Quotes about face
page 36

“Is the little girl gonna get shot in the face?! (on "Freak on a Leash" by Korn)”

Chris Jericho (1970) American professional wrestler, musician, television host, podcast host and author

July 16, 2006 - Video on Trial

“Local economic independence cannot be preserved in the face of consolidations such as we have had during the past few years. The control of American business is steadily being transferred, I am sorry to have to say, from local communities to a few large cities in which central managers decide the policies and the fate of the far-flung enterprises they control. Millions of people depend helplessly on their judgment. Through monopolistic mergers the people are losing power to direct their own economic welfare. When they lose the power to direct their economic welfare, they also lose the means to direct their political future.”

Estes Kefauver (1903–1963) American politician

Senate Hearing, 1947, reported in Michael J. Sandel, Democracy's Discontent: America in Search of a Public Philosophy (1998), p. 243.

Fate, People, Communication, Business

“Those we loved, they’re dead.
Faces behind hands, shy
shawls dropped, modestly awry.
Those we love, they’re married.”

András Petőcz (1959) Hungarian writer

A BANAL POEM, SUBJECT: LOVE http://www.c3.hu/~mediumar/PETVERS1.HTM (1984). András Petőcz: In Praise of the Sea (1999, ISBN 963 9101 51 6). Poems

Love, Dead

“Suddenly I found that I'd lost my way in this city / The streets and the thousands of faces all bleed into one
I'm having trouble just finding some soul in this town
It's all they can do to be part of the queue
'There'll be no tomorrow' they say / Well I say 'More's the pity”

Noel Gallagher (1967) British musician

Part of the Queue
Don't Believe the Truth (2005)

Way, Soul, Parting

“Always to me any aroused group was a good group, and therefore I accepted an invitation to talk to the women's branch of the Ku Klux Klan at Silver Lake, New Jersey, one of the weirdest experiences I had in lecturing. […] Never before had I looked into a sea of faces like these. I was sure that if I uttered one word, such as abortion, outside the usual vocabulary of these women they would go off into hysteria. And so my address that night had to be in the most elementary terms, as though I were trying to make children understand. In the end, through simple illustrations I believed I had accomplished my purpose. A dozen invitations to speak to similar groups were proffered. The conversation went on and on, and when we were finally through it was too late to return to New York.”

Margaret Sanger (1879–1966) American birth control activist, educator and nurse

Source: Margaret Sanger: An Autobiography (1938), Chapter 29, "While the Doctors Consult", p. 366.

Women, Children, Understanding, Sea

“We face a hostile ideology; global in scope, atheistic in character, ruthless in purpose and insidous in method. Unhappily the danger it poses promises to be of indefinite duration. To meet it successfully there is call for not so much the emotional and transitory sacrifices of questions but rather those which enable us to carry forward steadily, surely and without complaint the burdens of a prolonged and complex struggle with liberty the stake. Only thus shall we remain despite every provocation on our charted course towards permanent peace and human betterment.”

Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969) American general and politician, 34th president of the United States (in office from 1953 to 1961)

1960s, Farewell address (1961)

Hostility, Peace, Question

“If you want to avoid upsetting these people (Muslim fundamentalists) you have to let Indonesia commit genocide in East Timor, otherwise they'll be upset with you. You'll have made an enemy. If you tell them they can't throw acid in the faces of unveiled women in Karachi they will be annoyed with you. If you say we insist, we think that cartoonists in Copenhagen can print satire on the Prophet Muhammed you've just made an enemy. You've brought it on. You're encouraging it to happen. So unless you're willing to commit suicide for yourself and for this culture, get used to the compromises you'll have to make and the eventual capitulation that will come to you, but bloody well don't do that in my name…”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

Speech at Freedom From Religion Foundation on 12 October 2007.
2000s, 2007

Women, People, Thinking, Suicide

“I know you can be strong, but I want you always to be strong for your brother. Stay close to him and tell him to stand firm in the face of dangers of any kind.”

Rezā Shāh (1878–1944) Shah of the Imperial State of Iran

Ashraf Pahlavi (1980), "Faces in a mirror: Memoirs from Exile", Prentice-Hall
Reza Shah to his daughter Ashraf, during his exile

Strong

“Good and evil keep very exact accounts… and the face of every man is their ledger.”

James Branch Cabell (1879–1958) American author

Ch. 5 : Requirements of Bread and Butter http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/CABELL/ch05.htm Jurgen (1919)

Evil

“A man sets out to draw the world. As the years go by, he peoples a space with images of provinces, kingdoms, mountains, bays, ships, islands, fishes, rooms, instruments, stars, horses, and individuals. A short time before he dies, he discovers that the patient labyrinth of lines traces the lineaments of his own face.”

Jorge Luis Borges Dreamtigers

Un hombre se propone la tarea de dibujar el mundo. A lo largo de los años puebla un espacio con imágenes de provincias, de reinos, de montañas, de bahías, de naves, de islas, de peces, de habitaciones, de instrumentos, de astros, de caballos y de personas. Poco antes de morir, descubre que ese paciente laberinto de líneas traza la imagen de su cara.
Epilogue
Variant translation: A man sets himself the task of portraying the world. Through the years he peoples a space with images of provinces, kingdoms, mountains, bays, ships, islands, fishes, rooms, instruments, stars, horses, and people. Shortly before his death, he discovers that that patient labyrinth of lines traces the image of his face.
Dreamtigers (1960)

People, World, Mountain, Star

“Some games teach you to kill. They once put my face on a game, 'You've got to find Chavez to kill him.”

Hugo Chávez (1954–2013) 48th President of Venezuela

Chávez referring to the videogame Mercenaries 2: World in Flames where the player has to kill a Venezuelan general. Quoted in Chavez Sets His Sights On Banks And Barbie http://news.sky.com/home/world-news/article/15530090 2010

Game

“The second factor, equally important, is that of good continuation and good shape. The things which we see have a better shape, are bounded by better contours, than the holes which we might see but do not. Therefore, when in exceptional circumstances these conditions are reversed, we see the hole and not the things, as the shape of a gap between two projecting rocks with sharp profiles, which may look like a face, an animal, or some other object, while the shape of the rock disappears.”

Kurt Koffka (1886–1941) German psychologist

Source: Principles of Gestalt Psychology, 1935, p. 209

Animals

“Soviet rocket troops possess enough equipment to be able, if need be, to sweep any aggressor from the face of the earth at whatever point of the globe he may be and whatever military power, territory, or economy he may possess.”

Sergei Biriuzov (1904–1964) Soviet military commander

Quoted in "Military Procurement Authorization" - Page 347 - United States - 1963

“Charles coloured, from “a complication of disorders.” First he was quite shy enough to be annoyed at its being supposed that he cared whether there were any young ladies in the world or not; and, secondly, he was quite romantic enough to be shocked at the idea of money supplying the want of a pretty face.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

The Monthly Magazine

Money, World, Idea

“[W]hat seems fair enough against a squalid huckster of bad liquor may take on a different face, if used by a government determined to suppress political opposition under the guise of sedition.”

Learned Hand (1872–1961) American legal scholar, Court of Appeals judge

U.S. v. Kirschenblatt, 16 F.2d 202, 203 (2d Cir. 1926).
Judicial opinions

“Don't be negative. It shows on your face.”

Shahrukh Khan (1965) Indian actor, producer and television personality

From interview with Malavika Sangghvi

“The simultaneousness of states of mind in the work of art: that is the intoxicating aim of our art... In the pictorial description of the various states of mind of a leave-taking, perpendicular lines, undulating lines and as it were worn out, clinging here and there to silhouettes of empty bodies, may well express languidness and discouragement. Confused and trepidating lines, either straight or curved, mingled with the outlined hurried gestures of people calling to one another will express a sensation of chaotic excitement. On the other hand, horizontal lines, fleeting, rapid and jerky, brutally cutting in half lost profiles of faces or crumbling and rebounding fragments of landscape, will give the tumultuous feelings of the person going away.”

Umberto Boccioni (1882–1916) Italian painter and sculptor

Source: 1912, Les exposants au public', 1912, pp. 47, 49

People, Art, Feeling, Personality

“I dreamt last night Christ came to earth again
To bless His own. My soul from place to place
On her dream-quest sped, seeking for His face
Through temple and town and lovely land, in vain.
Then came I to a place where death and pain
Had made of God's sweet world a waste forlorn,
With shattered trees and meadows gashed and torn,
Where the grim trenches scarred the shell-sheared plain.”

Eva Dobell (1876–1963) British poet

Unsourced, Advent 1916

Love, Death, God, Pain

“Then I saw her face
Now I'm a believer
Not a trace of doubt in my mind
I'm in love
I'm a believer
I couldn't leave her if I tried.”

Neil Diamond (1941) American singer-songwriter

I'm a Believer
Song lyrics, Just for You (1967)

Love

“Click. The spare camera was now focussed and working. The lead mare—Barb Nose's—saw the drop. She cut her stride and wheeled and ran along the dangerous edge. Barb Nose ran in the vanguard, protecting the rear, driving the foals ahead of him. Blaze Face had long since cut and run, taking his beaten stallion flesh off to be nursed, to wait for another day, another elder to challenge. The other mares expertly and instinctively followed the leader as she rimmed the mesa, heading for the foothills of the El Gatos. One foal, too, made the cut, on stick-like legs, frightened but blindly following. The second foal had truly been blinded by panic. He strode to the drop-off and never stopped. He was a wild horse, and he had to run, and now he would run free forever. Plunging headlong over the drop, body whirling, his legs still flailing, as he fell through the desert air and past the serrated rock walls of the mesa, he knew nothing of time. He knew nothing of the eons that had gone before him, building this mesa of bluff and sandstone and archean rock. He fell through layers of time, to timelessness, a living thing for so little time. Once a living work of art, now a broken artifact. One foal. Dead. Murdered by man. Murdered by time. The drumbeat of the earth was lessened by one horse's tiny hooves. And all of us were lessened by this new silence. Click.”

Arnold Hano (1922) American writer

From Running Wild, pp. 14-15
Other Topics

Art, Silence, Time, Waiting

“Punk: I'm not gonna have you sit here and belittle me. Say I've lost sight? I've lost sight of things, John? The reason I say I'm gonna take that and walk out is because I don't fit a certain mold. Because I am the underdog, and that's exactly what you've lost sight of. Earlier in this ring, you mentioned great wrestlers like Eddie Guerrero and you said they used to look at you and say that the kid couldn't hang. And now you stand here and look at me as the kid that can't hang. John, I was hanging off of your gangster car, WrestleMania 22, as it rolled down in Chicago, Illinois, and I stood there in a suit looking as ridiculous as [points to Vince McMahon] that man looks right now in his suit, holding a phony Tommy gun, and I said to myself someday, I'm not gonna be standing out there watching you in the ring; I was gonna be in the ring watching you go down to CM Punk. And now here we are in your hometown of Boston. And now next week, we'll be back there in my hometown—Chicago, Illinois. And this… this is the part where I talk 'em into the building. See, you are the one that's lost sight, and I apologize for raising my voice because I'm not that guy. But when you stand here and tell me that I've lost sight, when you, the 10-time Champion who stands for hustle, loyalty and respect; who, from Boston, Massachusetts, lives and breathes these red colors, the same colors as your beloved Red Sox, who also portray themselves as the underdog, I'm sure just like the Bruins portray themselves as the underdog. Just like the Patriots think they're the underdog! Hey, how about those Celtics? Are they the underdogs too? Here's what you've lost sight of, John, and I'm really happy that your father and your wife are sitting in the front row so they can hear it!
John Cena: That's the last time I'm gonna tell you, man, ease up.
Punk: What you've lost sight of is what you are, and what you are is what you hate. You're the 10-time WWE Champion! You're the man! You, like the Red Sox, like Boston, are no longer the underdog! You're a dynasty. You are what you hate. You have become the New York Yankees! [John immediately punches Punk, who scoots out of the ring, grabs the contract, and goes up the ramp. Points respectively to Vince and John] You're Steinbrenner, and you might as well be Jeter! Mr. 3000, I'm the underdog! [John's music plays for fourteen seconds] Turn it off! Turn the music off because I have something to say, and I'm positive that everybody here wants to hear it, and everybody sitting at home has their DVRs fired up because they wanna hear it! I'm glad you just punched me in the face, John. I'm glad it went down this way because it hit me like a bolt of lightning—exactly why I no longer wanna be here, why I wanna leave. It's because I'm tired of this. I'm tired of you. I'm just tired. So ladies and gentlemen of the WWE Universe, Vince, John, Sunday night, say goodbye to the WWE Title, say goodbye to John Cena, and say goodbye to CM Punk! [Rips up the contract] I'll go be the best in the world somewhere else.”

Phil Brooks (1978) American professional wrestler and mixed martial artist

July 11, 2011
WWE Raw

Hate, World, Music, Cars

“What is the basis of our population at the moment — one million Roma, 700 000 Turks, 2,5 million retirees. This is what GERB is facing. And what about you — a million-and-a-half who ran away?… The human material that we are left with as voters and as a pool for recruiting staff — it is really not that big. It is easy to say: 'we rely on you.”

Boyko Borissov (1959) Bulgarian politician

Speaking to Bulgarian expatriates in Chicago, as quoted in "Mayor of Sofia insinuates that Roma, Turks and retirees are 'bad human material'" in The Telegraph (6 February 2009) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/bulgaria/4531391/Mayor-of-Sofia-brands-Roma-Turks-and-retirees-bad-human-material.html

“In the long, sleepless watches of the night,
A gentle face — the face of one long dead —
Looks at me from the wall, where round its head
The night-lamp casts a halo of pale light.”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) American poet

The Cross of Snow http://www.americanpoems.com/poets/longfellow/19251 (1879).

Light, Night, Dead

“If in thirst you drink water from a cup, you see God in it. Those who are not in love with God will see only their own faces in it.”

Rumi (1207–1273) Iranian poet

Essential Sufism (1997)

Love, God, Drink, Water

“The rectangular picture-plane indicates the starting point of Suprematism; a new realism of color conceived as non-objective creation. The forms of Suprematist art live like all the living forms of nature. This is a new plastic realism, plastic precisely because the realism of hills, sky and water is missing. Every real form is a world. And any plastic surface is more alive than a (drawn or painted) face from which stares a pair of eyes and a smile. [1914]”

Kazimir Malevich (1879–1935) Russian and Soviet artist of polish descent

Quote of Malevich, cited in Artists on Art; from the 14th – 20th centuries, ed. Robert Goldwater and Marco Treves; Pantheon Books, 1972, London, p. 452
1910 - 1920

World, Smile, Art, Color

“I understand your anger and outrage, I understand your pain. And yet in the self-interest of Gujarat, and to ensure that we don’t jeopardize the future of Gujarat, that Gujarat doesn’t get a blot on its face [or] carry a stigma connected with these times all the 5 crore Gujaratis need to keep calm and exercise self-restraint.”

Narendra Modi (1950) Prime Minister of India

2002, "When select phrases are lifted and distorted out of context", 2002

Pain, Exercises, Understanding, Time

“We are proud of our past and our present and we face the future with unflagging determination.”

Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum (1949) Emirati politician

Quotes on Life and its challenges, http://www.sheikhmohammed.co.ae/vgn-ext-templating/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=ab878960a5a11310VgnVCM1000004d64a8c0RCRD&appInstanceName=default, sheikhmohammed.ae.

Past, Future

“We who survived the Camps are not true witnesses. We are those who, through prevarication, skill or luck, never touched bottom. Those who have, and who have seen the face of the Gorgon, did not return, or returned wordless.”

Primo Levi (1918–1987) Italian chemist, memoirist, short story writer, novelist, essayist

As quoted in The Age of Extremes: The Short Twentieth Century, 1914-1991 (1994) by Eric J. Hobsbawm

“I know so well the look on your face
And there's somethin' lucky about this place
There's somethin' good comin'
Just over the hill
Somethin' good comin'
I know it will

And I'm in for the long run
Wherever it goes
Ridin' the river
Wherever it goes.”

Tom Petty (1950–2017) American musician

"Something Good Coming"
Lyrics, Mojo (2010)

“When nature's happiest touch could add no more,
Heaven lent an angel's beauty to her face.”

William Julius Mickle (1734–1788) British writer

Mary, Queen of Scots: an Elegy (1770)

Beauty, Angels, Nature

“The obstacles facing academic economists are formidable, for tenure and professional advancement still depend to a large extent on a willingness to comply with and to work within the tenets of orthodox theory.”

Paul Ormerod book The Death of Economics

Preface, p. x
The Death of Economics (1994)

Dependency

“I would write, edit, rewrite and re-edit the text. However, I still felt that I was miles away from the ideal version of the story born and still alive in me. I ran towards it with all my might and when I thought I had finally captured it, it would slip away from me and disappear. It looked more like an everlasting vision of an oasis in the mind of the thirsty pilgrim wandering in the desert. Finally, I realised I would never be able to record it in a way that makes myself completely happy with it. I had felt this earlier, but did not want to acknowledge the feeling, I did not want to feel defeated. Now I know - unless the writer suffers, goes through difficulties and finally, feels beaten, like me; if he writes the way he himself wants to write, if he wins over the story, he is dead and finished, as a writer… So, in a nutshell, the writer faces the possibility to die after finishing each of his/her works. However, it is better not to use that possibility until the end…”

Miho Mosulishvili book A Big She-Bear

Source: A Big She-Bear (2013), p. 3

Way, Feeling, Suffering, Dead

“It would be impossible to reach unanimity on every aspect of our budget, but it's clear there is widespread support for the concept of change. We face a choice between either cutting waste out of government, or facing a new job killing tax increase every year from here on out.”

Mitt Romney (1947) American businessman and politician

Press release, 2003-02-27 http://myclob.pbwiki.com/02-27-2003 2003–2007 Governor of Massachusetts

Support, Change

“To uphold the world's words of the charter in the face of this challenge, every nation in this chamber has responsibilities. As sovereign states, we have an obligation to govern responsibly, and solve problems before they spill across borders. We have an obligation to prevent our territory from being used as a sanctuary for terrorism and proliferation and human trafficking and organized crime. We have an obligation to respect the rights and respond to the needs of our people.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

2000s, 2008, Address to the United Nations General Assembly (September 2008)

People, World, Problem

“I like colorized diffs, but let's face it, those particular color choices will make most people decide to pick out their eyes with a fondue fork.

And that's not good. Digging in your eye-sockets with a fondue fork is strictly considered to be bad for your health, and seven out of nine optometrists are dead set against the practice.

So in order to avoid a lot of blind git users, please apply this patch.”

Linus Torvalds (1969) Finnish-American software engineer and hacker

Message to Git mailing list, 2006-06-22, Torvalds, Linus, 2006-08-28 http://lwn.net/Articles/190241/, 2000s, 2006

People, Health, Color, Dead

“There is not a flower that opens, not a seed that falls into the ground, and not an ear of wheat that nods on the end of its stalk in the wind that does not preach and proclaim the greatness and the mercy of God to the whole world. There is not an act of kindness or generosity, not an act of sacrifice done, or a word of peace and gentleness spoken, not a child's prayer uttered, that does not sing hymns to God before his throne, and in the eyes of men, and before their faces.”

Thomas Merton book The Seven Storey Mountain

The Seven Storey Mountain (1948)

Men, God, World, Peace

“He had the sudden urge to put his arms around her, but the look on her face said that if he made a move toward her, she would move away, and maybe she would keep moving away from him until the distance between them was too great to cross again in one lifetime.”

Pat Cadigan book Synners

Source: Synners (1991), Chapter 29 (p. 339)

“You can be excellent in every way. You can be first class. There is no need for you to be a scrub. Respect yourself. Do not feel sorry for yourself. Do not dwell on unkind things others may say about you. Polish and refine whatever talents the Lord has given you. Go forward in life with a twinkle in your eye and a smile on your face, but with great and strong purpose in your heart. Love life and look for its opportunities.”

Gordon B. Hinckley (1910–2008) President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

How Can I Become the Woman of Whom I Dream? Ensign, May 2001, 93.

Love, Life, Smile, Way

“Back then (in 1985) the issue of the day was nuclear testing, now we are faced with problems such as climate change, overfishing, deforestation, shipments of radioactive materials through Pacific waters and nuclear proliferation. We need to remain vigilant so that we won't become victims again.”

Joni Madraiwiwi (1957–2016) Fijian politician

Address to Greenpeace, Suva, 10 July 2005.

Problem, Water, Change

“In our United Kingdom, the main terrorist threat has come from the IRA. Their minds twisted by hatred and fanaticism, they have tried to bomb and murder their way to their objective of tearing more than a million citizens out of the United Kingdom. The truth is that the whole IRA campaign is based on crushing democracy and smashing anyone who doesn't agree with them. To all those who have suffered so much at their hands—to the Northern Ireland policemen and prison officers and their families, to the soldiers, the judges, the civil servants and their families—we offer our deepest admiration and thanks for defending democracy and for facing danger while keeping within the rule of law—unlike the terrorist who skulks in the shadows and shoots to kill…we will never give up the search for more effective ways of defeating the IRA. If the IRA think they can weary us or frighten us, they have made a terrible miscalculation. People sometimes say that it is wrong to use the word never in politics, I disagree, some things are of such fundamental importance that no other word is appropriate. So I say once again today that this Government will never surrender to the IRA. Never.”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

Speech to Conservative Party Conference (14 October 1988) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/speeches/displaydocument.asp?docid=107352 Third term as Prime Minister

People, Truth, Family, Law

“I far excel every one else in the whole world,
of those who still eat bread upon the face of the earth.”

Homér The Odyssey (Cowper)

VIII. 221–222 (tr. Samuel Butler).
Odyssey (c. 725 BC)

World

“Well had the boding tremblers learn'd to trace
The day's disasters in his morning face;
Full well they laugh'd with counterfeited glee
At all his jokes, for many a joke had he;
Full well the busy whisper circling round
Convey'd the dismal tidings when he frown'd.
Yet was he kind, or if severe in aught,
The love he bore to learning was in fault;
The village all declar'd how much he knew,
'T was certain he could write and cipher too.”

Oliver Goldsmith The Deserted Village

Variant: A man severe he was, and stern to view;
I knew him well, and every truant knew:
Well had the boding tremblers learned to trace
The day's disasters in his morning face;
Full well they laughed with counterfeited glee,
At all his jokes, for many a joke had he;
Full well the bust whisper, circling round,
Conveyed the dismal tidings when he frowned;
Yet he was kind; or if severe in aught,
The love he bore to learning was in fault;
The village all declared how much he knew;
'Twas certain he could write, and cipher too.
Source: The Deserted Village (1770), Line 199.

Love, Business, Learning

“I have no breaking point, and all you have to do is look in my eyes and realize I have laughed in the face of temptation time and time again. I have never tapped out to society's attempts at peer pressure. You try to stick a beer in my hand with the same commercials that have hypnotized all of you people, and that sell you all your narcotics and things you're addicted to. Well, I'm harder than any alcohol you can drink, I'm straighter than any line you can snort up your nose, and I certainly can hurt you a lot faster than any pill you put on your tongue.”

Phil Brooks (1978) American professional wrestler and mixed martial artist

September 4, 2009
Friday Night SmackDown

People, Alcohol, Drink, Beer

“The wine-flushed, bold-eyed boys, and even the girls,
Devoured her with their eager, passionate gaze;
But looking at her falsely-smiling face,
I knew her self was not in that strange place.”

Claude McKay (1889–1948) Jamaican American writer, poet

The Harlem Dancer, l. 11-14

Smile, Girl, Boy, Passion

“October 14, 1972: that date should become a landmark in movie history comparable to May 29, 1913 — the night Le Sacre du Printemps was first performed — in music history. There was no riot, and no one threw anything at the screen, but I think it’s fair to say that the audience was in a state of shock, because Last Tango in Paris has the same kind of hypnotic excitement as the Sacre, the same primitive force, and the same thrusting, jabbing eroticism. […] Bertolucci and Brando have altered the face of an art form. Who was prepared for that?”

Pauline Kael (1919–2001) American film critic

From "The Current Cinema" http://www.criterion.com/current/posts/834-last-tango-in-paris. The New Yorker. October 28, 1972.

Art, Music, History, Thinking

“Snatch them baldheaded, slap their teeth out. Little starved faces four feet from the screen, you’d speak to them in a loud, commanding voice, get not even a twitch. Use of the preemptive splint, not everyone knows about it. The world reminds us of its power, again and again and again. Going along minding your own business, and suddenly an act of God, right there in front of you. Great falls of snow and bursting birds. Getting guilty, letting it all slide. Sown here and there like little…petunias, one planted in Old Lyme, one in Fairbanks, one in Tempe. Alleged that he slept with her while she was asleep, I can see it, under certain circumstances. You may wink, but not at another person. You may wink only at pigeons. You may pound in your tent pegs, pitch your tent, gather wood for the fire, form the hush puppies. They seek to return? Back to the nest? The warm arms? The ineffable smells? Not on your tintype. Well, I think that’s a little harsh. Think that’s a little harsh do you? Yes, harsh. Harsh. Well that’s a sketch, that is, that’s a tin-plated sketch— They write and telephone. Short of cash? Give us a call, all inquiries handled with the utmost confidentiality. They call constantly, they’re calling still, saying williwaw, williwaw”

Donald Barthelme book Sixty Stories

“Aria”.
Sixty Stories (1981)

God, World, Business, Bird

“Lee watched the thin hands, the beautiful violet eyes, the flush of excitement on the boy's face. An imaginary hand projected with such force it seemed Allerton must feel the touch of ectoplasmic fingers caressing his ear, phantom thumbs smoothing his eyebrows, pushing the hair back from his face. Now Lee's hands were running down his ribs, the stomach. Lee felt the aching pain of desire in his lungs.”

William S. Burroughs (1914–1997) American novelist, short story writer, essayist, painter, and spoken word performer

Source: Queer: A Novel (1985), Chapter Two

Pain, Beauty, Feeling, Boy

“Ukraine is facing a serious threat of isolation as some local political forces want to put an end to democracy and democratic reforms in the country”

Viktor Yushchenko (1954) Ukrainian politician who was President of Ukraine

Regnum, July 25, 2006

Democracy, Country

“Dries his wet face with her soft hair.”
Umida siccat mollibus ora comis.

Statius book Thebaid

Source: Thebaid, Book IX, Line 374

“Our most terrifying fears and our innermost secret desires for extermination are reflected in this elegant and profound book, without any sort of leniency to attenuate the disgust and hopelessness we feel when faced with a humanity constantly atrophied by a series of values and practices that lead to chaos.”

Albert Caraco (1919–1971) French-Uruguayan philosopher

Albert Caraco, Rodrigo Santos Rivera. Breviario del caos Editorial Sexto Piso, 2006. Editorial text
Original: En este pequeño libro escrito con elegancia y profundidad vemos reflejados nuestros más terribles temores y nuestros más inconfesados deseos de exterminio, sin ningún tipo de lenitivo que pudiera atenuar el asco y la desesperanza frente a una humanidad cada vez más atrofiada por una serie de valores y prácticas que irremediablemente se dirigen al caos.

Secret, Books, Fear, Feeling

“The landscape painter, perhaps, goes even further. It is not only in living beings that he sees the reflection of the universal soul; it is in the trees, the bushes, the valleys, the hills. What to other men is only wood and earth appears to the great landscapist like the face of a great being. Corot saw kindness abroad in the trunks of the trees, in the grass of the fields, in the mirroring water of the lakes. But there Millet read suffering and resignation.
Everywhere the great artist hears spirit answer to his spirit. Where, then, can you find a more religious man?
Does not the sculptor perform his act of adoration when he perceives the majestic character of the forms that he studies? — when, from the midst of fleeting lines, he knows how to extricate the eternal type of each being? — when he seems to discern in the very breast of the divinity the immutable models on which all living creatures are moulded? Study, for example, the masterpieces of the Egyptian sculptors, either human or animal figures, and tell me if the accentuation of the essential lines does not produce the effect of a sacred hymn. Every artist who has the gift of generalizing forms, that is to say, of accenting their logic without depriving them of their living reality, provokes the same religious emotion; for he communicates to us the thrill he himself felt before the immortal verities.”

Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) French sculptor

Art, 1912, Ch. Mystery in Art

Men, Soul, Communication, Reality

“In the face of all the inhumanity, their humanity feeds the capacity to endure and continue to pursue honorable solutions to our pain.”

Harry Belafonte (1927) American singer

Harry Belafonte and ‘The Long Road to Freedom’ YES! Magazine (2002) https://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/what-does-it-mean-to-be-an-american-now/harry-belafonte-and-the-long-road-to-freedom-20180828

Pain

“Talking so quietly; when they hear the cars
And the knock at the door, and they look at each other quickly
And the woman goes to the door with a stiff face,
Smoothing her dress.
"We are all good citizens here. We believe in the Perfect State."”

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

Litany for Dictatorships (1935)

Cars, Perfection

“Eventually every man gotta face the problem of tryin' to figger if it’s worthwhile to prove that he is himself.”

Walt Kelly (1913–1973) American cartoonist

Pogo comic strip (1948 - 1975), Porky Pine

Problem

“It is a fascinating story to those who care for their Bible. It is the life-history of the greatest of books, diversified by interesting episodes which appeal to our human sympathies; and we venture to think that the result is reassuring. It may be disturbing to some to part with the conception of a Bible handed down through the ages without alteration and in unchallenged authority; but it is a higher ideal to face the facts, to apply the best powers with which God has endowed us to the solutions of the problems which they present to us; and it reassuring at the end to find that the general result of all these discoveries and all this study is to strengthen the proof of the authenticity of the Scripture, and our conviction that we have in our hands, in substantial integrity, the veritable Word of God.”

Frederic G. Kenyon (1863–1952) British palaeographer and biblical and classical scholar

Source: The Story Of The Bible, Chapter X, The Position Today, p. 144

Life, God, Books, Age

“Being face to face with these people, you realize, they're just people like you.”

Timothy McVeigh (1968–2001) American army soldier, security guard, terrorist

Interview http://listenonrepeat.com/watch/?v=mHscpPZLwWg#Timothy_McVeigh_talks_about_the_Gulf_War.

People

“A man’s face as a rule says more, and more interesting things, than his mouth, for it is a compendium of everything his mouth will ever say, in that it is the monogram of all this man’s thoughts and aspirations.”

Arthur Schopenhauer book Parerga and Paralipomena

Vol. 2, Ch. 29, § 377
Parerga and Paralipomena (1851), Counsels and Maxims

“Socialism has to remain a terrifying and a majestic thing. If we follow this line, we shall be able to face our enemies.”

Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) Duce and President of the Council of Ministers of Italy. Leader of the National Fascist Party and subsequen…

As quoted in Il Duce: The Life and Work of Benito Mussolini, L. Kemechey, New York: NY, Richard R. Smith (1930) p. 54. Written just before taking editorship of the Italian Socialist Party newspaper Avanti in 1912.
1910s

“The government and the church are two different realms of service, and those in political office have to face a subtle but important difference between the implementation of the high ideals of religious faith and public duty.”

Jimmy Carter (1924) American politician, 39th president of the United States (in office from 1977 to 1981)

Pages 57-58
Post-Presidency, Our Endangered Values (2005)

Faith

“(Television) We are aggressively striking the terrorists in Iraq, defeating them there so that we will not have to face them in our own country. (Sylvia) Oh, good. So once we get rid of those, there won't be any more.”

Nicole Hollander (1939) Cartoonist

Source: Sylvia cartoon strip, p. 105

Country

“I have always valued quiet, and the eternity of it that I face is no more dreadful than the eternity of quiet that preceded my birth.”

Joe Haldeman (1943) American science fiction writer

Source: For White Hill (1995), p. 257

Birth

“See, you learn about humans when you have a baby. Like girls. Girls are so much more advanced than boys. I seriously think that girls are born in conversation. Like, they come out of the womb, talking: "Are you my mother? Lovely to put a face to a name."”

Michael McIntyre (1976) British comedian

Live and Laughing (2008)

Love, Girl, Boy, Thinking

“You never tried facing the sting
Walking all in circles, take it all in stride
Faces are not what they seem,
I always dream
lost in the tide”

Zooey Deschanel (1980) American actress, musician, and singer-songwriter

"I'm Gonna Make It Better".
Volume Two (2010)

Dreams

“Throughout the past few years, every time I committed an action or was subjected to a series of attacks, I had never felt the need to justify myself, this all changed today; today I felt the importance of clarifying many things due to the harsh and unfair criticism I am facing this time; criticism that has reached the point of questioning my loyalty to my country, which is completely unacceptable. Our home country is big enough not to impose one nature on all spectrums of its society.”

Loujain al-Hathloul (1989) Saudi Arabian activist

A Clarification (March 24, 2016)

Home, Question, Nature, Change

“"I have made my choice, Hori. I will share my life with you for good or evil, until death comes…" With his arms round her, with the sudden new sweetness of his face against hers, she was filled with an exultant richness of living.”

Agatha Christie (1890–1976) English mystery and detective writer

(1945)

Life, Death, Evil

“There is in mankind a deep and desperate necessity to feel superior. In any group there are some who genuinely are superior…but it is easy to see that within the parameters of any group, be it culture, club, nation, profession, only a few are really superior; the mass, clearly, are not.
But it is the will of the mass that dictates the mores, initiated though changes may be by individuals or minorities; the individuals or minorities, more often than not, are cut down for their trouble. And if a unit of the mass wants to feel superior, it will find a way. This terrible drive has found expression in many ways, through history—in slavery and genocide, xenophobia and snobbery, race prejudice and sex differentiation. Given a man who, among his fellows, has no real superiority, you are faced with a bedevilled madman who, if superiority is denied him, and he cannot learn one or earn one, will turn on something weaker than himself and make it inferior. The obvious, logical, handiest subject for this inexcusable indignity is his woman.
He could not do this to anyone he loved.”

Theodore Sturgeon book Venus Plus X

Section 41 (p. 126)
Venus Plus X (1960)

Love, Sex, Way, Feeling

“I've come out here tonight to challenge you… challenge you, the WWE Universe, into seeing things my way and to learn how to just say "no." See, because the people who cheer for Jeff Hardy are just slaves to the vices associated with his (with quote fingers) "living in the moment." I feel bad for you, I really do. You walk around almost blind and you wear your prescriptions proudly on your sleeves like they were badges of honor. What was it the doctor told you? 'Just take one… every four hours,' right? Aside from myself, there's not a person in this arena who hasn't abused prescription medication or taken a recreational drug. And I know, trust me, it's hard being straight-edge, it's hard to live a straight-edge lifestyle. It's extremely difficult to be me, but what concerns me now is that none of you realize how much more difficult it is to live the life… that you all live. I'm positive nobody in here takes into account the long-term consequences of alcohol on your liver. (Smattering of cheers from audience) See, and you cheer that. That's nothing to cheer. You drink because it's fun, right? (Audience cheers a little louder) Eventually, it's not gonna be fun anymore when it spirals out of control and its no longer… it's no longer fun. Sooner or later, you're just drinking to feel normal. And then there's the smokers. You know, I don't know what's more disgusting–is watching a smoker pollute his/her lungs with over 4,000 foreign chemicals, or having to listen to the smoker convince themselves that they can quit whenever they want to. It's… it's hard to quit, I know, it takes a very strong person to quit, but an even stronger person never would've started smoking in the first place. (Audience boos and chants "Hardy") I didn't want to come out here and be the bearer of bad news, but let's face facts: chances are pretty slim that any of you here will ever get the monkey off your back. You'll never be able to pry the cigarette from your lips, or find the self-control to pour your drink from your glass, or the self-respect to take the pill out of your mouth. See, it starts, and it can't happen without learning how to say "no" to temptation, and that's why I'm out here. I'm out here to challenge you before it's too late. Please, learn how to say "no" to temptation, learn how to say "no" to your vices, learn how to control yourself.”

Phil Brooks (1978) American professional wrestler and mixed martial artist

July 24, 2009
Friday Night SmackDown

Life, People, Alcohol, Way

“I purpose now, while the impression is more pure and clear within me, to mark down the main things I can recollect of my father. To myself, if I live to after-years, it may be instructive and interesting, as the past grows ever holier the farther we leave it. My mind is calm enough to do it deliberately, and to do it truly. The thought of that pale earnest face which even now lies stiffened into death in that bed at Scotsbrig, with the Infinite all of worlds looking down on it, will certainly impel me. It is good to know how a true spirit will vindicate itself with truth and freedom through what obstructions soever; how the acorn cast carelessly into the wilder-ness will make room for itself and grow to be an oak. This is one of the cases belonging to that class, "the lives of remarkable men," in which it has been said, "paper and ink should least of all be spared." I call a man remarkable who becomes a true workman in this vineyard of the Highest. Be his work that of palace-building and kingdom-founding, or only of delving and ditching, to me it is no matter, or next to none. All human work is transitory, small in itself, contemptible. Only the worker thereof, and the spirit that dwelt in him, is significant. I proceed without order, or almost any forethought, anxious only to save what I have left and mark it as it lies in me.”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

1880s, Reminiscences (1881)

Death, Men, Truth, World

“Saw your face,
My hand you took
Just like in a story book,
And you got me
Yeah, you‘ve got me”

Zooey Deschanel (1980) American actress, musician, and singer-songwriter

"Got Me".
She & Him : Volume One (2008)

Books

“All of us are mere mortals and must consult. The spectacle of Parliament and the antics of our politicians serve only to distract us from the very real problems that we face as a nation.”

Epeli Ganilau (1951) Fijian politician

NAPF convention, 17 December 2005

Problem

“People are more connected than ever before, but inequalities and misunderstandings remain deep within and among societies. Human capacity is the ultimate renewable energy, but it faces obstacles everywhere. UNESCO’s role lies in bridging the gaps in global governance by fostering international cooperation in education, the sciences, culture, and communication.”

Irina Bokova (1952) Bulgarian diplomat

leadersmag.com http://www.leadersmag.com/issues/2012.3_Jul/Women%20Leaders/LEADERS-Irina-Bokova-UNESCO.html.

People, Education, Communication, Science

“On the day of Pentecost Christianity faced the world, a new religion, without a history, without a priesthood, without a college, without a people, and without a patron. She had only her two sacraments and her tongue of fire. The latter was her sole instrument of aggression.”

William Arthur (minister) (1819–1901) Wesleyan Methodist minister and author

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 322.

People, World, Religion, History

“So with 'is 'ead down in a corner,
On 'is front paws 'e started to walk,
And 'e coughed and 'e sneezed and 'e gargled,
Till Albert shot out like a cork.

Old Wallace felt better direc'ly,
And 'is figure once more became lean,
But the only difference with Albert
Was 'is face and 'is 'ands were quite clean.”

Marriott Edgar (1880–1951) British poet

"The Return of Albert", line 21.
Albert, 'Arold and Others (1938)

“Of passions under complete control, this hero [Pandu], O Madri, had all along been watched by me with care. How did he then forgetting the Rishi's curse, approach thee with enkindled desire? O Madri, this foremost of men should have been protected by thee. Why didst thou tempt him into solitude? Always melancholy at the thought of the Rishi's curse, how came he to be merry with thee in solitude? O princess of Valhika, more fortunate than myself, thou art really to be envied, for thou hast seen the face of our lord suffused with gladness and joy.”

Kunti character from Indian epic Mahabharata

Kunti in grief on seeing her husband dead during an intercourse with Madri
The Mahabharata/Book 1: Adi Parva/Section CXXV

Men, Art, Solitude, Passion

“As the dominant mammal on the face of the earth, as the clever one, the only one as far as we know capable of reflection and of accumulating knowledge, our duty is plain, to serve the lesser creation, to keep our world clean and pass on to posterity a record of which we shall not feel shame.”

Frank Fraser Darling (1903–1979) British scientist

Wilderness and Plenty (1970); as quoted in Stephen R. L. Clark, The Moral Status of Animals (Clarendon Press, 1977), p. 32.

World, Feeling, Knowledge

“Your lips are red
My face is red from reading your red lips”

St. Vincent (musician) (1982) American singer-songwriter

"Your Lips Are Red"
Marry Me (2007)

Reading

“On the question of Israel, I talk about what I saw during his trip to Israel, how I saw his (Barack Obama) understanding of the relationship with Israel - he would describe it as a commitment of the head and heart. He looks at Israel and sees us as being two countries with common values. But he also looks at Israel and sees that whatever threatens Israel also happens to threaten the United States. So we have a [common] interest, because we end up facing the same threats.”

Dennis Ross (1948) American diplomat

Understanding, Question, Heart, Country

“Snow is a strange white word.
No ice or frost
Has asked of bud or bird
For Winter's cost.
Yet ice and frost and snow
From earth to sky
This Summer land doth know.
No man knows why.
In all men's hearts it is.
Some spirit old
Hath turned with malign kiss
Our lives to mould.
Red fangs have torn His face.
God's blood is shed.
He mourns from His lone place
His children dead.
O! ancient crimson curse
Corrode, consume.
Give back this universe
Its pristine bloom.”

Isaac Rosenberg (1890–1918) English poet

On Receiving News of the War (1914)

Men, God, Children, Kiss

“When I was in high school, I ate the kind of stuff that the average, unhealthy American kid loves to eat. … The changes I've made are for future health as well as current physical performance and well-being. I'm no longer that kid who stuffed himself with whatever food came his way. With luck and a little education, I've made the necessary changes in time to avoid the health problems that a kid like that inevitably faces. Yes, deep down inside, that kid is still there, wanting to hang out with his pals at the nearest burger joint. But I can look forward as well as back. And what I'm looking forward to is the opportunity to take the road to wellness.”

Tony Gonzalez (1976) American football and basketball player

The All-Pro Diet: Lose Fat, Build Muscle, and Live Like a Champion (Rodale Books, 2009), Introduction https://books.google.it/books?id=wNrj-ITuL7gC&pg=PR11.

Love, Health, Education, School

“Half a century ago, the first feeling of all Englishmen was for England. Now, the sympathies of a powerful party are instinctively given to whatever is against England. It may be Boers or Baboos, or Russians or Affghans, or only French speculators – the treatment these all receive in their controversies with England is the same: whatever else my fail them, they can always count on the sympathies of the political a party from whom during the last half century the rulers of England have been mainly chosen…It is striking, though by no means a solitary indication of how low, in the present temper of English politics, our sympathy with our own countrymen has fallen. Of course, we shall be told that a conscience of exalted sensibility, which is the special attribute of the Liberal party, has enabled them to discover, what English statesmen had never discovered before, that the cause to which our countrymen are opposed is generally the just one…For ourselves, we are rather disposed to think that patriotism has become in some breasts so very reasonable an emotion, because it is ceasing to be an emotion at all; and that these superior scruples, to which our fathers were insensible, and which always make the balance of justice lean to the side of abandoning either our territory or our countrymen, indicate that the national impulses which used to make Englishmen cling together in face of every external trouble are beginning to disappear.”

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) British politician

‘Disintegration’, Quarterly Review, no. 312; October 1883, reprinted in Paul Smith (ed.), Lord Salisbury on Politics. A selection from his articles in the Quaterly Review, 1860-1883 (Cambridge University Press, 1972), pp. 342-343
1880s

Justice, Feeling, Thinking

“A true prophecy creates and systematically orients conduct toward one internal measure of value. In the face of this the "world" is viewed as material to be fashioned ethically according to the norm. Confucianism in contrast meant adjustment to the outside, to the conditions of the "world." A well-adjusted man, rationalizing his conduct only to the degree requisite for adjustment, does not constitute a systematic unity but rather a complex of useful and particular traits.”

Max Weber (1864–1920) German sociologist, philosopher, and political economist

Source: Religion of China (1915), p. 235

World, Fashion

“In fact, in the far North one sees the northern lights facing south!”

Vincent Massey (1887–1967) Governor General of Canada

Address to the Annual Dinner of the Canadian Press, Toronto, April 18, 1956
Speaking Of Canada - (1959)

Light

“You gotta be careful about how you phrase that. You don't want to be rude to the other players, because you gotta face them; I don't have to face them. Yeah, I don't ask them stupid questions like that (laughing)…Um, I think there a lot of good players on the tour.”

Roger Federer (1981) Swiss tennis player

Press conference at the 2016 Australian Open after semi-final loss to Novak Djokovic, after reporter's suggestion that the victor's dominance may be greater than any other in history due to 'there being no great opponents in the future.' http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3420985/Cranky-Roger-Federer-loses-reporter-asks-quality-current-players-crushing-defeat-hands-Novak-Djokovic-Australian-Open-semi-final.html

Stupidity, Question, Thinking

“I have staked my career—my life itself—on the things I could see, on the stories I could credit, and on the eventual vindication, when the book was closed, of the reasonable and skeptical approach. In the face of twenty-five years of bloodshed, mayhem, criminality, and the universal human pastime of ruination, I have clung fiercely to Occam’s razor, seeking always to keep my solutions unadorned and free of conjecture, and never to resort to conspiracy or any kind of prosecutorial woolgathering. My mother, whenever she was confronted by calamity or personal sorrow, invoked cosmic emanations, invisible empires, ancient prophecies, and intrigues; it has been the business of my life to reject such folderol and seek the simpler explanation. But we were fools, she and I, arrant blockheads, each of us blind to or heedless of the readiest explanation: that the world is an ungettable joke, and our human need to explain its wonders and horrors, our appalling genius for devising such explanations, is nothing more than the rim shot that accompanies the punch line.”

Michael Chabon (1963) Novelist, short story writer, essayist

The God of Dark Laughter https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2001/04/09/the-god-of-dark-laughter, The New Yorker (April 9, 2001)

Life, Books, World, Fools

“Through our own folly and refusal to face realities and deal with evil tendencies while they were yet controllable, we have allowed brutal and intolerant forces to gain almost unchallenged supremacy in Europe and have placed ourselves in a position of weakness and peril, the like of which our history does not record for two and a half centuries.”

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

Speech to the New Commonwealth Society (15 July 1936), quoted in Martin Gilbert, Prophet of Truth: Winston S. Churchill, 1922–1939 (London: Minerva, 1990), p. 764
The 1930s

History, Reality, Evil

“We must be very careful when we speak of exercising "leadership" in Asia. We are deceiving ourselves and others when we pretend to have answers to the problems, which agitate many of these Asiatic peoples. Furthermore, we have about 50% of the world's wealth but only 6.3 of its population. This disparity is particularly great as between ourselves and the peoples of Asia. In this situation, we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment. Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships, which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity without positive detriment to our national security. To do so we will have to dispense with all sentimentality and daydreaming; and our attention will have to be concentrated everywhere on our immediate national objectives. We need not deceive ourselves that we can afford today the luxury of altruism and world benefaction…
In the face of this situation we would be better off to dispense now with a number of the concepts which have underlined our thinking with regard to the Far East. We should dispense with the aspiration to 'be liked' or to be regarded as the repository of a high-minded international altruism. We should stop putting ourselves in the position of being our brothers' keeper and refrain from offering moral and ideological advice. We should cease to talk about vague — and for the Far East — unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of the living standards, and democratization. The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are hampered by idealistic slogans, the better.”

George F. Kennan (1904–2005) American advisor, diplomat, political scientist and historian

VII. Far East
Memo PPS23 (1948)

People, World, Exercises, Problem

“Spade pulled his hand out of hers. He no longer either smiled or grimaced. His wet yellow face was set hard and deeply lined. His eyes burned madly. He said: "Listen. This isn't a damned bit of good. You'll never understand me, but I'll try once more and then we'll give it up. Listen. When a man's partner is killed he's supposed to do something about it. It doesn't make any difference what you thought of him. He was your partner and you're supposed to do something about it. Then it happens we were in the detective business. Well, when one of your organization gets killed it's bad business to let the killer get away with it. It's bad all around – bad for that one organization, bad for every detective everywhere. Third, I'm a detective and expecting me to run criminals down and then let them go free is like asking a dog to catch a rabbit and let it go. It can be done, all right, and sometimes it is done, but it's not the natural thing. The only way I could have let you go was by letting Gutman and Cairo and the kid go. … Fourth, no matter what I wanted to do now it would be absolutely impossible for me to let you go without having myself dragged to the gallows with the others. Next, I've no reason in God's world to think I can trust you and if I did this and got away with it you'd have something on me that you could use whenever you happened to want to. That's five of them. The sixth would be that, since I've got something on you, I couldn't be sure you wouldn't decide to shoot a hole in *me* some day. Seventh, I don't even like the idea of thinking that there might be one chance in a hundred that you'd played me for a sucker. And eighth – but that's enough. All those on one side. Maybe some of them are unimportant. I won't argue about that. But look at the number of them. Now on the other side we've got what? All we've got is the fact that maybe you love me and maybe I love you." … "But suppose I do? What of it? Maybe next month I won't. I've been through it before – when it lasted that long. Then what? Then I'll think I played the sap. And if I did it and got sent over then I'd be sure I was the sap. Well, if I send you over I'll be sorry as hell – I'll have some rotten nights – but that'll pass. Listen." He took her by the shoulders and bent her back, leaning over her. "If that doesn't mean anything to you forget it and we'll make it this: I won't because all of me wants to – wants to say to hell with the consequences and do it -- and because – God damn you – you've counted on that with me the same as you counted on that with the others. … Don't be too sure I'm as crooked as I'm supposed to be. That kind of reputation might be good business – bringing in high-priced jobs and making it easier to deal with the enemy. … Well, a lot of money would have been at least one more item on the other side of the scales."”

Dashiell Hammett book The Maltese Falcon

… Spade set the edges of his teeth together and said through them: "I won't play the sap for you."
Chap. 20, "If They Hang You"
spoken by the character "Sam Spade" to "Brigid O'Shaughnessy."
The Maltese Falcon (1930)

Love, Money, God, World

“Punk: Don't stop on account of me. [Starts singing "Happy Birthday" to Rey's daughter, who is scared]. Rey, you look scared, but I assure you I'm not out here to hurt you, and I'm not out here to hurt your family. In fact, I'm happy that we're all here – my family and yours. And today's a big day, we all need to celebrate the occasion, and it doesn't get any bigger that WrestleMania, Rey, so that's exactly why I wanna challenge you to a match at WrestleMania. I also wanna challenge you to a match tonight. And I don't mean later in the show, Rey. I mean now. I mean, as in, right now!
Rey: Come on Punk. This ain't the time
Punk: Don't be sad. Aaliyah, since it's your birthday, sweet, innocent little Aaliyah, I'll tell you what. As my birthday present to you, I'll let you shut your eyes while I reduce your daddy to tears and make him beg for my mercy. And Dominik. You're such… you're all grown up now, aren't you? We watched you grow up before our very eyes, but I don't think you ever heard your father squeal like a pig from somebody repeatedly stomping his surgically repaired knees, so it's okay if you plug your ears. And beautiful, voluptuous Angie. Now I'm sure you and your loving husband Rey have shared the best of times. But look at me. I promise you, after I do what I'm going to do to your husband, it will be the worst of times. So feel free to cup your hand over your mouth to muffle the screams. What's the matter, Rey? Don't you wanna fight me in front of your family? No? Are you afraid that your family's gonna watch you get hurt? You're a coward! I know it; deep down inside, Dominik knows it; your wife has always known; and now on her 9th birthday, your sweet innocent little Aaliyah knows it. All these people here know it, Rey, you're a coward! What's it gonna take? Huh, Rey? Where's Giant-Killer Rey Mysterio at? [Crowd chants "619"] Where's your 619, huh, Rey? Where's the ultimate underdog, Rey? Rey, where's your machismo? Where's your machismo, Rey?! I'll tell you where, Rey. Your machismo, your courage – you never had it. What's it gonna take, Rey? Huh? Rey, I'll even drop down to your level, Rey. [Gets down on his knees] Come on, Rey! So, you're turning me down? You won't fight me? What's it gonna take, Rey? [Gets up] What's it gonna take, Rey?! Not now?! Not now?! [Slaps Rey across the face] [Rey then walks away very frustrated with his family. ] Come on, Rey! Come on, now! There he is, ladies and gentlemen! There's your superhero!
Striker: He's got no alternative but to protect his family.
Punk: Watch him take his walk of shame! But one more thing, sweet little princess Aaliyah… [Sings "Happy Birthday" to her in a disturbing type way. ]”

Phil Brooks (1978) American professional wrestler and mixed martial artist

March 12, 2010
Friday Night SmackDown

Love, People, Sadness, Family

“The greatest height of heroism to which an individual, like a people, can attain is to know how to face ridicule; better still, to know how to make oneself ridiculous and not to shrink from the ridicule.”

Miguel de Unamuno (1864–1936) 19th-20th century Spanish writer and philosopher

The Tragic Sense of Life (1913), Conclusion : Don Quixote in the Contemporary European Tragi-Comedy

People

“Yes, because that conceals their character. You don't know who you are talking to. Who you are dealing with. So, the face should be seen. That is even in Islam, even during the time of the holy Prophet Mohammed, women used to have bare faces. I mean women did not cover their faces.”

Maumoon Abdul Gayoom (1937) Maldivian politician, 3rd president of the Maldives

When asked by al jazeera journalist, Juliana Ruhfus (in an interview on 8 August 2007) that there is a law (in Maldives) that women are not allowed to wear a dress that only shows the eyes.
2007

Women, Time

“Instead of designing an extension to the elegant facade of the National Gallery which complements it and continues the concept of columns and domes, it looks as if we may be presented with a kind of municipal fire station, complete with the sort of tower that contains the siren. I would understand better this type of high-tech approach if you demolished the whole of Trafalgar Square and started again with a single architect responsible for the entire layout, but what is proposed is like a monstrous carbuncle on the face of a much-loved and elegant friend.”

Charles, Prince of Wales (1948) son of Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom

Prince of Wales' website http://www.princeofwales.gov.uk/speechesandarticles/a_speech_by_hrh_the_prince_of_wales_at_the_150th_anniversary_1876801621.html Speech at the 150th anniversary of the Royal Institute of British Architects, Royal Gala Evening at Hampton Court Palace, 30 May, 1984. The Prince had undoubtedly read "The Spencers on Spas" written the previous year by his step-mother-in-law, Raine, Countess Spencer, which included on page 14 the observation that "Monstrous carbuncles of concrete have erupted in gentle Georgian Squares". 1990s

Love, Understanding

“Well think about it, Punk. Think about it before you sign that. Last week, you couldn't even last fifteen minutes in the ring with the new face of extreme, the Tuesday night delight, John Morrison.”

John Hennigan (1979) American professional wrestler

Thinking, Night

“They might need a preparatory discourse on the text of 'prove all things, hold fast that which is good,' in order to unlearn the lesson that reason is an unlawful guide in religion. They might startle on being first awaked from the dreams of the night, but they would rub their eyes at once, and look the spectres boldly in the face.”

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

Letter to Benjamin Waterhouse (19 July 1822), published in The Works of Thomas Jefferson in Twelve Volumes http://oll.libertyfund.org/ToC/0054.php, Federal Edition, Paul Leicester Ford, ed., New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1904, Vol. 12 http://oll.libertyfund.org/Texts/Jefferson0136/Works/0054-12_Bk.pdf, p. 244 1820s

Religion, Dreams, Night

“It is the duty of the humor of any given nation in time of high crisis to attack the catastrophe that faces it in such a manner as to cause the people to laugh at it in such a way that they cannot die before they are killed.”

Lord Buckley (1906–1960) American actor and comedian

Lord Buckley, "H-Bomb" (comic monologue), 1960. Reported in Stephen Holden, It's Comedy! From Skit To Song To Satire http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=950DE7DB173EF934A15753C1A96F948260 (October 27, 1989) The New York Times.

People, Way, Time

“Dayton shook the leadership elite of post-Cold War Europe. The Europeans were grateful to the United States for the leading the effort that finally ended the war in Bosnia, but some European officials were embarassed that American involvement had been necessary. Jacque Poos's 1991 assertion that Europe's "hour had dawned" lay in history's dustbin, alongside James Baker's view that we had no dog in that fight. "One cannot call it an American peace", French Foreign Minister de Charette told the press, "even if President Clinton and the Americans have tried to pull the blanket over to their side. The fact is that the Americans looked at this affair in ex-Yugoslavia from a great distance for nearly four years and basically blocked the progression of things." But de Charette also acknowledged that "Europe as such was not present, and this, it is true, was a failure of the European Union." Prime Minister Alain Juppé, after praising the Dayton agreement, could not resist adding, "Of course, it resembles like a twin the European plan we presented eighteen months ago" - when he was Foreign Minister. Agence France-Presse reported that many European diplomats were "left smarting" at Dayton. In an article clearly inspired by someone at the French Foreign Ministry, Le Figaro said that "Richard Holbrooke, the American mediator, did not leave his European collegues with good memories from the air base at Dayton." They quoted an unnamed Franch diplomat as saying, "He flatters, he lies, he humiliates: he is a sort of brutal and schizophrenic Mazarin." President Chirac's national security assistant, Jean-David Levitte, called to apologize for this comment, saying it did not represent the views of his boss. I replied that such minidramas were inevitable given the pressures and frustrations we faced at Dayton and were inconsequential considering that the war was over.”

Richard Holbrooke (1941–2010) American diplomat

Source: 1990s, To End a War (1998), p. 318

War, Peace, Dogs, Quotes

“He lives to build, not boast, a generous race;
No tenth transmitter of a foolish face.”

Richard Savage (1697–1743) English poet

The Bastard (1728), line 7, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

“[U]p until now 'progress' has affected existing social realities only secondarily, modifying them as little as possible, according to the strict dictates of capitalist profitability. The important thing is that human beings are profitable, not that their lives be changed. As far as is possible, capitalism respects the pre-existing shape and contours of people's lives. Only grudgingly, so to speak, does it bring about any change. Criticism of capitalism as a contradictory 'mode of production' which is dying as a result of its contradictions is strengthened by criticism of capitalism as the distributor of the wealth and 'progress' it has produced.
And so, constantly staring us in the face, mundane and therefore generally unnoticed - whereas in the future it will be seen as a characteristic and scandalous trait of our era, the era of the decadent bourgeoisie - is this fact: that life is lagging behind what is possible, that it is retarded. What incredible backwardness. This has up until now been constantly increasing; it parallels the growing disparity between the knowledge of the contemporary physicist and that of the 'average' man, or between that of the Marxist sociologist and that of the bourgeois politician.
Once pointed out, the contrast becomes staggeringly obvious, blinding; it is to be found everywhere, whichever way we turn, and never ceases to amaze.”

Henri Lefebvre (1901–1991) French philosopher

From Critique of Everyday Life: Volume 1 (1947/1991)

Life, People, Way, Knowledge

“Colour, if I may say so, is biological. Colour is alive and colour alone makes things come alive... Without losing any part of myself, I need to get back to that instinct, so that these colours in the scattered fields signify an idea to me, just as to them they signify a crop. Confronted by a yellow, they spontaneously feel the harvesting activity required of them, just as I, when faced with the same ripening tint..”

Paul Cézanne (1839–1906) French painter

Source: Quotes of Paul Cezanne, after 1900, Cézanne, - a Memoir with Conversations, (1897 - 1906), p. 162, in: 'What he told me – I. The motif'

Feeling, Idea, Parting

““Mustn’t grumble” was the most English of expressions. English patience was mingled inertia and despair. What was the use? But Americans did nothing but grumble! Americans also boasted. "I do some pretty incredible things” was not an English expression. "I’m fairly keen" was not American. Americans were showoffs — it was part of our innocence — we often fell on our faces; the English seldom showed off, so they seldom looked like fools.”

Paul Theroux book The Kingdom by the Sea

The Kingdom by the Sea: A Journey Around Great Britain, ch. 1 (1983).

Fools, Parting, Patience, Despair

“I can never forget how June's present husband, Harry Evans, suddenly came clomping down the hall of her apartment in his Army boots, fresh from the German front, around September 1945, and he was appalled to see us, six fullgrown people, all high on Benny sprawled and sitting and cat-legged on that vast double-doublebed of 'skepticism' and 'decadence', discussing the nothingness of values, pale-faced, weak bodies, Gad the poor guy said: 'This is what I fought for?”

Joan Vollmer (1923–1951) Common-law wife of William S. Burroughs

His wife told him to come down from his 'character heights' or some such.
In Jack Kerouac's last work (The Vanity of Duluoz), he describes the scene in the 119th street apartment as "a year of low, evil decadence", beginning near the close of 1944:
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People, Guy, Cats, Forgetting

Quotes about face page 36

Quotes about face
page 36