Quotes about exclamation (34 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

“No, explanation is not needed — only exclamation, a wondering heart, awakened, surprised, feeling the mystery of life each moment. Then, and only then, you know what truth is. And truth liberates.”

Rajneesh (1931–1990) Godman and leader of the Rajneesh movement

Never Born, Never Died (2002)
Context: Tao mystics never talk about God, reincarnation, heaven, hell. No, they don't talk about these things. These are all creations of human mind: explanations for something which can never be explained, explanations for the mystery. In fact, all explanations are against God because explanation de-mystifies existence. Existence is a mystery, and one should accept it as a mystery and not pretend to have any explanation. No, explanation is not needed — only exclamation, a wondering heart, awakened, surprised, feeling the mystery of life each moment. Then, and only then, you know what truth is. And truth liberates.

Life , Truth , Feeling , Heart

“And all those exclamation marks, you notice? Five? A sure sign of someone who wears his underpants on his head.”

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author

“Five exclamation marks, the sure sign of an insane mind.”

Terry Pratchett book Reaper Man

Variant: Multiple exclamation marks,' he went on, shaking his head, 'are a sure sign of a diseased mind.
Source: Reaper Man

“Live your life as an Exclamation rather than an Explanation”

Isaac Newton (1643–1727) British physicist and mathematician and founder of modern classical physics

Life

“One should never use exclamation points in writing. It is like laughing at your own joke.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

“It is clear that the arm of criticism cannot replace the criticism of arms. Material force can only be overthrown by material force, but theory itself becomes a material force when it has seized the masses. Theory is capable of seizing the masses when it demonstrates ad hominem, and it demonstrates ad hominem as soon as it becomes radical. To be radical is to grasp things by the root. But for man the root is man himself. What proves beyond doubt the radicalism of German theory, and thus its practical energy, is that it begins from the resolute positive abolition of religion. The criticism of religion ends with the doctrine that man is the supreme being for man. It ends, therefore, with the categorical imperative to overthrow all those conditions in which man is an abased, enslaved, abandoned, contemptible being—conditions which can hardly be better described than in the exclamation of a Frenchman on the occasion of a proposed tax upon dogs: 'Wretched dogs! They want to treat you like men!'”

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

Source: Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right (1843)

Dogs , Religion , Men

“The criticism of religion ends with the doctrine that man is the supreme being for man, hence the categorical imperative to overthrow all those conditions in which man is degraded, enslaved, neglected, contemptible being—conditions which can hardly be better described than in the exclamation of a Frenchman on the occasion of a proposed tax upon dogs: 'Wretched dogs! They want to treat you like men!'”

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

Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right (1843)

Dogs , Religion , Men

“Even as she'd been writing it, she wondered if she was using too many exclamation marks, but she was glad she left them in. Nothing says "all is good in the world" like exclamation marks, after all.”

Derek Landy (1974) Irish children's writer

Source: Kingdom of the Wicked

World

“Numbersign questionmark you" and "Asterisk exclamation point the world.”

Daniel Handler book Why We Broke Up

Source: Why We Broke Up

World

“In a society that worships love, freedom and beauty, dance is sacred, It is a paryer for the future, a remembrance of the past and a joyful exclamation of thanks for the present.”

Amelia Atwater-Rhodes (1984) Novelist

Source: The Shapeshifters: The Kiesha'ra of the Den of Shadows

Love , Beauty , Freedom , Past

“Cut out all these exclamation points. An exclamation point is like laughing at your own joke.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940) American novelist and screenwriter

“For a start, let's look at the Grotto itself. By and large these are extremely aptly named, 'Grot' meaning rubbish and 'Oh' being exclamation of disappointed surprise.”

Peter Corey (1946) British writer

Coping With series, Coping With Christmas (1999)

Disappointment

“If by religion, we are understand sectarian dogmas, in which no two of them agree, then your exclamation on that hypothesis is just, "that this would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it." But if the moral precepts, innate in man, and made a part of his physical constitution, as necessary for a social being, if the sublime doctrines of philanthropism and deism taught us by Jesus of Nazareth, in which all agree, constitute true religion, then, without it, this would be, as you again say, "something not fit to be named, even indeed, a hell."”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

Letter to John Adams, 5 May 1817, in The Writings of Thomas Jefferson (Lipscomb-Bergh edition, 1903), Volume XV, p. 109
1810s

World , Religion , Hell , Understanding

“"Why!" said Huxter, suddenly, "that's not a man at all. It's just empty clothes. Look! You can see down his collar and the linings of his clothes. I could put my arm—"He extended his hand; it seemed to meet something in mid-air, and he drew it back with a sharp exclamation. "I wish you'd keep your fingers out of my eye," said the aerial voice, in a tone of savage expostulation. "The fact is, I'm all here: head, hands, legs, and all the rest of it, but it happens I'm invisible. It's a confounded nuisance, but I am. That's no reason why I should be poked to pieces by every stupid bumpkin in Iping, is it?"”

H. G. Wells book The Invisible Man

Source: The Invisible Man (1897), Chapter 7: The Unveiling of the Stranger

Stupidity , Clothes

“The poem, even when it has some predetermined pattern, must be wrought to some effect or finish that justifies the exclamation: This is a poem!”

Herbert Read (1893–1968) English anarchist, poet, and critic of literature and art

What is a Poem - Endword - Selected Poems (1926)

“Two hundred years ago there were two distinct and separate streams of human life running through this country. They stood at opposite extremes of ethnological classification: all black on the one side, all white on the other. Now, between these two extremes, an intermediate race has arisen, which is neither white nor black, neither Caucasian nor Ethiopian, and this intermediate race is constantly increasing. I know it is said that marital alliance between these races is unnatural, abhorrent and impossible; but exclamations of this kind only shake the air. They prove nothing against a stubborn fact like that which confronts us daily and which is open to the observation of all. If this blending of the two races were impossible we should not have at least one-fourth of our colored population composed of persons of mixed blood, ranging all the way from a dark-brown color to the point where there is no visible admixture. Besides, it is obvious to common sense that there is no need of the passage of laws, or the adoption of other devices, to prevent what is in itself impossible.”

Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman

1880s, The Future of the Colored Race (1886)

Life , Law , Color , Way

“If you've spent any time trolling the blogosphere, you've probably noticed a peculiar literary trend: the pervasive habit of writers inexplicably placing exclamation points at the end of otherwise unremarkable sentences. Sort of like this! This is done to suggest an ironic detachment from the writing of an expository sentence! It's supposed to signify that the writer is self-aware! And this is idiotic. It's the saddest kind of failure. F. Scott Fitzgerald believed inserting exclamation points was the literary equivalent of an author laughing at his own jokes, but that's not the case in the modern age; now, the exclamation point signifies creative confusion. All it illustrates is that even the writer can't tell if what they're creating is supposed to be meaningful, frivolous, or cruel. It's an attempt to insert humor where none exists, on the off chance that a potential reader will only be pleased if they suspect they're being entertained. Of course, the reader really isn't sure, either. They just want to know when they're supposed to pretend that they're amused. All those extraneous exclamation points are like little splatters of canned laughter: They represent the “form of funny,” which is more easily understood (and more easily constructed) than authentic funniness.”

Chuck Klosterman Eating the Dinosaur

Eating the Dinosaur (2009)

Age , Failure , Laughter , Chance

“Another one goes, and I'm so underwhelmed that I can't even be bothered to use the obligatory exclamation mark after 'wicket'. All it took was the most rudimentary wicket-to-wicket hustle from Reekers, who is something of a corpulent Ian Austin, and Haq was cleaned up as he played miserably around his pads.”

Rob Smyth (1977) English/Irish rugby league player

Cricket World Cup 2007; Group A: Scotland v Netherlands; Over-by-over: Scotland innings http://sport.guardian.co.uk/cricketworldcup2007/story/0,,2040562,00.html (22 March 2007)

“We've learned that you should never trust English professors who stick computer chips in their arms, breakfast cereal mascots, Stephen King, the Borg collective, vegetarians, Christians, Microsoft Word helpers and people who put five exclamation marks on the ends of their statements.”

Ben Croshaw (1983) English video game journalist

I'm Off
Fully Ramblomatic, Essays

People , Learning

“A kiss can be a comma, a question mark, or an exclamation point.”

Mistinguett (1875–1956) French actress and singer

Quoted in Theatre Arts Magazine, December 1955 http://books.google.com/books?id=jkNNAAAAYAAJ&q=%22A+kiss+can+be+a+comma+a+question+mark+or+an+exclamation+point%22&pg=PA8#v=onepage

Question , Kiss

“Things past recovery
Are hardly cured with exclamations.”

Christopher Marlowe The Jew of Malta

Barabas, Act I, scene ii
The Jew of Malta (c. 1589)

Past

“"Pray, my dear," quoth my mother, "have you not forgot to wind up the clock?" — "Good G—!" cried my father, making an exclamation, but taking care to moderate his voice at the same time, — "Did ever woman, since the creation of the world, interrupt a man with such a silly question?"”

Laurence Sterne book The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

Book I, Ch. 1.
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (1760-1767)

World , Question , Time

“If now I…say "Stealing money is wrong," I produce a sentence which has no factual meaning — that is, expresses no proposition which can be either true or false. It is as if I had written "Stealing money!!" — where the shape and thickness of the exclamation marks show, by a suitable convention, that a special sort of moral disapproval is the feeling which is being expressed.”

Alfred Jules Ayer book Language, Truth, and Logic

Source: Language, Truth, and Logic (1936), p. 107.

Money , Feeling , Falseness

“Regardless of how Revenge of the Sith is received at the box office, it represents the conclusion to an unparalleled cinematic achievement. Finally, after 28 long years of waiting that were only occasionally punctuated by the appearance of new story fragments, Lucas has ended with an exclamation point. The tale of a galaxy long ago and far away is complete. Only now can we truly step back and admire the full tapestry that it has taken George Lucas and his ILM wizards nearly three decades to weave.”

James Berardinelli (1967) American film critic

Review http://www.reelviews.net/movies/s/sw2005.html of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (2005).
Three-and-a-half star reviews

Revenge , Appearance , Waiting , Box

““Oh! the years I have lost,” will be the exclamation of a man, if he be not philosophical, and not possess Friedrich Nietzsche’s appreciation of the value of sorrow in education.”

Oscar Levy (1867–1946) German physician and writer

Source: The Revival of Aristocracy (1906), p. 37.

Education

“The other major impression to emerge from Magick Without Tears is that -- as odd as it sounds -- one of Crowley's chief drawbacks was his sense of humour. This is a disability he shares with Bernard Shaw: both were driven by a strange compulsion to be flippant. But when he becomes absorbed in an idea, Shaw can remain serious for a sufficiently long time to convince the reader of his intellectual stature. In Crowley, the flippancy has the tone of a schoolmaster trying to be funny for the benefit of the sixth form, or a muscular Christian trying to convince you that he isn't really religious. 'How can a yogi ever feel worried?... That question I have been expecting for a very long time!' (Crowley has never learned that exclamation marks give the impression of a gushing schoolgirl.) 'And what you expect is to see my middle stump break the wicket-keeper's nose, with the balls smartly fielded by Third Man and Short Leg!' It makes us aware that there was something wrong with Crowley's 'self-image.”

Colin Wilson (1931–2013) author

He is one of those people who, no matter how hard they try, never feel quite grown up.
Source: Aleister Crowley: The Nature of the Beast (1987), p. 150

People , Feeling , Idea , Question

“Do we want blanks, asterisks and exclamation marks which people can fill in with their own imaginations, or are we prepared and strong enough to tolerate, even if we do not approve, the strong Anglo-Saxon, realistic and vivid language?”

John Mortimer (1923–2009) English barrister, dramatist, screenwriter and author

Defending record shop proprietor Christopher Seale against obscenity charges for displaying advertisements for Sex Pistols' LP Never Mind the Bollocks, Nottingham Magistrates Court (14 November 1977)

People , Imagination , Strong

“If I were asked to summarize as briefly as possible my vision of things, to reduce it to its most succinct expression, I should replace words with an exclamation point, a definitive!”

Emil M. Cioran (1911–1995) Romanian philosopher and essayist

Anathemas and Admirations (1987)

“You are a small exclamation mark at the end of a very long and insignificant sentence in the book of history.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

a remark made in the House of Commons responding to a Laborite speech; reported as unverified in Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations (1989).
Disputed

Books , History

“Wittgenstein's personality dominated these meetings. I doubt that anyone in the class failed to be influenced by him in some way. Few of us could keep from acquiring imitations of his mannerisms, gestures, intonations, exclamations. These imitations could easily appear ridiculous when compared with their original.”

Norman Malcolm (1911–1990) American philosopher

Ludwig Wittgenstein: A Memoir, 1958

Way , Appearance , Personality

“Past are three summers since she first beheld
The ocean; all around the child await
Some exclamation of amazement here.
She coldly said, her long-lasht eyes abased,
Is this the mighty ocean? is this all?
That wondrous soul Charoba once possest,—
Capacious, then, as earth or heaven could hold,
Soul discontented with capacity,—
Is gone (I fear) forever. Need I say
She was enchanted by the wicked spells
Of Gebir, whom with lust of power inflamed
The western winds have landed on our coast?
I since have watcht her in lone retreat,
Have heard her sigh and soften out the name.”

Walter Savage Landor (1775–1864) British writer

Gebir, Book I (1798). It is reported that "these lines were specially singled out for admiration by Shelley, Humphrey Davy, Scott, and many remarkable men"; Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919), citing Forster, Life of Landor, vol. i. p. 95.

Fear , Soul , Past , Summer

“At a certain age children are greatly intrigued by the possibility of locating themselves on a map. It appears strange that one's familiar life should actually have all occurred in an area delineated by a set of quite impersonal (and hitherto unfamiliar) coordinates on the surface of the map. The child's exclamations of "I was there" and "I am here right now" betray the astonishment that the place of last summer's vacation, a place marked in memory by such sharply personal events as the ownership of one's first dog or the secret assembling of a collection of worms, should have specific latitudes and longitudes devised by strangers to one's dog, one's worms, and oneself. This locating of oneself in configurations conceived by strangers is one of the important aspects of what, perhaps euphemistically, is called "growing up". One participates in the real world of grown-ups by having an address. The child who only recently might have mailed a letter addressed "To my Granddaddy" now informs a fellow worm-collector of his exact address – street, town, state and all – and finds his tentative allegiance to the grown-up world view dramatically legitimated by the arrival of the letter.”

Peter L. Berger (1929–2017) Austrian-born American sociologist

Source: Invitation to Sociology (1963), p. 81

Life , Children , Secret , Age

“For me, every sentence in our history should end, not with a period, but with an exclamation mark. Nowadays, “good enough” is not good enough! If we truly desire progress, we cannot be lazy. We cannot have a slow government.”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

2015, Speech: Declaration as Vice Presidential Candidate

History

“It doesn’t even matter if we ever fire these missiles or not. They are having their effect upon us because there is a generation growing up now who cannot see past the final exclamation mark of a mushroom cloud.”

Alan Moore (1953) English writer primarily known for his work in comic books

On the issue of nuclear weapons, in England Their England : Monsters, Maniacs and Moore (1987) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hv44V4d_fDQ
Context: It doesn’t even matter if we ever fire these missiles or not. They are having their effect upon us because there is a generation growing up now who cannot see past the final exclamation mark of a mushroom cloud. They are a generation who can see no moral values that do not end in a crackling crater somewhere. I’m not saying that nuclear bombs are at the root of all of it, but I think it is very, very naïve to assume that you can expose the entire population of the world to the threat of being turned to cinders without them starting to act, perhaps, a little oddly.
I believe in some sort of strange fashion that the presence of the atom bomb might almost be forcing a level of human development that wouldn’t have occurred without the presence of the atom bomb. Maybe this degree of terror will force changes in human attitudes that could not have occurred without the presence of these awful, destructive things. Perhaps we are faced with a race between the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse in one line and the 7th Cavalry in the other. We have not got an awful lot of mid ground between Utopia and Apocalypse, and if somehow our children ever see the day in which it is announced that we do not have these weapons any more, and that we can no longer destroy ourselves and that we’ve got to do something else to do with our time than they will have the right to throw up their arms, let down their streamers and let forth a resounding cheer.

Past