the world. What is it, this egg, before the seed is introduced into it? An insentient mass. And after the seed has been introduced to into it? What is it then? An insentient mass. For what is the seed itself other than a crude and inanimate fluid? How is this mass to make a transition to a different structure, to sentience, to life? Through heat. And what will produce that heat in it? Motion.

Hermann Hesse photo

“The bird fights its way out of the egg. The egg is the world.”

Source: Demian (1919), p. 166
Variant translation: The bird is struggling out of the egg. The egg is the world. Whoever wants to be born must first destroy a world. The bird is flying to God. The name of the God is called Abraxas.
As translated by W. J. Strachan
Context: The bird fights its way out of the egg. The egg is the world. Who would be born must first destroy a world. The bird flies to God. The God's name is Abraxas.

Bill Bailey photo
William Stanley Jevons photo

“To allow commerce to proceed until the source of civilization is weakened and overturned is like killing the goose to get the golden egg. Is the immediate creation of material wealth to be our only object?”

The Coal Question (1865)
Context: Commerce is but a means to an end, the diffusion of civilization and wealth. To allow commerce to proceed until the source of civilization is weakened and overturned is like killing the goose to get the golden egg. Is the immediate creation of material wealth to be our only object?

Tré Cool photo

“No man can eat 50 eggs!”

Tré Cool (1972) Drummer, punk rock musician

Bullet in a Bible (2005) (backstage in England)(quoting cool hand luke).

Bill Bailey photo
Robert A. Heinlein photo
Annie Dillard photo
Marilyn Ferguson photo
Teal Swan photo

“DESOLATE are the mansions of the fair, the stations in Minia, where they rested, and those where they fixed their abodes! Wild are the hills of Goul, and deserted is the summit of Rijaam.
The canals of Rayaan are destroyed: the remains of them are laid bare and smoothed by the floods, like characters engraved on the solid rocks.
Dear ruins! Many a year has been closed, many a month, holy and unhallowed, has elapsed, since I exchanged tender vows with their fair inhabitants!
The rainy constellations of spring have made their hills green and luxuriant: the drops from the thunder-clouds have drenched them with profuse as well as with gentle showers:
Showers, from every nightly cloud, from every cloud veiling the horizon at day-break, and from every evening cloud, responsive with hoarse murmurs.
Here the wild eringo-plants raise their tops: here the antelopes bring forth their young, by the sides of the valley: and here the ostriches drop their eggs.
The large-eyed wild-cows lie suckling their young, a few days old—their young, who will soon become a herd on the plain.
The torrents have cleared the rubbish, and disclosed the traces of habitations, as the reeds of a writer restore effaced letters in a book;
Or as the black dust, sprinkled over the varied marks on a fair hand, brings to view with a brighter tint the blue stains of woad.
I stood asking news of the ruins concerning their lovely habitants; but what avail my questions to dreary rocks, who answer them only by their echo?”

Labīd (560–661) Sahabah and poet

Translated by C. J. Lyall, quoted in Arabian Poetry, p. 41-42. First Stanza, lines 1-10 https://archive.org/details/arabianpoetryfo00clougoog/page/n127/mode/2up
The Poem of Labīd (translated by C. J. Lyall in 1881)

Robert A. Heinlein photo
Swami Sivananda photo
Neal Stephenson photo

“When a warrior learns to "see" he "sees" that a man is a luminous egg whether he's a beggar or a king and there's no way to change anything; or rather, what could be changed in that luminous egg? What?”

Source: The Wheel of Time: Shamans of Ancient Mexico, Their Thoughts About Life, Death and the Universe], (1998), Quotations from A Separate Reality (Chapter 6)

Alfred Austin photo

“Know, Nature, like the cuckoo, laughs at law,
Placing her eggs in whatso nest she will.”

Alfred Austin (1835–1913) British writer and poet

Source: Savonarola (1881), Lorenzo de' Medici in Act I, sc. i; p. 14.