“Life is the art of drawing without an eraser.”
John W. Gardner (1912–2002) American politician
Quoted in Matthew M. Radmanesh, Cracking the Code of Our Physical Universe, p. 269.
A collection of quotes on the topic of eraser, making, time, timing.
“Life is the art of drawing without an eraser.”
John W. Gardner (1912–2002) American politician
Quoted in Matthew M. Radmanesh, Cracking the Code of Our Physical Universe, p. 269.
“Do not erase the designs the child makes in the soft wax of his inner life.”
Maria Montessori (1870–1952) Italian pedagogue, philosopher and physician
“You can hide memories, but you can't erase the history that produced them.”
Haruki Murakami book Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage
Source: Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage (2013)
“To enforce the lies of the present, it is necessary to erase the truths of the past.”
George Orwell book 1984
Attributed to Orwell by Keith Olbermann on MSNBC (27 September 2006), this seems to be a paraphrase of some of the statements in Nineteen Eighty-Four.
Misattributed
Source: 1984
“A fool is someone whose pencil wears out before its eraser does.”
Marilyn vos Savant (1946) US American magazine columnist, author and lecturer
As quoted in The Truth in Words: Inspiring Quotes for the Reflective Mind (2002) by Paras, p. 92
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918–2008) Russian writer
Nobel lecture (1970)
Context: Our Twentieth Century has proved to be more cruel than preceding centuries, and the first fifty years have not erased all its horrors. Our world is rent asunder by those same old cave-age emotions of greed, envy, lack of control, mutual hostility which have picked up in passing respectable pseudonyms like class struggle, racial conflict, struggle of the masses, trade-union disputes. The primeval refusal to accept a compromise has been turned into a theoretical principle and is considered the virtue of orthodoxy. It demands millions of sacrifices in ceaseless civil wars, it drums into our souls that there is no such thing as unchanging, universal concepts of goodness and justice, that they are all fluctuating and inconstant. Therefore the rule — always do what's most profitable to your party. Any professional group no sooner sees a convenient opportunity to BREAK OFF A PIECE, even if it be unearned, even if it be superfluous, than it breaks it off there and then and no matter if the whole of society comes tumbling down.
“History cannot be erased or altered. Because that would mean killing yourself.”
Haruki Murakami (1949) Japanese author, novelist
Source: 色彩を持たない多崎つくると、彼の巡礼の年
“Tis better people think you a fool, then open your mouth and erase all doubt.”
Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States
Variously attributed to Lincoln, Elbert Hubbard, Mark Twain, Benjamin Franklin and Socrates
Misattributed
Variant: It is better to be silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt.
Rainer Maria Rilke book New Poems
Die nächste Flut verwischt den Weg im Watt,
und alles wird auf allen Seiten gleich;
die kleine Insel draußen aber hat
die Augen zu; verwirrend kreist der Deich<p>um ihre Wohner, die in einem Schlaf
geboren werden, drin sie viele Welten
verwechseln schweigend, denn sie reden selten,
und jeder Satz ist wie ein Epitaph
Die Insel I (The Island I) (as translated by Cliff Crego)
Neue Gedichte (New Poems) (1907)
Ruhollah Khomeini (1902–1989) Religious leader, politician
Letter to Russian Premier Gorbachev, January 1989. http://politicalquotes.org/node/68478
Foreign policy
Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States
1900s, Letter to Winfield T. Durbin (1903)
“The dressing up and puffing up of the individual erases the lineaments of protest.”
Theodor W. Adorno (1903–1969) German sociologist, philosopher and musicologist known for his critical theory of society
Source: On the Fetish Character in Music and the Regression of Listening (1938), p. 283
Aldo Leopold book A Sand County Almanac
“August: The Green Pasture”, p. 51.
A Sand County Almanac, 1949, "August: The Green Pasture," "September: The Choral Copse," "October: Smoky Gold," and "October: Red Lanterns"
“One cannot and must not try to erase the past merely because it does not fit the present.”
Golda Meir book My Life
My Life (1975), p. 231
Amos Oz (1939–2018) Israeli writer, novelist, journalist and intellectual
"Try a Little Tenderness" (interview) in Ha'aretz, March 17, 2000.
Rainer Maria Rilke book Letters to a Young Poet
Letter Ten (26 December 1908)
Letters to a Young Poet (1934)
Desiderius Erasmus (1466–1536) Dutch Renaissance humanist, Catholic priest, and theologian
Letter to an unidentified friend (1489), as translated in Collected Works of Erasmus (1974), p. 58
Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America
2014, Statement on Cuban policy (December 2014)
Context: To the Cuban people, America extends a hand of friendship. Some of you have looked to us as a source of hope, and we will continue to shine a light of freedom. Others have seen us as a former colonizer intent on controlling your future. José Martí once said, “Liberty is the right of every man to be honest.” Today, I am being honest with you. We can never erase the history between us, but we believe that you should be empowered to live with dignity and self-determination. Cubans have a saying about daily life: “No es facil” –- it’s not easy. Today, the United States wants to be a partner in making the lives of ordinary Cubans a little bit easier, more free, more prosperous.
To those who have supported these measures, I thank you for being partners in our efforts. In particular, I want to thank His Holiness Pope Francis, whose moral example shows us the importance of pursuing the world as it should be, rather than simply settling for the world as it is; the government of Canada, which hosted our discussions with the Cuban government; and a bipartisan group of congressmen who have worked tirelessly for Alan Gross’s release, and for a new approach to advancing our interests and values in Cuba.
Marilyn Frye book The Politics of Reality
Source: The Politics of Reality: Essays in Feminist Theory (1983), p. 60
“When I erase a word with a pencil, where does it go?”
Steven Wright (1955) American actor and author
Ann Brashares book Girls in Pants: The Third Summer of the Sisterhood
Source: Girls in Pants: The Third Summer of the Sisterhood
“For me, the person I was becoming when we left was erased, and another one was created.”
Esmeralda Santiago (1948) Puerto Rican writer and actor
Source: When I Was Puerto Rican
Haruki Murakami book Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage
Source: Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage
“You have me like a drawing, erased, coloured in, untitled, signed by your tongue.”
Carol Ann Duffy (1955) British writer and professor of contemporary poetry
Source: Selected Poems
“Time may heal wounds, but it does not erase the scars.”
Jane Yolen book Briar Rose
Source: Briar Rose (1992), Chapter 12 (p. 72)
Guy Debord (1931–1994) French Marxist theorist, writer, filmmaker and founding member of the Situationist International (SI)
Source: Society of the Spectacle (1967), Ch. 8, sct. 207 (confer Comte de Lautréamont, Poésies II, 1870).
“We all make mistakes. That's why my pencil has an eraser.”
Chris Grabenstein book Tilt-a-Whirl
Source: Tilt-a-Whirl
James Redfield (1950) American author, lecturer, screenwriter and film producer
Source: The Celestine Prophecy: A Pocket Guide to the Nine Insights
“Honey! Bring down a copy of my will - and an eraser!”
Woody Allen (1935) American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, author, playwright, and musician
Brennan Manning (1934–2013) writer, American Roman Catholic priest and United States Marine
Source: Abba's Child: The Cry of the Heart for Intimate Belonging
“If I were to draw on a paper what gym does for me, I would make one dot and then I would erase it.”
Elizabeth Berg (1948) American novelist
Source: Joy School
“Without dignity, identity is erased.”
Laura Hillenbrand book Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption
Source: Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption
“Memory's images, once they are fixed in words, are erased.”
Italo Calvino book Invisible Cities
Source: Invisible Cities
Laura Hillenbrand book Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption
Source: Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption
George Steiner (1929–2020) American writer
Source: Real Presences (1989), II: The Broken Contract, Ch. 3 (p. 76).
Roberto Clemente (1934–1972) Puerto Rican baseball player
As quoted in "Sports Parade"
Other, <big><big>1970s</big></big>, <big>1971</big>
Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America
Letter to J. Dickinson (19 December 1801)
1800s, First Presidential Administration (1801–1805)
“Love alone was left, as a great image of a dream that was erased.”
Alphonse de Lamartine (1790–1869) French writer, poet, and politician
The Valley (1820), st. 9
Gracie Allen (1902–1964) American actress and comedienne
Source: How to Become President (1940), Ch. 5 : Issues and how to pick them
Attila (406–453) King of the Hunnic Empire
As quoted by Edward Gibbon (1781), The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol. III, chapter 34
Fakhruddin 'Iraqi (1213–1289) Persian philosopher
Fakhruddin Iraqi: Divine Flashes (1982)
L. Ron Hubbard (1911–1986) American science fiction author, philosopher, cult leader, and the founder of the Church of Scientology
Dianetics 55! (1954).
Koichi Tohei (1920–2011) Japanese aikidoka
Among the various ways of performing intoku, to walk the way of the universe and to lead others along this way is best.
20. Intoku - good done in secret
Ki Sayings (2003)
Charles Caleb Colton (1777–1832) British priest and writer
Vol. I; I
Lacon (1820)
Gore Vidal (1925–2012) American writer
"America First? America Last? America at Last?," Lowell Lecture, Harvard University (20 April 1992)
1990s
Arun Shourie (1941) Indian journalist and politician
Eminent Historians: Their Technology, Their Line, Their Fraud
Swami Adbhutananda Disciple
Source: God Lived with Them, p.432