Quotes about fall
page 16

Pope John Paul II photo

“to men and women there falls the task of exploring truth with their reason, and in this their nobility consists.”

Pope John Paul II (1920–2005) 264th Pope of the Catholic Church, saint

Encyclical Fides et Ratio, 14 September 1998
Source: www.vatican.va http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_14091998_fides-et-ratio_en.html

Mitt Romney photo
Theodore Dalrymple photo
Little Richard photo
Evelyn Waugh photo

“No.3 Commando was very anxious to be chums with Lord Glasgow, so they offered to blow up an old tree stump for him and he was very grateful and said don't spoil the plantation of young trees near it because that is the apple of my eye and they said no of course not we can blow a tree down so it falls on a sixpence and Lord Glasgow said goodness you are clever and he asked them all to luncheon for the great explosion.
So Col. Durnford-Slater DSO said to his subaltern, have you put enough explosive in the tree?. Yes, sir, 75lbs. Is that enough? Yes sir I worked it out by mathematics it is exactly right. Well better put a bit more. Very good sir.
And when Col. D Slater DSO had had his port he sent for the subaltern and said subaltern better put a bit more explosive in that tree. I don't want to disappoint Lord Glasgow. Very good sir.
Then they all went out to see the explosion and Col. DS DSO said you will see that tree fall flat at just the angle where it will hurt no young trees and Lord Glasgow said goodness you are clever.
So soon they lit the fuse and waited for the explosion and presently the tree, instead of falling quietly sideways, rose 50 feet into the air taking with it ½ acre of soil and the whole young plantation.
And the subaltern said Sir, I made a mistake, it should have been 7½ not 75. Lord Glasgow was so upset he walked in dead silence back to his castle and when they came to the turn of the drive in sight of his castle what should they find but that every pane of glass in the building was broken.
So Lord Glasgow gave a little cry and ran to hide his emotions in the lavatory and there when he pulled the plug the entire ceiling, loosened by the explosion, fell on his head.
This is quite true.”

Evelyn Waugh (1903–1966) British writer

Letter to his wife (31 May 1942)

Robert M. Pirsig photo
Randolph Bourne photo

“Every little school boy is trained to recite the weaknesses and inefficiencies of the Articles of Confederation. It is taken as axiomatic that under them the new nation was falling into anarchy and was only saved by the wisdom and energy of the Convention. … The nation had to be strong to repel invasion, strong to pay to the last loved copper penny the debts of the propertied and the provident ones, strong to keep the unpropertied and improvident from ever using the government to secure their own prosperity at the expense of moneyed capital. … No one suggests that the anxiety of the leaders of the heretofore unquestioned ruling classes desired the revision of the Articles and labored so weightily over a new instrument not because the nation was failing under the Articles, but because it was succeeding only too well. Without intervention from the leaders, reconstruction threatened in time to turn the new nation into an agrarian and proletarian democracy. … All we know is that at a time when the current of political progress was in the direction of agrarian and proletarian democracy, a force hostile to it gripped the nation and imposed upon it a powerful form against which it was never to succeed in doing more than blindly struggle. The liberating virus of the Revolution was definitely expunged, and henceforth if it worked at all it had to work against the State, in opposition to the armed and respectable power of the nation.”

Randolph Bourne (1886–1918) American writer

¶13. Published under "The Development of the American State," The State https://mises.org/library/state (Tucson, Arizona: See Sharp Press, 1998), pp. 33–34.
"The State" (1918), II

Frances Farmer photo
Basil of Caesarea photo
George Henry Lewes photo

“Remember that every drop that falls, bears into the bosom of the earth a quality of beautiful fertility.”

George Henry Lewes (1817–1878) British philosopher

G. P. R. James Henry Masterton (1832; repr. London: Richard Bentley, 1837) p. 297
Misattributed

John Mayer photo
Philip K. Dick photo

“Spinoza saw… that if a falling stone could reason, it would think, "I want to fall at the rate of thirty-two feet per second."”

Philip K. Dick (1928–1982) American author

"The Android and the Human" (1972), reprinted in The Dark-Haired Girl (1988) and in The Shifting Realities of Philip K. Dick (1995), ed. Lawrence Sutin

“Every fall I imagine once again that something wonderful will happen at a party. This is like imagining that the telephone book will prove to be a wonderful novel.”

John Leonard (1939–2008) American critic, writer, and commentator

"Perfect Knowledge in Final Things" (p. 108)
Private Lives in the Imperial City (1979)

Stephen King photo
Suze Robertson photo

“But please come into my studio; It is now full of works everywhere, you see... Oh, you don't need to be careful; those paintings do fall together frequently; - it doesn't really harm them.”

Suze Robertson (1855–1922) Dutch painter

(version in original Dutch / origineel citaat van Suze Robertson:) Maar komt u binnen op mijn atelier; 't staat er nu overal vol, naar u ziet.. .O, u hoeft niet zoo voorzichtig te weezen [M. J. Brusse komt naar haar atelier voor het interview]; die schilderijen vallen wel meer door elkaar; - 't hindert ze heusch niet..
M. J. Brusse visited Suze's studio in The Hague, for the interview
Source: 1900 - 1922, Onder de Menschen: Suze Robertson' (1912), p. 29

Taslima Nasrin photo
Swami Vivekananda photo

“When we first fall in love, we feel that we know all there is to know about life, and perhaps we are right.”

Mignon McLaughlin (1913–1983) American journalist

The Complete Neurotic's Notebook (1981), Love

Yehuda Ashlag photo
Statius photo

“Even so a crowd of nestlings, seeing their mother returning through the air afar, would fain go to meet her, and lean gaping from the edge of the nest, and would even now be falling, did she not spread all her motherly bosom to save them, and chide them with loving wings.”
Volucrum sic turba recentum, cum reducem longo prospexit in aere matrem, ire cupit contra summique e margine nidi extat hians, iam iamque cadat, ni pectore toto obstet aperta parens et amantibus increpat alis.

Source: Thebaid, Book X, Line 458 (tr. J. H. Mozley)

Bruce Springsteen photo
Brigham Young photo
Émile Durkheim photo
Nathanael Greene photo
Thomas Frank photo
Samuel Taylor Coleridge photo
Sara Bareilles photo

“I wonder what would happen if you
Say what you want to say
And let the words fall out
Honestly, I want to see you be brave”

Sara Bareilles (1979) American pop rock singer-songwriter and pianist

"Brave"
Written by Bareilles and Jack Antonoff
Lyrics, The Blessed Unrest (2013)

David Bowie photo
Mariano Rajoy photo

“This is not like the water that falls from the sky, without knowing exactly why.”

Mariano Rajoy (1955) Spanish politician

30 October, 2015
As President, 2015
Source: Canal 24h https://twitter.com/calcosares/status/638381300873867264

Šantidéva photo
Frances Kellor photo
Heinrich Heine photo

“The whole system of symbolism impressed on the art and the life of the Middle Ages must awaken the admiration of poets in all times. In reality, what colossal unity there is in Christian art, especially in its architecture! These Gothic cathedrals, how harmoniously they accord with the worship of which they are the temples, and how the idea of the Church reveals itself in them! Everything about them strives upwards, everything transubstantiates itself; the stone buds forth into branches and foliage, and becomes a tree; the fruit of the vine and the ears of corn become blood and flesh; the man becomes God; God becomes a pure spirit. For the poet, the Christian life of the Middle Ages is a precious and inexhaustibly fruitful field. Only through Christianity could the circumstances of life combine to form such striking contrasts, such motley sorrow, such weird beauty, that one almost fancies such things can never have had any real existence, and that it is all a vast fever-dream the fever-dream of a delirious deity. Even Nature, during this sublime epoch of the Christian religion, seemed to have put on a fantastic disguise; for oftentimes though man, absorbed in abstract subtilties, turned away from her with abhorrence, she would recall him to her with a voice so mysteriously sweet, so terrible in its tenderness, so powerfully enchanting, that unconsciously he would listen and smile, and become terrified, and even fall sick unto death.”

Heinrich Heine (1797–1856) German poet, journalist, essayist, and literary critic

Religion and Philosophy in Germany, A fragment https://archive.org/stream/religionandphilo011616mbp#page/n5/mode/2up, p. 26

Ken Ham photo
Edward Bouverie Pusey photo
Terence V. Powderly photo

“That the army of the discontented is gathering fresh recruits day by day is true, and if this army should become so large that, driven to desperation, it should one day arise in its wrath and grapple with its real or fancied enemy, the responsibility for that act must fall upon the head of those who could have averted the blow, but who turned a deaf ear to the supplication of suffering humanity and gave the screw of oppression an extra turn because they had the power.”

Terence V. Powderly (1849–1924) American mayor

"The Army of the Discontented," http://ebooks.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/pageviewer-idx?c=nora;cc=nora;g=moagrp;xc=1;q1=The%20Army%20of%20the%20Discontented;rgn=full%20text;cite1=Powderly;cite1restrict=author;view=image;seq=0381;idno=nora0140-4;node=nora0140-4%3A8 North American Review, vol. 140, whole no. 341 (April 1885), p. 371.

Anna Akhmatova photo
Stephen King photo
Edsger W. Dijkstra photo
J.C. Ryle photo
Tom McCarthy (writer) photo
Leo Buscaglia photo
Max Wertheimer photo
Tommy Douglas photo
Walter Pater photo

“A book, like a person, has its fortunes with one; is lucky or unlucky in the precise moment of its falling in our way, and often by some happy accident counts with us for something more than its independent value.”

Walter Pater (1839–1894) essayist, art and literature critic, fiction writer

Source: Marius the Epicurean http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext03/8mrs110.txt (1885), Ch. 6

Herbert A. Simon photo
Ramana Maharshi photo
Martin Amis photo
Samuel R. Delany photo
Mata Amritanandamayi photo

“Note that the ball falls at a rather large angle at the end of its flight; the trajectories are not symmetric.”

Robert Adair (physicist) (1924) Physicist and author

Source: The Physics Of Baseball (Second Edition - Revised), Chapter 2, The Flight Of The baseball, p. 15

James Howell photo

“He falls in the pit he digs for others.”

James Howell (1594–1666) Anglo-Welsh historian and writer

Lexicon Tetraglotton (1660)

Harry Chapin photo
William Lane Craig photo
Isaac Asimov photo

“The fall of Empire, gentlemen, is a massive thing, however, and not easily fought. It is dictated by a rising bureaucracy, a receding initiative, a freezing of caste, a damming of curiosity — a hundred other factors. It has been going on, as I have said, for centuries, and it is too majestic and massive a movement to stop.”

Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, known for his works of science fiction …

Part I, The Psychohistorians, section 6
The Foundation series (1951–1993), Foundation (1951)

Alan Charles Kors photo
Carl Sagan photo

“A country cannot be defeated politically unless it is defeated culturally. Our alien rulers knew that they could not conquer India without conquering Hinduism - cultural India's name at its deepest and highest, and the principle of its identity, continuity and reawakening. Therefore Hinduism became an object of their special attack. Physical attack was supplemented by ideological attack. They began to interpret for us our history, our religion, our culture and ourselves. We learnt to look at us through their eyes…. The long period created an atmosphere of mental slavery and imitation. It created a class of people Hindu in their names and by birth but anti-Hindu in orientation, sympathy and loyalty. They knew all the bad things and nothing good about Hinduism. Hindu dharma is now being subverted from within. Anti-Hindu Hindus are very important today; they rule the roost; they write our histories, they define our nation; they control the media, the academia, the politics, the higher administration and higher courts. They are now working as clients of those forces who are planning to revive their old Imperialism… During this period our minds became soft. We became escapists; we wanted to avoid conflict at any cost, even conflict and controversy of ideas, even when this controversy was necessary. We developed an escape-route. We called it "synthesis". We said all religions, all scriptures, all prophets preach the same things. It was intellectual surrender, and our enemies saw it that way; they concluded that we are amenable to anything, that we would clutch at any false hope or idea to avoid a struggle, and that we would do nothing to defend ourselves. Therefore, they have become even more aggressive. It also shows that we have lost spiritual discrimination (viveka), and would entertain any falsehood; this is prajñâ-dosha, drishti-dosha, and it cannot be good for our survival in the long run. People first fall into delusion before they fall into misfortune.”

Ram Swarup (1920–1998) Indian historian

On Hinduism (2000)

Bono photo

“A man will rise, a man will fall. From the shear face of love like a fly from the wall”

Bono (1960) Irish rock musician, singer of U2

"The Fly"
Lyrics, Achtung Baby (1991)

Su Tseng-chang photo

“Democracy and security do not fall from heaven — they come with a cost.”

Su Tseng-chang (1947) Taiwanese politician

Su Tseng-chang (2013) cited in " DPP fully committed to Taiwan’s self-defense, Su says http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2013/06/15/2003564827" on The Taipei Times, 15 June 2013.

Charles Pratt, 1st Earl Camden photo

“A good corroborating chain, if they fail in the last link, the whole will fall to the ground.”

Charles Pratt, 1st Earl Camden (1714–1794) English lawyer, judge and Whig politician

Wilkes v. Wood (1763), Lofft. 12.

“When the barbarians are at the gates, interest rates rise and bond prices fall precipitously.”

William J. Bernstein (1948) economist

Source: The Four Pillars of Investing (2002), Chapter 1, No Guts, No Glory, p. 13.

Michael Shea photo
Desmond Tutu photo
Nico Perrone photo
Preston Manning photo
Charles Taze Russell photo
Robert Solow photo
Mao Zedong photo

“Recently there has been a falling off in ideological and political work among students and intellectuals, and some unhealthy tendencies have appeared. Some people seem to think that there is no longer any need to concern oneself with politics or with the future of the motherland and the ideals of mankind. It seems as if Marxism was once all the rage but is currently not so much in fashion. To counter these tendencies, we must strengthen our ideological and political work. Both students and intellectuals should study hard. In addition to the study of their specialized subjects, they must make progress both ideologically and politically, which means that they should study Marxism, current events and politics. Not to have a correct political point of view is like having no soul […] All departments and organizations should shoulder their responsibilities in ideological and political work. This applies to the Communist Party, the Youth League, government departments in charge of this work, and especially to heads of educational institutions and teachers.”

Mao Zedong (1893–1976) Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China

Chapter 12 https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/works/red-book/ch12.htm; originally published in "On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People" (27 February 1957), 1st pocket ed., pp. 43-44
Quotations from Chairman Mao Zedong (The Little Red Book)

Peter Whittle (politician) photo
Alain de Botton photo
Homér photo

“As stars in the night sky glittering
round the moon's brilliance blaze in all their glory
when the air falls to a sudden, windless calm…
all the lookout peaks stand out and the jutting cliffs
and the steep ravines and down from the high heavens bursts
the boundless, bright air and all the stars shine clear
and the shepherd's heart exults.”

VIII. 551–555 (tr. Robert Fagles).
Alexander Pope's translation:
: As when the moon, refulgent lamp of night,
O'er heaven's clear azure spreads her sacred light,
When not a breath disturbs the deep serene,
And not a cloud o'ercasts the solemn scene;
Around her throne the vivid planets roll,
And stars unnumbered gild the glowing pole,
O'er the dark trees a yellower verdure shed,
And tip with silver every mountain's head;
Then shine the vales, the rocks in prospect rise,
A flood of glory bursts from all the skies.
Iliad (c. 750 BC)

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Hugo Diemer photo
John Ruysbroeck photo

“And there you In a new embrace, with a new torrent of eternal love: all the elect, angels and men, from the last to the first are embraced It is a living and fruitful unity, which is the source and the fount of all life All creatures are there without themselves as in their eternal origin, One essence and one life with God These enlightened people are lifted up with free mind above reason…To the summit of their spirit Their naked understanding is penetrated with eternal clarity as the air is penetrated by the light of the sun. The bare elevated will is transformed and penetrated with fathomless love, just as iron is penetrated by the fire [God] gives Himself in the soul’s essence…Where the soul’s powers are unified…And undergo God’s transformation in simplicity. In this place all is full and overflowing, for the spirit feels itself as one truth and one richness. And one unity with God All spirits thus raised up Melt away and are annihilated by reason of enjoyment in God’s essence They fall away from themselves and are lost in a bottomless unknowingWith God they will ebb and flow, and will always be in repose…They are drunk with love and have passed away into God in a dark luminosity must accept that the Persons yield and lose themselves whirling in essential love, that is, in enjoyable unity; nevertheless, they always remain according to their personal properties In the working of the Trinity. You may thus understand that the divine nature is eternally at rest and without mode according to the simplicity of its essence. It is why all that God has chosen and enfolded with eternal personal love, he has possessed essentially, enjoyably in unity, with essential love.”

John Ruysbroeck (1293–1381) Flemish mystic

The Little Book of Enlightenment (c. 1364)

Alexander Maclaren photo
Anaïs Nin photo

“Electric flesh-arrows traversing the body. A rainbow of color strikes the eyelids. A foam of music falls over the ears. It is the gong of the orgasm.”

Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) writer of novels, short stories, and erotica

As quoted in French Writers of the Past (2000) by Carol A. Dingle, p. 126

Robert Baden-Powell photo
Warren Farrell photo

“No legend told its children of beautiful princesses falling in love with conscientious objectors.”

Warren Farrell (1943) author, spokesperson, expert witness, political candidate

Women Can't Hear What Men Don't Say (2000)

Amit Chaudhuri photo
Maxwell D. Taylor photo
Greg Egan photo
Robert Hunter (author) photo
Ion Antonescu photo
Gautama Buddha photo
Will Eisner photo
Frederick Buechner photo
Derren Brown photo

“Paul [McKenna] and I have been working on making each other’s hair fall out for years now, with some success.”

Derren Brown (1971) British illusionist

TV recordings of stage shows, Svengali (2012), Svengali tour brochure

Rodion Malinovsky photo

“Don't touch us, gentlemen imperialists, don't threaten us for you yourselves will fall into the abyss which you are so diligently preparing for us and burn to cinders in nuclear inferno.”

Rodion Malinovsky (1898–1967) Soviet military commander and politician

Quoted in "World Marxist Review" - Page 20 - Communism - 1962

Paulo Coelho photo

“You drown not by falling into a river, but by staying submerged in it.”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

As quoted in Publishing Tips : Weekly Strategies for the Independent Writer‎ (2008) by Linda A. Lavid, p. 57.

Pat Cadigan photo
William Stukeley photo
R. H. Tawney photo