Quotes about finger
page 9

“He stabs at the mouse mat with one finger and I wince. But instead of fat purple sparks and a hideous soul-sucking manifestation, it simply wakes up his Windows box.”

Charles Stross The Laundry Files

Not that there’s much difference.
Source: The Laundry Files, The Jennifer Morgue (2006), Chapter 11, “Destiny Entangled” (p. 222)

Soul, Box

“Attempting to define reality is a core feature of authoritarianism. This is what the Soviets did when they erased political dissidents from historical photos. This is what happens in George Orwell’s classic novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, when a torturer holds up four fingers and delivers electric shocks until his prisoner sees five fingers as ordered. The goal is to make you question logic and reason and to sow mistrust towards exactly the people we need to rely on: our leaders, the press, experts who seek to guide public policy based on evidence, ourselves.”

Hillary Clinton What Happened

"Showing Up" https://books.google.com/books?id=UjAIDgAAQBAJ&pg=PA9, What Happened (2017), Simon & Schuster. Post Presidential Election

Photo, Question, People, Reality

“Every being is incomparably precious to himself. This is the most mournful feature in human psychology. We did not invent it. It was handed to us along with our fingers and our fondness fo eating. It is the psychic calamity of the animal kingdom.”

J. Howard Moore (1862–1916)

Source: "Human Nature is Defective", speech to the Young People's Socialist League, The Chicago Tribune, 20 Oct. 1910

Animals

“A mutation in a DNA molecule within a chromosome of a skin cell in my index finger has no influence on heredity. Fingers are not involved, at least directly, in the propagation of the species.”

Carl Sagan (1934–1996) American astrophysicist, cosmologist, author and science educator

Source: The Dragons of Eden (1977), Chapter 2, “Genes and Brains” (p. 27)

“Mr. Madison wished to relieve the sufferers, but was afraid of establishing a dangerous precedent, which might hereafter be perverted to the countenance of purposes very different from those of charity. He acknowledged, for his own part, that he could not undertake to lay his finger on that article in the Federal Constitution which granted a right of Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.”

James Madison (1751–1836) 4th president of the United States (1809 to 1817)

Summation of Madison's remarks (10 January 1794) Annals of Congress, House of Representatives, 3rd Congress, 1st Session, p. 170 http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llac&fileName=004/llac004.db&recNum=82; the expense in question was for French refugees from the Haitian Revolution; this summation has been paraphrased as if a direct quote: "I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents." 1790s

Money, Suffering, Parting

“It is impossible for the man of pious reflection not to perceive in it the finger of that Almighty Hand which has been so frequently and signally extended to our relief in the critical stages of the Revolution.”

James Madison (1751–1836) 4th president of the United States (1809 to 1817)

As quoted in The Federalist https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=njp.32101037492095;seq=202;skin=mobile (Philadelphia: Benjamin Warner, 1818), p. 194, James Madison, Federalist #37. 1770s

“Fingers of steel. Wrist of silk.”

Frédéric Chopin (1810–1849) Polish composer

“A terrible commotion rages among them, the populace shouts and loudly weeps, when suddenly, before the cathedral door, appears the Cardinal Grand Inquisitor himself…. He pauses before the crowd and observes. He has seen all. He has witnessed the placing of the little coffin at His feet, the calling back to life. And now, his dark, grim face has grown still darker; his bushy grey eyebrows nearly meet, and his sunken eye flashes with sinister light. Slowly raising his finger, he commands his minions to arrest Him…”

Fyodor Dostoyevsky book The Grand Inquisitor

The Brothers Karamazov (1879–1880), The Grand Inquisitor

Light, Life, Appearance, Rage

“I veil my face before thee, and lay my finger on my lips. What thou art in thyself, or how thou appearest to thyself, I can never know. After living through a thousand lives, I shall comprehend Thee as little as I do now in this mansion of clay. What I can comprehend, becomes finite by my mere comprehension, and this can never, by perpetual ascent, be transformed into the infinite, for it does not differ from it in degree merely, but in kind. By that ascent we may find a greater and greater man, but never a God, who is capable of no measurement.”

Johann Gottlieb Fichte book The Vocation of Man

Jane Sinnett, trans 1846 p.115
The Vocation of Man (1800), Faith

God, Art

“There are many other evidences of Swathi’s efforts to promote education and modern science…. Many of his reforms were progressive and many put an end to superstitions. One instance would be enough to mention in this regard – abolishing the practice of Sucheendram Kaimukku where accused persons were to dip their fingers in boiling oil to prove their innocence.”

Swathi Thirunal Rama Varma (1813–1846) Maharajah of Travencore

Dr Achuthsankar S Nair, in "An enlightened and princely patron of true science".
About Swathi Thirunal

Education, Science, Personality, Effort

“The peerless North Indian tabla player…the blur of his fingers rivals the beat of a hummingbird’s wings.”

Zakir Hussain (musician) (1951) Indian tabla player, musical producer, film actor and composer

The New York Times review after his 2009 Carnegie Hall performance quoted in "Zakir Hussain and Master Musicians of India".
About Zakir Hussain

“Along with the steady diet sitar, sarod, and tabla, several new instruments and players came to my attention. The first of these was Ustad Bismillah Khan, master of the sonorous double-reed instrument known as shehnai. This beautiful wind instrument, with finger holes and a bell-shaped opening at the bottom, sounded to me like a hybrid of soprano saxophone and oboe, and Bismillah Khan’s tone very much influenced what Coltrane and Terry Riley would do with the soprano sax. Primarily used at weddings, the shehnai had been rejected as a classical instrument until Bismillah Khan elevated it to a higher status among listeners. His unique fingertips and sublime breath control produced the necessary range of sounds for raga making shehnai one of the more popular instruments in North India.”

Bismillah Khan (1916–2006) Indian musician

Peter Lavezzoli in his bo [Lavezzoli, Peter, The Dawn of Indian Music in the West, http://books.google.com/books?id=OSZKCXtx-wEC&pg=PA375, 24 April 2006, Continuum, 978-0-8264-1815-9, 32]

Beauty, Making love, Wedding

“Hey, this is Europe. We took it from nobody; we won it from the bare soil that the ice left. The bones of our ancestors, and the stones of their works, are everywhere. Our liberties were won in wars and revolutions so terrible that we do not fear our governors: they fear us. Our children giggle and eat ice-cream in the palaces of past rulers. We snap our fingers at kings. We laugh at popes. When we have built up tyrants, we have brought them down. And we have nuclear *fucking* weapons.”

Ken MacLeod (1954) Scottish science fiction writer

USENET posting to rec.sf.arts.fandom http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.sf.fandom/browse_frm/thread/303b0da0ab25aee/b12adceacd343279 28 September 2000, in the discussion of Robert A. Heinlein's quote "The cowards never started and the weaklings died on the way." (Expanded Universe, How to be a Survivor in the Atomic Age) Other sources

War, Fear, Children, Past

“He is thinner, taller, younger – more boyish-looking – than expected, but he is also the shyest and most nervous human being I have ever seen. He chews not merely his nails but his fingers, twitches his pouty mouth and chin, chain-smokes, wiggles his nose in constant adjustment of his spectacles, looks querulous one moment and ready to cry the next. His hands tremble, he stutters, his whole frame wobbles when he shakes hands…There is no betrayal of the thoughts behind those frightened, very intelligent eyes.”

Dmitri Shostakovich (1906–1975) Russian composer and pianist

Robert Craft, journal entry for October 1, 1962; published in Igor Stravinsky and Robert Craft Dialogues and Diary (1968) pp. 291-2.

Betrayal, Cry, Intelligence

“As we twirled and snapped our fingers, I felt light and airy and fancy-free. Of course I did, I had no bloody panties on!”

Tracey Ullman (1959) English-born actress, comedian, singer, dancer, screenwriter, producer, director, author and businesswoman

And the cartwheel lift's coming up! And I'm a brunette!
Tracey Ullman: Live and Exposed (2005)

Light

“I put my hand on him. Touching him has always been important to me, it was something I lived for. I never could explain why. Little, nothing touches, my fingers against his shoulder, the outsides of our thighs touching as we squeeled together on the bus. I couldnt explain it, but I needed it. Sometimes I imagined stiching all of our little touches together. How many hundreds of thousands of fingers brushing against each other does it take to make love?”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (2005)

Imagination, Love, Making love

“These fingers are from Florence. Yves Saint Laurent himself designed my arse. My nipples are reconstructed from an early unfinished blue print by Coco Chanel, hence their lopsided charm. One of them is on my shoulder. The other five I keep handily between my toes, which, in themselves are a bit embarrassing. But fuck it, it was the 80’s, you had to have suede.”

Dylan Moran (1971) Irish actor and comedian

On fashion and cosmetic surgery.
What It Is (2009)

“There was no doubt that the man could talk. At the drop of a hat, Mr. Keyes could deliver a grammatically flawless disquisition on virtually any topic. On the stump, he could wind himself up into a fiery intensity, his body rocking, his brow running with sweat, his fingers jabbing the air, his high-pitched voice trembling with emotion as he called the faithful to do battle against the forces of evil.”

Alan Keyes (1950) American politician

Barack Obama. Quoted in The Audacity of Hope - Page 210 - by Barack Obama.

Faith, Evil

“Making models was reputed to be hugely enjoyable… But when you got the kit home and opened the box the contents turned out to be of a uniform leaden gray or olive green, consisting of perhaps sixty thousand tiny parts, some no larger than a proton, all attached in some organic, inseparable way to plastic stalks like swizzle sticks. The tubes of glue by contrast were the size of large pastry tubes. No matter how gently you depressed them they would blurp out a pint or so of a clear viscous goo whose one instinct was to attach itself to some foreign object—a human finger, the living-room drapes, the fur of a passing animal—and become an infinitely long string. Any attempt to break the string resulted in the creation of more strings. Within moments you would be attached to hundreds of sagging strands, all connected to something that had nothing to do with model airplanes or World War II. The only thing the glue wouldn’t stick to, interestingly, was a piece of plastic model; then it just became a slippery lubricant that allowed any two pieces of model to glide endlessly over each other, never drying. The upshot was that after about forty minutes of intensive but troubled endeavor you and your immediate surroundings were covered in a glistening spiderweb of glue at the heart of which was a gray fuselage with one wing on upside down and a pilot accidentally but irremediably attached by his flying cap to the cockpit ceiling. Happily by this point you were so high on the glue that you didn’t give a shit about the pilot, the model, or anything else.”

Bill Bryson The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid

Source: The Life And Times of the Thunderbolt Kid (2006), p. 81

Home, War, Box, Heart

“You crawl over the onrushing piano passages in slow motion. Your fingers are in ten little steel strait-jackets….”

George Antheil (1900–1959) American avant-garde composer, pianist, author and inventor

“Only humanity could grasp the stars and then let them slip through its fingers for the pettiness in its heart.”

Pierce Brown book Dark Age

Source: Dark Age (2019), Ch. 10: The Ash Rain; Lysander

Star, Heart

“Realizing you’ve got shit on your fingers is the first step toward washing your hands.”

Daniel Abraham (1969) speculative fiction writer from the United States

Source: Nemesis Games (2015), Chapter 20 (p. 209)

“I can't even look at those "women's magazines" anyway. I love fashion, but I look at the pictures of the skinny models, and they're wearing clothes I can't even fit on my fingers.”

Margaret Cho (1968) American stand-up comedian

And I look at that and I think, if that is what a woman is supposed to look like, then I must not be one.
From Her Tours and CDs, The Notorious C.H.O. Tour

Clothes, Making love, Fashion, Love

“It totally matters to me that teenagers think I'm cool. I mean, teens keep their fingers on the pulse of culture. When things shift, it's usually because they shift them. They call the shots. So if teenagers think I'm cool, then hopefully they'll want to get down with whatever I'm doing. My hope is that reading and writing becomes the new "waiting in line to buy Jordans."”

Jason Reynolds (1983) author of young adult novels

As quoted in [Garcia, Elisa, Get to Know Jason Reynolds, https://www.nypl.org/blog/2015/04/03/interview-jason-reynolds, New York Public Library, 10 March 2020, April 3, 2015]

Waiting, Thinking, Hope, Reading

“In reality, artists are no more courageous or noble or single-minded than the farmers who go to extreme lengths, in extreme weather, to protect their herd. Or a restaurateur who—having waved goodbye to her last customer at midnight—hauls herself out of bed at 4 A.M. the following morning to make sure she’s at the market in time to buy the best produce. Or, for that matter, a master bricklayer who has calloused fingers and an aching back from days spent building a house.”

Will Gompertz (1965) British journalist

Think Like an Artist (2015)

Courage, Time, Housing, Reality

“This tribune was the terror of every tyranny and fanaticism, it was the hope of every one who was oppressed under Heaven. Whoever placed his foot upon that height, felt distinctly the pulsations of the great heart of mankind. There, providing he was a man of earnest purpose, his soul swelled within him, and shone without. A breath of universal philanthropy seized him, and filled his mind as the breeze fills the sail; so long as his feet rested upon those four planks, he was a stronger and a better man; he felt at that consecrated minute as if he were living the life of all the nations; words of charity for all men came to his lips; beyond the Assembly, grouped at his feet, and frequently in a tumult, he beheld the people, attentive, serious, with ears strained, and fingers on lips; and beyond the people, the human race, plunged in thought, seated in circles, and listening.”

Victor Hugo (1802–1885) French poet, novelist, and dramatist

Napoleon the Little (1852), Book V, V
Napoleon the Little (1852)

Soul, Hope, Heart, People

“The present government is a hand stained with blood, which dips a finger in the holy water.”

Victor Hugo (1802–1885) French poet, novelist, and dramatist

Book II, X
Napoleon the Little (1852)

Water

“It's a myth that men don't have their own version of PMT, of course they do - every woman knows this. It's a very simple experiment to conduct, all you've got to do is be with a man, wait until he starts doing something and then go up and talk to him. "WHAT?! What is it now?! I'm opening fish fingers can't you see?! You come in here, walking on the floor - breathing the air like it's yours - talking and talking and I'm doing something! Look they've fallen on the floor, are you happy?! Are you happy now?! Every time I try anjd do something for myself, you carbonize and then shit on my dreams... You're just like your your whole family! Why do I even dare to think I could dream I could imagine I could hope?!"”

Dylan Moran (1971) Irish actor and comedian

On male "periods".
What It Is (2009)

Family, Imagination, Time, Waiting

“They were more than a thousand in number, including the mere partizans of my enemies. Several attempts were made to press me down. I got many blows in the sides; and if I had been either a short or a weak man, I must have been pressed under foot, and inevitably killed. ... I had, when I left the Booth, my snuff-box in my right hand. It is oblong square, and has very sharp corners. The Savages pressed me side-ways towards my left; and I had to fight with my right hand, in order to prevent them from getting me down. I had to strike back-handed. One of the sharp corners of the snuff-box, which stuck out beyond the bottom of my little finger, did good service. It cut the noses and eyes of the Savages at a famous rate, and assisted mainly in securing my safe arrival, on the raised pavement, on which I got just opposite to the door of a shop. Just at this time, one of the Savages, foaming at the mouth like a mad dog, exclaimed: “damn him, I'll rip him up.””

William Cobbett (1763–1835) English pamphleteer, farmer and journalist

He was running his hand into his breeches pocket, apparently to take out his knife, but I...drew up my right leg, armed with a new and sharp-edged gallashe over my boot, dealt Mr. Ellice's ripping Savage so delightful a blow, just between his two eyes, that he fell back upon his followers.

‘History of the Coventry Election’, Political Register (25 March 1820), pp. 102–3
1820s

Time, Dogs, Box, Way

“Get up and bring fur clothes as Autumn is here
A cold wind is blowing from the Khawrazm yonder
Look at that vine leaf hanging on the vine bough
It looks like the shirt of dyers
The farmer is biting his finger with wonder
As in the lawn or garden is left no more rose or lavender”

Manuchehri (1000–1040) Persian poet

Clothes, Autumn

“Some people try to get out of jury duty by lying. You don't have to lie. Tell the judge the truth. Tell him you'd make a terrific juror because you can spot guilty people [snaps fingers] just like that!”

George Carlin (1937–2008) American stand-up comedian

What Am I Doing in New Jersey? (1988)

People, Truth, Lie, Lying

“Poet, never chase the dream.
Laugh yourself and turn away.
Mask your hunger, let it seem
Small matter if he come or stay;
But when he nestles in your hand at last,
Close up your fingers tight and hold him fast.”

Robert Graves (1895–1985) English poet and novelist

"A Pinch of Salt"
Fairies and Fusiliers (1917)

Hunger, Dreams

“An ancient clerk, skilful in precedents, wary in proceeding, and understanding in the business of the court, is an excellent finger of a court; and doth many times point the way to the judge himself.”

Francis Bacon (1561–1626) English philosopher, statesman, scientist, jurist, and author

The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. Verulam Viscount St. Albans (1625), Of Judicature

Business, Way, Understanding, Time

“If ink and pen are snatched from me, shall I
Who have dipped my finger in my heart's blood complain—
Of if they seal my tongue, when I have made
A mouth of every round link of my chain?”

Faiz Ahmad Faiz (1911–1984) Punjabi poet

Poems by Faiz, translated by Victor Kiernan, 1971, p. 117
Poetry, Stanzas

Heart

“How do we interact with life delicately? Because we're entering a new age of exploration, where we have to take great care, and we have to set examples how we explore. So I've teamed up with roboticist Rob Wood at Harvard University, and we've been designing squishy underwater robot fingers, so we can delicately interact with the marine life down there. The idea is that most of our technologies to explore the deep ocean come from oil and gas and military, who, you know, they're not really caring to be gentle.”

David Gruber American marine biologist

Source: Glow-in-the-dark sharks and other stunning sea creatures https://www.ted.com/talks/david_gruber_glow_in_the_dark_sharks_and_other_stunning_sea_creatures (October 2015)

Universe, Idea, Life, Age

“We’ve been doing this for awhile, when you’ve been doing this a long time, you cross your fingers and hope for the best, but you never know. To find an audience that’s passionate, that’s as good as it gets.”

Jonas Pate (1970) American screenwriter, director and producer

Brothers born in Winston-Salem have a hit with 'Outer Banks' https://journalnow.com/entertainment/brothers-born-in-winston-salem-have-a-hit-with-outer-banks/article_5480fa10-b39b-5d7e-b71d-3b8dc2615760.html (April 25, 2020)

Passion, Time, Hope

“What did my fingers do before they held him?
What did my heart do, with its love?”

Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer

"Three Women: A Poem for Three Voices" http://www.angelfire.com/tn/plath/3women.html (1962), a radio play published in 1968

Love, Making love, Heart

“We've all grown up with the idea that gunning a man down is just fun and games. All of us, as kids, played cops and robbers, with toy pistols or pointing a finger at somebody and saying, "Bang, Bang. You're dead!"”

Sam Peckinpah (1925–1984) American film director and screenwriter

Both the movies and television have perpetuated the idea that shooting a man is clean and quick and simple, and when he falls down there is only a small hole, or a blood-stain, to show how he died. Well, killing a man isn't clean and quick and simple. It's bloody and awful. And maybe if enough people come to realize that shooting somebody isn't just fun and games maybe we'll get somewhere about violence on the screen in the first place. [...] No, I don't like violence. In fact, when I look at the film myself, I find it unbearable. I don't think I'll be able to see it again for five years. Responding, circa July 1969, to the question, "Why did you make this film?", posed by a film critic for Reader's Digest; as quoted in "Looking Sideways: Photographic Violence Won't Stop Violence" https://www.newspapers.com/image/?clipping_id=78219633 by Whitney Bolton, Fort-Myers News-Press (July 23, 1969), p. 4

Idea, Game, Dead

“By what sort of experience are we led to the conviction that spirit exists ? On the whole, by searching, painful experience. The rose Religion grows on a thorn-bush, and we must not be afraid to have our fingers lacerated by the thorns if we would pluck the rose.”

Felix Adler (1851–1933) German American professor of political and social ethics, rationalist, and lecturer

Section 7 : Spiritual Progress
Life and Destiny (1913)

Pain, Religion, Search

“I never point a finger. If we reach people's brains and hearts and we try to come up with ideas, we can help them go in a direction which will solve a lot of the problems we've created. And you know, then again, whether it's in government or industries, these people have families and they care. They want to do the right thing, but we need to help. And thanks to science and new technologies, we can make that happen.”

Jean-Michel Cousteau (1938) French explorer and environmentalist; son of Jacques-Yves Cousteau

Q&A with Jean-Michel Cousteau: "The Future of Water - The Challenges and Solutions" https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/qa-with-jean-michel-cousteau-the-future-of-water---the-challenges-and-solutions-271822971.html (August 19, 2014)

Family, People, Heart, Help

“I held out my hand to his face, wiping away the tears from his eyes, tears that I savored from my fingers, thus knowing the taste of my life.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: (it) Tesi la mano verso il suo volto asciugandole le lacrime dagli occhi, lacrime che assaporai dalle mie dita, conoscendo così, il sapore della mia vita.
Source: prevale.net

Life, Tear

“My fingers are turning red, my nose is turning red, and that kind of cold, I was, of course, also unfamiliar with. And snow has always had an awe for me. The silence that takes over the world, and just. . . the absolute miracle of snow. I’ve never gotten over it, I have to confess.”

Shobha Rao

On her first exposure to winter in the United States in "Shobha Rao on Moving Between Cultures and Loving Little House on the Prairie" https://lithub.com/shobha-rao-on-moving-between-cultures-and-loving-little-house-on-the-prairie/ in LitHub (2018 Nov 19)

Silence, World

“I remember when I used to walk to the ring, McMahon, and people used to hold up one finger.”

Bobby Heenan (1944–2017) American professional wrestler, professional wrestling commentator and manager

Source: World Wrestling Federation (1984-1993), Summerslam (1992)

People

“The hooks have got to come off and I can wait. They are nothing but sore fingers.”

Charles Frederick Webber (1825–1863) American soldier killed in action

Charles Frederick Webber interviewed at a field hospital following the Battle of Gettysburg. He was holding his hand, from which the ends of four fingers had been shot off. He was smoking his pipe with with no sense of urgency and was allowing more wounded soldiers to go ahead of him. He died on July 19, 1863, 13 days after the wound, from the subsequent infection.
Quote
Source: [The Wounded, New York Herald, https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/New_York_Herald/1863/The_Wounded, July 6 1863]

Waiting