Quotes about fine
page 5

Maeve Binchy photo
Giorgio Morandi photo
John Paul Jones photo

“Where men of fine feeling are concerned there is seldom misunderstanding.”

John Paul Jones (1747–1792) American naval officer

Letter from Jones to the Marquis de Lafayette, (1 May 1779)

Carole King photo

“One fine day, you'll look at me
And you will know our love was, meant to be.
One fine day, you're gonna want me for your girl.”

Carole King (1942) Nasa

One Fine Day (1963), Co-written with Gerry Goffin, recorded by The Chiffons
Song lyrics, Singles

Richard Ford photo
Yane Sandanski photo

“There, look this always happens when someone is freed by force of arms! How fine it would have been if Macedonia could have freed herself! But now it's happened, our duty is to fight alongside Bulgaria, and for Bulgaria.”

Yane Sandanski (1872–1915) Bulgarian revolutionary

Attributed to Sandanski (May 1913) by the Russian journalist Viktorov-Toparov; as cited in: macedoniantruth.org http://www.macedoniantruth.org/forum/showthread.php?t=2005&page=5, Old 11-14-2011.

Scott Lynch photo
Benjamin N. Cardozo photo

“You will study the wisdom of the past, for in a wilderness of conflicting counsels, a trail has there been blazed. You will study the life of mankind, for this is the life you must order, and, to order with wisdom, must know. You will study the precepts of justice, for these are the truths that through you shall come to their hour of triumph. Here is the high emprise, the fine endeavor, the splendid possibility of achievement, to which I summon you and bid you welcome.”

Benjamin N. Cardozo (1870–1938) United States federal judge

Excerpt from speech delivered at the 74th commencement of the Albany Law School on June 10, 1925, which is reproduced on a gigantic plaque on the west side (facing the setting sun, as if to say, "Go West, young man.") of the UC Berkeley School of Law's main building, Boalt Hall.
Other writings

“"Fine. Your oatmeal spread in the fridge would go too, but it's already been opened. That stuff was disgusting."
"Jay, thats my facial scrub."”

Rob Payne (1973) Canadian writer

Source: Working Class Zero (2003), Chapter 17, p. 141

Benjamin Franklin photo
Steve Kilbey photo
Anthony Bourdain photo
Persius photo

“O but it is a fine thing to have a finger pointed at one, and to hear people say, "That's the man!"”
At pulchrum est digito monstrari et dicier "hic est".

Persius (34–62) ancient latin poet

Satire I, line 28.
The Satires

Bill Gates photo

“If you just want to say, "Steve Jobs invented the world, and then the rest of us came along," that's fine. If you’re interested, [Vista development chief] Jim Allchin will be glad to educate you feature by feature what the truth is. … Let’s be realistic, who came up with "File/Edit/View/Help"? Do you want to go back to the original Mac and think about where those interface concepts came from?”

Bill Gates (1955) American business magnate and philanthropist

Interview with Steven Levy in Newsweek (31 January 2007) "Finally, Vista Makes Its Debut. Now What?" http://archive.is/20130105003445/www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2007/01/31/finally-vista-makes-its-debut-now-what.html
2000s

Susan B. Anthony photo
Aimé Césaire photo
A.A. Milne photo
James Allen photo
Michel Foucault photo

“Between the fine point of the brush and the steely gaze, the scene is about to yield up its volume.”

Michel Foucault (1926–1984) French philosopher

Las Meninas
The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences (1970)

Margaret Mead photo
Jack White photo

“I'm always surprised when anything about the band connects. But I love the fact that it's hard for people to understand. We've said before that it's always been a great thing to get certain people to go away thinking, 'Oh dear, she can't play the drums!' 'Fine, if you think it's all a gimmick, go away!”

Jack White (1975) American musician and record producer

It weeds out people who wouldn't care anyway.
On how they are able to "sell what is really an art concept" to a mass audience
Perry, Andrew (2004). "The White Stripes uncut" http://observer.guardian.co.uk/omm/story/0,13887,1349947,00.html Observer Music Monthly (accessed June 19, 2007).
2007

Roberto Mangabeira Unger photo
Percy Bysshe Shelley photo

“His fine wit
Makes such a wound, the knife is lost in it.”

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) English Romantic poet

Letter to Maria Gisborne (1820), l. 240

“Yes, a woman makes a fine weapon in capable hands…slim and supple as a sword blade…and a blade to which no man’s armor is completely proof.”

Lin Carter (1930–1988) American fantasy writer, editor, critic

Source: Tower at the Edge of Time (1968), Chapter 9, “Slaves of Chan” (p. 86)

Cyrano de Bergerac photo
S. I. Hayakawa photo
George Eliot photo
Chuck Palahniuk photo
John Constable photo
William Fitzsimmons photo

“I suppose I should hope that it turns out fine.”

William Fitzsimmons (1978) American musician

Until When We Are Ghosts (2006), Funeral Dress

Karel Čapek photo
P.G. Wodehouse photo
Nina Paley photo
Neil Diamond photo
Gustave de Molinari photo
Donald J. Trump photo

“Torture works, okay folks? […] Believe me, it works. […] Waterboarding is your minor form. Some people say it's not actually torture. Let's assume it is. But they asked me the question. What do you think of waterboarding? Absolutely fine. But we should go much stronger than waterboarding. That's the way I feel.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

Donald Trump: "Torture works" http://www.cbsnews.com/news/donald-trump-torture-works/. CBS News (17 February 2016). Bluffton, South Carolina.
2010s, 2016, February

Bill Burr photo
Firuz Shah Tughlaq photo
Joseph Conrad photo
George Bird Evans photo
Vitruvius photo

“They make a fine purple colour by treating bilberry in the same way and mixing it with milk.”

Source: De architectura (The Ten Books On Architecture) (~ 15BC), Book VII, Chapter XIV, Sec. 2

Connie Willis photo

““How dare you contradict their opinions! You are only a common servant.”
“Yes, miss,” he said wearily.
“You should be dismissed for being insolent to your betters.”
There was a long pause, and then Baine said, “All the diary entries and dismissals in the world cannot change the truth. Galileo recanted under threat of torture, but that did not make the sun revolve round the earth. If you dismiss me, the vase will still be vulgar, I will still be right, and your taste will still be plebeian, no matter what you write in your diary.”
“Plebeian?” Tossie said, bright pink. “How dare you speak like that to your mistress? You are dismissed.” She pointed imperiously at the house. “Pack your things immediately.”
“Yes, miss,” Baine said. “E pur si muove.”
“What?” Tossie said, bright red with rage. “What did you say?”
“I said, now that finally have dismissed me, I am no longer a member of the servant class and am therefore in a position to speak freely,” he said calmly.
“You are not in a position to speak to me at all,” Tossie said, raising her diary like a weapon. “Leave at once.”
“I dared to speak the truth to you because I felt you were deserving of it,” Baine said seriously. “I had only your best interests at heart, as I have always had. You have been blessed with great riches; not only with the riches of wealth, position, and beauty, but with a bright mind and a keen sensibility, as well as with a fine spirit. And yet you squander those riches on croquet and organdies and trumpery works of art. You have at your disposal a library of the great minds of the past, and yet you read the foolish novels of Charlotte Yonge and Edward Bulwer-Lytton. Given the opportunity to study science, you converse with conjurors wearing cheesecloth and phosphorescent paint. Confronted by the glories of Gothic architecture, you admire instead a cheap imitation of it, and confronted by the truth, you stamp your foot like a spoilt child and demand to be told fairy stories.””

Source: To Say Nothing of the Dog (1998), Chapter 22 (p. 374)

James Thurber photo
M. K. Hobson photo

“Sadly, there is a fine line between patriotism and paranoia.”

M. K. Hobson (1969) American writer

Prologue (p. 3)
The Hidden Goddess (2011)

Betty Friedan photo
Richard Nixon photo
Franz Marc photo

“Don't worry, I will come through, and I'm also fine as far as my health goes. I feel well and watch myself.”

Franz Marc (1880–1916) German painter

In a letter to his wife Maria (4 March 1916, the day he died by shrapnel), in Letters from the war: Franz Marc, new edition by Klaus Lankheit & Uwe Steffen, American University Studies, Vol. 16, p. 113
1915 - 1916

Vladimir Horowitz photo

“I was impressed mostly by Gieseking [Horowitz said in 1987]. He had a finished style, played with elegance, and had a fine musical mind.”

Vladimir Horowitz (1903–1989) American classical pianist and composer

quoted in Harold C. Schonberg, Horowitz: his life and music

Jean-Louis Guez de Balzac photo

“Solitude is certainly a fine thing; but there is pleasure in having someone who can answer, from time to time, that it is a fine thing.”

Jean-Louis Guez de Balzac (1597–1654) French author, best known for his epistolary essays

La solitude est certainement une belle chose, mais il y a plaisir d'avoir quelqu'un qui sache répondre, à qui on puisse dire de temps en temps, que c'est un belle chose.
Dissertations chrétiennes et morales (1665), XVIII: "Les plaisirs de la vie retirée".

Chris Cornell photo

“RockNet: Were you terribly uncomfortable at the recent Grammy Award Show?
Cornell: I don't know. It's just a strange subject. It's almost as if the music industry is patting itself on the back in a way. This was the seventh Grammy nomination for us and had we won one for our first nomination I would have had a really cool attitude about it because it would have meant that the people who were actually voting were paying attention to music for music's sake as opposed to some other reason.
I was happy that we were nominated because it was an independent record company and it was a low-profile record. We didn't win a Grammy until we'd sold several millions and it seems that what sells a lot is what wins, even though the record may or may not be any good, but that seems to be the requirement.
I'm not critical of the people who work in the music industry, and I appreciate the Grammy. (But) to me it's their party and it's not really mine. It's not for the musicians. It has more to do with the industry. You can tell after a Grammy period all the record labels and artists who won a bunch take out full-page ads in the trades gloating. That's fine. That's what they do, they sell records and they work really hard to develop careers. If they're into it, I'm not going to be disrespectful, but I'd hate for anyone to think that it's something that was a necessity for me or the rest of the band, or that it was a benchmark to us of legitimacy for us because it's not. It doesn't really matter that much to us. It seems like it's for someone else. I'd never get up and say that. If I was totally not into it, the best thing to do is to not show up.
Maybe ten years from now I'll reflect and say "wow, that happened and it was pretty unusual. Not every kid on the block gets to go up and pick up a Grammy Award."”

Chris Cornell (1964–2017) American singer-songwriter, musician

It's just one more thing to take the focus away from what we like to do, which is to write music and make records and try not to think about anything whether it's how many records we sell or what people think of us.
For us, I think the key to success for being a band and always making good records is always going to be forgetting about everything else outside our own little band.
RockNet Interview: Chris Cornell of Soundgarden, May 1, 1996 https://web.archive.org/web/19961114054327/http://www.rocknet.com/may96/soundgar.html,
Soundgarden Era

Ginger Rogers photo

“Ginger was brilliantly effective. She made everything work for her. Actually she made things very fine for both of us and she deserves most of the credit for our success.”

Ginger Rogers (1911–1995) American actress and dancer

Fred Astaire to Raymond Rohauser, Film Curator of the New York Gallery of Modern Art, at the San Francisco Film Festival, in 1966.
About

Jani Allan photo

“The voice (sometimes an ominous rumble that sounds as though he's been gargling with pebbles, sometimes the bliss of Bailey's Irish Cream swirling lazily about a fine crystal goblet) crescendos almost imperceptibly.”

Jani Allan (1952) South African columnist and broadcaster

Description of Wynand Claassen from her interview with Claassem published in the Just Jani column of the Sunday Times, republished in Face Value by Jani Allan.
Sunday Times

Dave Attell photo

“I was a born club comic. Radio and TV and stage were fine, but I found my real home in cabaret.”

Bob Monkhouse (1928–2003) English entertainer

Obituary in The Independent http://web.archive.org/web/20100507114758/http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/bob-monkhouse-549171.html

Natalie Merchant photo
Newton Lee photo
Bruce Timm photo
Grant Morrison photo

“Overmature trees: In timber company and Forest Service lingo, trees which may live in splendor for another 500 years, but which would make damned fine boards today.”

Edward S. Herman (1925–2017) American journalist

Source: Beyond Hypocrisy, 1992, Doublespeak Dictionary (within Beyond Hypocrisy), p. 161.

Alain-René Lesage photo
Camille Pissarro photo
Joe Biden photo

“Even the oil companies don't need an incentive of $4 billion to go out and explore. As my grandpop would say, 'They’re doing just fine, thank you.”

Joe Biden (1942) 47th Vice President of the United States (in office from 2009 to 2017)

Speech to national conference of the National Association of Black Journalists, Washington, D.C. (June 20, 2012), quoted in * 2012-06-20 Biden: 'A gaffe is when you tell the truth' Talia Buford Politico

https://www.politico.com/blogs/politico44/2012/06/biden-a-gaffe-is-when-you-tell-the-truth-126866

Ref: en.wikiquote.org - Joe Biden / Quotes / 2010s / 2012
2012

S. I. Hayakawa photo
Arundhati Roy photo

“The tradition of "turkey pardoning" in the US is a wonderful allegory for new racism. Every year, the National Turkey Federation presents the US president with a turkey for Thanksgiving. Every year, in a show of ceremonial magnanimity, the president spares that particular bird (and eats another one). After receiving the presidential pardon, the Chosen One is sent to Frying Pan Park in Virginia to live out its natural life. The rest of the 50 million turkeys raised for Thanksgiving are slaughtered and eaten on Thanksgiving Day. ConAgra Foods, the company that has won the Presidential Turkey contract, says it trains the lucky birds to be sociable, to interact with dignitaries, school children and the press.

That's how new racism in the corporate era works. A few carefully bred turkeys - the local elites of various countries, a community of wealthy immigrants, investment bankers, the occasional Colin Powell, or Condoleezza Rice, some singers, some writers (like myself) - are given absolution and a pass to Frying Pan Park.
The remaining millions lose their jobs, are evicted from their homes, have their water and electricity connections cut, and die of AIDS. Basically, they're for the pot. But the fortunate fowls in Frying Pan Park are doing fine. Some of them even work for the IMF and the World Trade Organisation - so who can accuse those organisations of being anti-turkey? Some serve as board members on the Turkey Choosing Committee - so who can say that turkeys are against Thanksgiving? They participate in it! Who can say the poor are anti-corporate globalisation? There's a stampede to get into Frying Pan Park. So what if most perish on the way?”

Arundhati Roy (1961) Indian novelist, essayist

From a speech http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2004/569/569p12.htm given at the World Social Forum in Mumbai, 16 January 2004
Speeches

John Muir photo

“[Concerning the Sugar Pine] The wood is deliciously fragrant, and fine in grain and texture; it is of a rich cream-yellow, as if formed of condensed sunbeams.”

John Muir (1838–1914) Scottish-born American naturalist and author

Source: 1890s, The Mountains of California (1894), chapter 8: The Forests <!-- Terry Gifford, EWDB, page 360 -->

Walter Wink photo
Joseph Addison photo
Will Cuppy photo
Bias of Priene photo

“You should look into a mirror: if you look fine, do fine things; if you look ugly, correct by nobility the defect of your nature.”

Bias of Priene (-600–-530 BC) ancient Greek philosopher, one of the Seven Sages

as reported by Demetrius of Phalerum in Apophthegms of the Seven Sages, Loeb Classical Library, volume 525 Early Greek Philosophy, p. 137

Oliver Goldsmith photo
David Garrick photo

“Are these the choice dishes the Doctor has sent us?
Is this the great poet whose works so content us?
This Goldsmith’s fine feast, who has written fine books?
Heaven sends us good meat, but the Devil sends cooks?”

David Garrick (1717–1779) English actor, playwright, theatre manager and producer

Epigram on Goldsmith’s Retaliation. Vol. ii. p. 157. Compare: "God sendeth and giveth both mouth and the meat", Thomas Tusser, A Hundred Points of Good Husbandry (1557); "God sends meat, and the Devil sends cooks", John Taylor, Works, vol. ii. p. 85 (1630).

Nicholas Barr photo

“Efficiency advantages and disadvantages are more finely balanced than with health care - one person's 'sign of a civilized society' is another's 'society is going to the dogs.”

Nicholas Barr (1943) British economist

Source: Economics Of The Welfare State (Fourth Edition), Chapter 13, School Education, p. 309

Anthony Bourdain photo
James Tod photo

“Those who expect from a people like the Hindus a species of composition of precisely the same character as the historical works of Greece and Rome commit the very gregarious error of overlooking the peculiarities which distinguish the natives of India from all other races, and which strongly discriminate their intellectual productions of every kind from those of the West. Their philosophy, their poetry, their architecture, are marked with traits of originality; and the same may be expected to pervade their history, which, like the arts enumerated, took a character from its intimate association with the religion of the people. It must be recollected, moreover,… that the chronicles of all the polished nations of Europe, were, at a much more recent date, as crude, as wild, and as barren, as those of the early Rajputs.” … “My own animadversions upon the defective condition of the annals of Rajwarra have more than once been checked by a very just remark: ‘When our princes were in exile, driven from hold to hold, and compelled to dwell in the clefts of the mountains, often doubtful whether they would not be forced to abandon the very meal preparing for them, was that a time to think of historical records?’ ”… “If we consider the political changes and convulsions which have happened in Hindustan since Mahmood’s invasion, and the intolerant bigotry of many of his successors, we shall be able to account for the paucity of its national works on history, without being driven to the improbable conclusion, that the Hindus were ignorant of an art which has been cultivated in other countries from almost the earliest ages. Is it to be imagined that a nation so highly civilized as the Hindus, amongst whom the exact sciences flourished in perfection, by whom the fine arts, architecture, sculpture, poetry, music, were not only cultivated, but taught and defined by the nicest and most elaborate rules, were totally unacquainted with the simple art of recording the events of their history, the character of their princes and the acts of their reigns?”

James Tod (1782–1835) 1782-1835, English officer of the British East India Company and an Oriental scholar

[The fact appears to be that] “After eight centuries of galling subjection to conquerors totally ignorant of the classical language of the Hindus; after every capital city had been repeatedly stormed and sacked by barbarous, bigoted, and exasperated foes; it is too much to expect that the literature of the country should not have sustained, in common with other interests, irretrievable losses.”
James Tod, Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, Routledge and Kegan Paul (London,l829,1957), 2 vols., I quoted from Lal, K. S. (1992). The legacy of Muslim rule in India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 3

“I can count on one of my hands, how many competent people are working in the [Hungarian] media today. But the situation is also woeful in the areas of theatre, film production and fine arts. The whole Hungarian culture is in a deep crisis, the putrescence reigning this country – in a cultural, economic, political, moral and mentalecological sense – consumes everything.”

Róbert Puzsér (1974) hungarian publicist

Egy kezemen meg tudom számolni, hány alkalmas ember dolgozik ma a médiában. De siralmas a helyzet a színház, a filmgyártás és a képzőművészet területén is. Az egész magyar kultúra mélységes válságban van, a rothadás, ami uralja az országot – kulturálisan, gazdaságilag, politikailag, etikailag és mentálökológiailag – mindent elemésztő.
Idegen test az RTL Klubon - Puzsér Róbert-interjú, hvg.hu, 2012. március 20.
Quotes from him, Interviews

Why the lucky stiff photo
George S. Patton photo
Bruce Dickinson photo

“We tread a fine line between taking ourselves seriously and being Spinal Tap.”

Bruce Dickinson (1958) English musician, airline pilot, and broadcaster

[John, Tobler, 1992, NME Rock 'N' Roll Years, 1st, Reed International Books Ltd, London, 366, CN 5585]

Will Cuppy photo
Auguste Rodin photo
Jonathan Mitchell photo
Marc Chagall photo
Miguel de Cervantes photo

“Don't put too fine a point to your wit for fear it should get blunted.”

La Gitanilla (The Little Gypsy) (c. 1590–1612; published 1613)

Marianne von Werefkin photo

“I adore my life: it is filled with so much true poetry, fine feelings, things many have no idea about. I despise my life, which, being rich, allowed itself to be crammed into the confines of conventions. Between these two opinions pulsates my soul always longing for beauty and good.”

Marianne von Werefkin (1860–1938) expressionist painter

1895 - 1905
Source: Lettres à un Inconnu, 1902 (Notebook I, p. 234) - Aux sources de l'expressionnisme. Presentation par Gabrielle Dufour-Kowalska. Klincksieck, 1999. p. 101

Corneliu Zelea Codreanu photo
Winston S. Churchill photo
Robert Jordan photo
Dylan Moran photo

“A leg I noticed next, fine as a mote,
"And on this frail eyelash he walked," I said,
"And climbed and walked like any mountain-goat."”

Karl Shapiro (1913–2000) Poet, essayist

"Interludes" III, in From Darkness To Light : A Confession of Faith in the form of an Anthology (1956) edited by Victor Gollancz

W.E.B. Du Bois photo