Quotes about fall
page 29

Fiona Apple photo
Rudyard Kipling photo
Terence photo

“What now if the sky were to fall?”

Act IV, scene 3, line 41 (719).
Heauton Timorumenos (The Self-Tormentor)

Cole Porter photo

“The chimpanzees in the zoos do it,
Some courageous kangaroos do it
Let's do it, let's fall in love. I'm sure giraffes on the sly do it,
Even eagles as they fly do it,
Let's do it, let's fall in love.”

Cole Porter (1891–1964) American composer and songwriter

"Let's Do It, Let's Fall in Love"; an earlier variant, rather than "Even eagles...": "Heavy hippopotami do it..."
Paris (1928)

Samuel Rogers photo
John Greenleaf Whittier photo

“Let the thick curtain fall;
I better know than all
How little I have gained,
How vast the unattained.”

John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–1892) American Quaker poet and advocate of the abolition of slavery

My Triumph, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“The human heart is a garden, wherein grow weeds of memory and blooms of hope, and the snow falls at last and covers all.”

Frank Crane (1861–1928) American Presbyterian minister

Four Minute Essays Vol. 5 (1919), The Human Heart

Francis Bacon photo
David Bowie photo

“And if you say run, I'll run with you
And if you say hide, we'll hide.
Because my love for you
Would break my heart in two.
If you should fall
Into my arms
And tremble like a flower.”

David Bowie (1947–2016) British musician, actor, record producer and arranger

Let's Dance
Song lyrics, Let's Dance (1983)

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg photo
Jefferson Davis photo
Hugh Laurie photo
Friedrich Hayek photo
George William Curtis photo

“The country does want rest, we all want rest. Our very civilization wants it — and we mean that it shall have it. It shall have rest — repose — refreshment of soul and re-invigoration of faculty. And that rest shall be of life and not of death. It shall not be a poison that pacifies restlessness in death, nor shall it be any kind of anodyne or patting or propping or bolstering — as if a man with a cancer in his breast would be well if he only said he was so and wore a clean shirt and kept his shoes tied. We want the rest of a real Union, not of a name, not of a great transparent sham, which good old gentlemen must coddle and pat and dandle, and declare wheedlingly is the dearest Union that ever was, SO it is; and naughty, ugly old fanatics shan't frighten the pretty precious — no, they sha'n't. Are we babies or men? This is not the Union our fathers framed — and when slavery says that it will tolerate a Union on condition that freedom holds its tongue and consents that the Constitution means first slavery at all costs and then liberty, if you can get it, it speaks plainly and manfully, and says what it means. There are not wanting men enough to fall on their knees and cry: 'Certainly, certainly, stay on those terms. Don't go out of the Union — please don't go out; we'll promise to take great care in future that you have everything you want. Hold our tongues? Certainly. These people who talk about liberty are only a few fanatics — they are tolerably educated, but most of 'em are crazy; we don't speak to them in the street; we don't ask them to dinner; really, they are of no account, and if you'll really consent to stay in the Union, we'll see if we can't turn Plymouth Rock into a lump of dough'. I don't believe the Southern gentlemen want to be fed on dough. I believe they see quite as clearly as we do that this is not the sentiment of the North, because they can read the election returns as well as we. The thoughtful men among them see and feel that there is a hearty abhorrence of slavery among us, and a hearty desire to prevent its increase and expansion, and a constantly deepening conviction that the two systems of society are incompatible. When they want to know the sentiment of the North, they do not open their ears to speeches, they open their eyes, and go and look in the ballot-box, and they see there a constantly growing resolution that the Union of the United States shall no longer be a pretty name for the extension of slavery and the subversion of the Constitution. Both parties stand front to front. Each claims that the other is aggressive, that its rights have been outraged, and that the Constitution is on its side. Who shall decide? Shall it be the Supreme Court? But that is only a co-ordinate branch of the government. Its right to decide is not mutually acknowledged. There is no universally recognized official expounder of the meaning of the Constitution. Such an instrument, written or unwritten, always means in a crisis what the people choose. The people of the United States will always interpret the Constitution for themselves, because that is the nature of popular governments, and because they have learned that judges are sometimes appointed to do partisan service.”

George William Curtis (1824–1892) American writer

1850s, The Present Aspect of the Slavery Question (1859)

Jonathan Edwards photo

“What if the deaf person falls down?”

Radio From Hell (March 27, 2006)

Ruhollah Khomeini photo

“Personal desire, age, and my health do not allow me to personally have a role in running the country after the fall of the current system.”

Ruhollah Khomeini (1902–1989) Religious leader, politician

Associated Press interview in Paris (7 November 1978); repeated on several occasions before Khomeini returned to Iran
Foreign policy

Kurt Lewin photo
Chevy Chase photo

“[Chevy falls down, and gets up]LIVE FROM NEW YORK, IT'S SATURDAY NIGHT!”

Chevy Chase (1943) American comedian, writer, and television and film actor

Attributed

Bruce Fein photo
George Bird Evans photo
Tomas Kalnoky photo
Tom Stoppard photo

“When I die
let the black rag fly
raven falling
from the sky.”

George Woodcock (1912–1995) Canadian writer of political biography and history, an anarchist thinker, an essayist and literary critic

"Black Flag" in Collected Poems (1983)

John Rogers Searle photo
David Foster Wallace photo

“But lo! the girl, like a frightened dove, that caught in the vast shadow of a hawk falls trembling on some man, no matter who he be, so doth she fling herself into his arms driven by strong fear.”
Ecce autem pavidae virgo de more columbae quae super ingenti circumdata praepetis umbra in quemcumque tremens hominem cadit, haud secus illa acta timore gravi mediam se misit.

Source: Argonautica, Book VIII, Lines 32–35

Richard Francis Burton photo

“What call ye them or Goods or Ills, ill-goods, good-ills, a loss, a gain,
When realms arise and falls a roof; a world is won, a man is slain?”

Richard Francis Burton (1821–1890) British explorer, geographer, translator, writer, soldier, orientalist, cartographer, ethnologist, spy, lin…

The Kasîdah of Hâjî Abdû El-Yezdî (1870)

Bertolt Brecht photo

“People remain what they are even if their faces fall apart.”

Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956) German poet, playwright, theatre director

Garga, in In the Jungle of Cities [Im Dickicht der Städte] (1923) , sc. 9; also translated as In the Swamp and Jungle of Cities.

Norah Jones photo

“I want to wake up with the rain
Falling on a tin roof
While I'm safe there in your arms
So all I ask is for you
To come away with me in the night
Come away with me”

Norah Jones (1979) American singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist

"Come Away With Me", Come Away With Me (2002)
Song lyrics

André Maurois photo
Étienne de La Boétie photo

“Resolve to serve no more, and you are at once freed. I do not ask that you place hands upon the tyrant to topple him over, but simply that you support him no longer; then you will behold him, like a great Colossus whose pedestal has been pulled away, fall of his own weight and break in pieces.”

Soyez résolus à ne plus servir, et vous voilà libres. Je ne vous demande pas de le pousser, de l'ébranler, mais seulement de ne plus le soutenir, et vous le verrez, tel un grand colosse dont on a brisé la base, fondre sous son poids et se rompre.
Discourse on Voluntary Servitude (1548)

“Change always involves a dark night when everything falls apart. Yet if this period of dissolution is used to create new meaning, then chaos ends and new order emerges.”

Margaret J. Wheatley (1941) American writer

Margaret Wheatley (2006) " Leadership Lessons for The Real World http://www.margaretwheatley.com/articles/leadershiplessons.html". Leader to Leader Magazine, Summer 2006

John Updike photo
Edsger W. Dijkstra photo
Edward Thomson photo
Mickey Spillane photo

“I was thinking too damn much to be careful. When I stabbed my key in the lock and turned it there was a momentary catch in the tumblers before it went all the way around and I swore out loud as I rammed the door with my shoulder and hit the floor. Something swished through the air over my head and I caught an arm and pulled a squirming, fighting bundle of muscle down on top of me.
If I could have reached my rod I would have blown his guts out. His breath was in my face and I brought my knee up, but he jerked out of the way bringing his hand down again and my shoulder went numb after a split second of blinding pain. He tried again with one hand going for my throat, but I got one foot loose and kicked out and up and felt my toe smash onto his groin. The cramp of the pain doubled him over on top of me, his breath sucking in like a leaky tire.
Then I got cocky. I thought I had him. I went to get up and he moved. Just once. That thing in his hand smashed against the side of my head and I started to crumple up piece by piece until there wasn't anything left except the sense to see and hear enough to know that he had crawled out of the room and was falling down the stairs outside. Then I thought about the lock on my door and how I had a guy fix it so that I could tell if it had been jimmied open so I wouldn't step into any blind alleys without a gun in my hand, but because of a dame who lay naked and smiling on a bed I wouldn't share, I had forgotten all about it.”

The Big Kill (1951)

Brigham Young photo

“There are sins that men commit for which they cannot receive forgiveness in this world, or in that which is to come, and if they had their eyes open to see their true condition, they would be perfectly willing to have their blood spilt upon the ground, that the smoke thereof might ascend to heaven as an offering for their sins, and the smoking incense would atone for their sins, whereas, if such is not the case, they will stick to them and remain upon them in the spirit world … I do know that there are sins committed, of such a nature that if the people did understand the doctrine of salvation, they would tremble because of their situation. And furthermore, I know that there are transgressors, who, if they knew themselves, and the only condition upon which they can obtain forgiveness, would beg of their brethren to shed their blood, that the smoke thereof might ascend to God as an offering to appease the wrath that is kindled against them, and that the law might have its course. I will say further; I have had men come to me and offer their lives to atone for their sins. It is true that the blood of the Son of God was shed for sins through the fall and those committed by men, yet men can commit sins which it can never remit. As it was in ancient days, so it is in our day.”

Brigham Young (1801–1877) Latter Day Saint movement leader

Journal of Discourses 4:53 (September. 21, 1856)
Brigham Young describes the doctrine of Blood Atonement
1850s

Ray Bradbury photo
Richard Dawkins photo
Max Brooks photo

“People say, "get us out of the UN, we don't need the UN", we invented the UN. This is us, we are the ones who founded the idea of nations working together, and I think that's something we need to do. And it's, it's messy, and it's really complicated, and there's going to be a lot of countries out there that expect us to clean up there mess, or just want to see us fall on (our) face. And they love that, which is what I think president Obama said brilliantly at the UN, when he basically said, "that ok". If I'm paraphrasing, I don't think he's ever said "ok" in his life, he's probably said "well". But basically he said, "look, for the last eight years you've been on our case about going it alone, you know, we're imperialists, we're hegemonic, we're going it alone, we're going it alone… Ok, we're not going it alone anymore, we're going to listen to you, but you better ante up and kick in. Because, you don't have the right to have an opinion, if you can't back it up. It's put up or shut up time". And I was so happy when he said that, and the way he handled the Latin (American) countries, when he was dealing with the crisis in Central America, the coups in Honduras. And he said, "the very same countries who accuse us of doing nothing, are also the same ones who accuse us of being imperialistic. You can't have it both ways."”

Max Brooks (1972) American author

Lecture of Opportunity | Max Brooks: World War Z https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nGG5E04cog

Henryk Sienkiewicz photo
William Cowper photo
Clive Staples Lewis photo
Jean-François Lyotard photo
Tony Blair photo
Conrad Aiken photo
Eric Clapton photo

“Tell me why, must I fall in love with you?”

Eric Clapton (1945) English musician, singer, songwriter, and guitarist

Fall Like Rain (from the album Pilgrim - 1998)

Nathaniel Hawthorne photo
Viktor Schauberger photo
Horace photo

“For joys fall not to the rich alone, nor has he lived ill, who from birth to death has passed unknown.”
Nam neque divitibus contingunt gaudia solis, nec vixit male, qui natus moriensque fefellit.

Book I, epistle xvii, line 9
Epistles (c. 20 BC and 14 BC)

Max Pechstein photo
Erica Jong photo

“I'm very dependant. I fall apart regularly.”

Fear of Flying (1973)

Edgar Lee Masters photo

“You may think, passer-by, that Fate
Is a pit-fall outside of yourself,
Around which you may walk by the use of foresight
And wisdom.”

Edgar Lee Masters (1868–1950) American writer

" Lyman King http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/lyman-king/"

Britney Spears photo

“Every time I try
To fly, I fall.
Without my wings,
I feel so small.”

Britney Spears (1981) American singer, dancer and actress

"Everytime"
Lyrics, "In The Zone" (2003)

Arnold Schoenberg photo

“I find above all that the expression, "atonal music," is most unfortunate — it is on a par with calling flying "the art of not falling," or swimming "the art of not drowning."”

Arnold Schoenberg (1874–1951) Austrian-American composer

"Hauer's Theories" (Notes of November 1923), in Style and Idea (1985), p. 210
1920s

Edward O. Wilson photo
Daniel Handler photo
William Styron photo
Bernard Cornwell photo
Clay Aiken photo
Winston S. Churchill photo
Jacques Barzun photo
Roger Ebert photo
Allen C. Guelzo photo
Adolphe Quetelet photo
Pietro Metastasio photo

“That water which falls from some Alpine height is dashed, broken, and will murmur loudly, but grows limpid by its fall.”

Pietro Metastasio (1698–1782) Italian poet and librettist (born 3 January 1698, died 12 April 1782)

Alcide al Bivio (1760), scene 5.

Lupe Fiasco photo

“I only fear God, know the weapons of the weak, the weakness of the heart, and never fall asleep…”

Lupe Fiasco (1982) rapper

"Emperor's Soundtrack"
Albums, Lupe Fiasco's Food & Liquor (2006)

Robert Southwell photo
David Brin photo
Margaret Thatcher photo

“Pennies don't fall from heaven, they have to be earned here on earth.”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

Speech at Lord Mayor's Banquet (12 November 1979) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/speeches/displaydocument.asp?docid=104167
First term as Prime Minister

Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo
Claude Lévi-Strauss photo

“If we judge the achievements of other social groups in relation to the kind of objectives we set ourselves, we have at times to acknowledge their superiority; but in doing so we acquire the right to judge them, and hence to condemn all their other objectives which do not coincide with those we approve of. We implicitly acknowledge that our society with its customs and norms enjoys a privileged position, since an observer belonging to another social group would pass different verdicts on the same examples. This being so, how can the study of anthropology claim to be scientific? To reestablish an objective approach, we must abstain from making judgments of this kind. We must accept the fact that each society has made a certain choice, within the range of existing human possibilities, and that the various choices cannot be compared with each other: they are all equally valid. But in this case a new problem arises; while in the first instance we were in danger of falling into obscurantism, in the form of a blind refusal of everything foreign to us, we now run the risk of accepting a kind of eclecticism which would prevent us denouncing any feature of a given culture — not even cruelty, injustice and poverty, against which the very society suffering these ills may be protesting. And since these abuses also exist in our society, what right have we to combat them at home, if we accept them as inevitable when they occur elsewhere?”

Source: Tristes Tropiques (1955), Chapter 38 : A Little Glass of Rum, pp.385-386

Kevin Kelly photo

“Life never falls, but never gets out of falling. It is poised in a persistent state of almost-fell.”

Kevin Kelly (1952) American author and editor

Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World (1995)

George Eliot photo
Jeanette Winterson photo
Joseph Goebbels photo

“After supper we are sitting close to the church in a quiet spot. As if from a distance we hear prayers and singing. The monks are holding their vesper services. Then it falls silent, wonderfully silent!
The sun has already set. … We are quiet, too. … A door is closed somewhere. A man's, then a woman's voice. Children are praying! My dear Jesus! Then it falls silent again. Wonderfully silent!
The night spreads its wide, black wings over the land.”

Joseph Goebbels (1897–1945) Nazi politician and Propaganda Minister

Nach dem Abendbrot sitzen wir an der Kirche in einem stillen Winkel. Wie von ferne hören wir Gebet und Singen. Die Mönche halten ihre Abendandacht. Und dann wird es still, wunderbar still!
Die Sonne ist schon untergegangen. … Auch wir schweigen. … Irgendwo wird eine Tür geschlossen. Eine Männer-, dann eine Frauenstimme. Kinderbeten! Du lieber Jesus mein! Dann wird es wieder still. Wunderbar still!
Die Nacht legt ihre breiten, schwarzen Flügel auf das Land.
Michael: a German fate in diary notes (1926)

Samuel Butler (poet) photo

“I am not now in fortune's power:
He that is down can fall no lower.”

Samuel Butler (poet) (1612–1680) poet and satirist

Canto III, line 877
Source: Hudibras, Part I (1663–1664)

Russell Brand photo
Nina Shatskaya photo
Jadunath Sarkar photo
Jefferson Davis photo

“If the Confederacy falls, there should be written on its tombstone: Died of a theory.”

The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, quoting a remark he had made in 1864.
1860s

Francis Pegahmagabow photo
Mikhail Bakhtin photo
Jean Paul Sartre photo

“The dreamer must contaminate the others by his dream, he must make them fall into it”

(399).
Saint Genet, Actor and Martyr (1952)

Nikolai Gogol photo
Joan Robinson photo

“If a rise in wages does not raise prices, a fall will not reduce them.”

Source: An Essay on Marxian Economics (Second Edition) (1966), Chapter X, Real And Money Wages, p. 89

Camille Paglia photo
Walther von der Vogelweide photo

“"Welcome, I'm master of the house" – a greeting I fall silent at.
"Welcome, my guest" – I have to answer, or give a bow.
Master, House – two names that have no shame attached;
but Guest and Lodging – the sense of shame you feel.”

Walther von der Vogelweide (1170–1230) Middle High German lyric poet

"Sît willekomen herre wirt" dem gruoze muoz ich swîgen,
"sît willekomen herre gast", sô muoz ich sprechen oder nîgen.
wirt unde heim sint zwêne unschamelîche namen,
gast unde herberge muoz man sich dicke schamen.
"'Sît willekomen herre wirt' dem gruoze muoz ich swîgen", line 1; translation by Tim Chilcott. http://colecizj.easyvserver.com/pgvb3908.htm

Suzanne Collins photo
Buddy Holly photo

“It's so easy to fall in love — it's so easy to fall in love.
People tell me love is for fools,
So here I go breaking all of the rules.”

Buddy Holly (1936–1959) American singer-songwriter

It's So Easy, written by Buddy Holly and Norman Petty (1958)
Song lyrics, Singles