Quotes about fishing (698 quotes, page 4)

“Live in the world like a waterfowl. The water clings to the bird, but the bird shakes it off. Live in the world like a mudfish. The fish lives in the mud, but its skin is always bright and shiny.”

Ramakrishna (1836–1886) Indian mystic and religious preacher

Source: The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna (1942), p. 472

World , Bird , Fish , Water

“A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle.”

Gloria Steinem (1934) American feminist and journalist

This quote was popularized by Steinem and is often attributed to her. However, the line was first coined by Australian educator Irina Dunn, as indicated at The Phrase Finder http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/414150.html
Misattributed

Fish

“Whatever became of Kurt Schwitters' novel 'Franz Müllers Drahtfrühling' [Franz Müller's Wire Spring] several chapters of which we composed together? Is it buried under the bomb ruins of his house on Waldhausenstrasse in Hannover? For hours, Schwitters and I sat together and spun dialogue, in rhapsody. He took these writings and channeled them into his novel…We sat together again, writing 'Franz Müllers Drahtfrühling':
H. A.: The nightingales have had enough of your hymnal Karagösen. Play violin on parrots, but avoid the women red hood ans snow widow.
K. Schw.: Should I pe-trify something for you? Or would you like play cry together?
H. A.: Should we wash our tears or drown them?
K. Schw.: You are a sipsnipper, Since when do your diamonds bark?
H. A.: The water is getting hard. A fruit cries out loud and gives birth to a fish.
K. Schw.: I'll p-ut it in the sea, or should I st-ab you with it?”

Hans Arp (1886–1966) Alsatian, sculptor, painter, poet and abstract artist

Dialogue between Hans Arp and Kurt Schwitters, (1956) with introduction in: Franz Müllers Drahtfrühling-- Memories of Kurt Schwitters; as quoted in I is Style, ed. Siegfried Gohr & Gunda Luyken, commissioned by w:Rudi Fuchs, 2000, pp. 139-140
1950s

Women , Spring , Birth , Fish

“Fishing is a jerk at one end of a line waiting for a jerk at the other end of a line.”

Peter Corey (1946) British writer

The A-Z of Absolutely Everything (1990)

Jerk , Fish , Waiting

“The fallacy of that book is, that Mandeville defines neither vices nor benefits. He reckons among vices everything that gives pleasure. He takes the narrowest system of morality, monastick morality, which holds pleasure itself to be a vice, such as eating salt with our fish, because it makes it taste better; and he reckons wealth as a publick benefit, which is by no means always true. Pleasure of itself is not a vice.”

Bernard Mandeville (1670–1733) Anglo-Dutch writer and physician

Dr. Johnson in conversation, April 15, 1778, reported in James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1791) p. 948.
Criticism

Pleasure , Books , Fish , Wealth

“This island is made mainly of coal and surrounded by fish. Only an organizing genius could produce a shortage of coal and fish at the same time.”

Aneurin Bevan (1897–1960) Welsh politician

Daily Herald, 25 May 1945
Speech at Blackpool, 24 May 1945.
1940s

Fish , Time

“Human beings are still fish.”

PZ Myers (1957) American scientist and associate professor of biology

During an interview for Ray Comfort's " Evolution vs. God http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0u3-2CGOMQ" (2013), after explaining that Comfort was wrong to disregard the Lenski experiment on the grounds that Lenski's bacteria "are still just bacteria". After Comfort asked him again, "Humans beings are fish?", Myers replied again "Yes, of course they are."

Fish

“Together, I said, we shall boil fire and stop fish.”

Werner Herzog (1942) German film director, producer, screenwriter, actor and opera director

To Lotte Eisner in Paris after walking from Munich to meet her, Of Walking in Ice ISBN 978-0-9796121-0-7.

Fish

“The ploughman ploughs, the fisherman dreams of fish;
Aloft, the sailor, through a world of ropes
Guides tangled meditations, feverish
With memories of girls forsaken, hopes
Of brief reunions, new discoveries,
Past rum consumed, rum promised, rum potential.”

Michael Hamburger (1924–2007) British translator, poet, critic, memoirist and academic

Lines On Brueghel's "Icarus" http://www.themediadrome.com/content/poetry/hamburger_lines_on_icarus.htm

World , Dreams , Hope , Girl

“I became quite green - I have a very strong connection to nature. I read that if we fish the way we fish, in 2048 there will be no more fish left, which is pretty soon. So it's a statement.”

Petra Němcová (1979) Czech fashion model

Explaining why she became vegan, spotted helping out at an OCRF Benefit, as quoted in "Petra Nemcova Goes Vegan For The Fish", in Celebrity-Gossip.net (31 July 2007) http://www.celebrity-gossip.net/celebrities/hollywood/petra-nemcova-goes-vegan-for-the-fish-201498#blog.

Way , Nature , Fish , Strong

“The Pobble who has no toes
Had once as many as we;
When they said, "Some day you may lose them all;"—
He replied, — "Fish fiddle de-dee!"”

Edward Lear (1812–1888) British artist, illustrator, author and poet

The Pobble Who Has No Toes http://www.nonsenselit.org/Lear/ll/pobble.html, st. 1 (1877).

Fish

“In this room, the salamander was squashed between the pages of the rhyming dictionary, thereby changing poetry forever. Here, Salome walked around with a big red fish held high up over her head. Old Father spanked her with a ballet slipper, sending her to bed without milk or honey. Dance was changed in this room, too.”

Tom Robbins Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas

Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas (1994)

Fish , Change , Dance

“I used to think that I needed chicken and fish as a source of protein in order to train properly. I subscribed to that theory for a while and then when I finally decided to cut everything out and I was doing it right, it felt really good and I didn’t lose any strength at all–I feel like I recover quicker so it’s been good. … A lot of people try to stay away from carbs and stuff like that, but I eat a lot of brown rice and just good clean complex carbs and it works for me. … In this day and age I don’t see any reason to contributing to a really awful industry [sc. the meat industry] that causes too many problems. It’s horrible what the animals have to go through on a daily basis, it’s just awful–they’re born and raised in really nasty conditions and it’s better not to contribute to that whole thing. … I just don’t see in this day and age a real reason to contribute to that when you can be really healthy and not eat that sort of thing and not cause a lot of suffering.”

Mac Danzig (1980) American martial artist

On his vegan diet, in "Lean, Mean and Green…Vegan Fighter Mac Danzig Packs a Punch", in The MMA Digest.com (7 August 2007) http://www.themmadigest.com/lean-mean-and-green%E2%80%A6vegan-fighter-mac-danzig-packs-a-punch/

People , Age , Feeling , Problem

“The best way to prepare [to be a programmer] is to write programs, and to study great programs that other people have written. In my case, I went to the garbage cans at the Computer Science Center and fished out listings of their operating system.”

Bill Gates (1955) American business magnate and philanthropist

Interview from Programmers at Work (1986)

People , Way , Fish , Study

“The poverty of the lower ranks of people in China far surpasses that of the most beggarly nations of Europe. In the neighbourhood of Canton many hundred, it is commonly said, many thousand families have no habitation on the land, but live constantly in little fishing boats upon the rivers and the canals. The subsistence which they find there is so scanty that they are eager to fish up the nastiest garbage thrown overboard from any European ship. Any carrion, the carcase of a dead dog or cat, for example, though half putrid and stinking, is as welcome to them as the most wholesome food to the people of other countries.”

Adam Smith (1723–1790) Scottish moral philosopher and political economist

Source: (1776), Book I, Chapter VIII, p. 86.

People , Family , Food , Dogs

“I understand where Bill Maher is coming from when he says, basically, the world is destroying itself over a bunch of fairy tales about talking snakes and men who are alive inside fishes. I'm very sympathetic to it, but at the same time, given the cosmos that we're living in, it's very persuasive, the idea that there is some kind of first cause that's running things. It might not be the god of Jerry Jenkins and Tim LaHaye, it might not be the god of al-Qaida, and it might not be the god of Abraham, but something very well could be running things. The order of the universe as we see it, the interlocking nature, and the way things work together, are persuasive of the idea that there may be some overarching first cause.”

Stephen King (1947) American author

[John, Marks, http://www.salon.com/books/int/2008/10/23/stephen_king/print.html, Stephen King's God trip, Salon.com, 2008-10-23, 2008-10-23]

Men , God , World , Way

“Oh Brancepeth,’ said the girl, her voice trembling, ‘why haven’t you any money? If only you had the merest pittance - enough for a flat in Mayfair and a little weekend place in the country somewhere and a couple of good cars and a villa in the South of France and a bit of trout fishing on some decent river, I would risk all for love.”

P.G. Wodehouse book Lord Emsworth and Others

Lord Emsworth and Others (1937)

Love , Money , Cars , Girl

“The work began with great zeal and the most roseate hopes. A splendid summer and an eventful winter marked the year of 1923! The newly resumed trade relations were in full swing: Russian corn and Norwegian herring and fish, Russian wood products and Norwegian paper and cellulose.”

Alexandra Kollontai (1872–1952) Soviet diplomat

The Autobiography of a Sexually Emancipated Communist Woman (1926)

Hope , Fish , Winter , Summer

“Well, I think you just have to be prepared to be weirder and weirder. I follow the example of Robyn Hitchcock who, I think, has created a career out of this world he has constructed. It’s very much his world, and he continually builds upon it. I think he’s received criticism in the past along the lines of, “Oh, here’s another Robyn Hitchcock record about flesh and fish,” and things like that, but in fact if you really look at the songs, they’re just the building blocks for this very complex, very vibrant, and very real world that exists within his songwriting. So I look to him for inspiration.”

Colin Meloy (1974) American musician

Interview with Colin Meloy, 2004-06 http://www.believermag.com/issues/200406/?read=interview_meloy,

World , Thinking , Fish , Past

“Nature is what we know. We do not know the gods of religions. And nature is not kind, or merciful, or loving. If God made me — the fabled God of the three qualities of which I spoke: mercy, kindness, love — He also made the fish I catch and eat. And where do His mercy, kindness, and love for that fish come in? No; nature made us — nature did it all — not the gods of the religions”

Thomas Edison (1847–1931) American inventor and businessman

Thomas Edison ""No Immortality of the Soul" says Thomas A. Edison. In Fact, He Doesn't Believe There Is a Soul — Human Beings Only an Aggregate of Cells and the Brain Only a Wonderful Machine, Says Wizard of Electricity". New York Times. October 2, 1910
1910s

Love , God , Religion , Nature

“Compliments have lost their lure by the time a man does not have to fish for them.”

Henry S. Haskins (1875–1957)

Source: Meditations in Wall Street (1940), p. 100

Fish , Time

“The freshwater fish fauna of Florida is one of the most interesting in the United States. It is a fauna developed in a region of recent geologic origin, low topographic relief, poor drainage, and unusual geographic configuration, and consequently exhibits certain very peculiar features. Some of the characteristic continental groups apparently have not had time to establish themselves in the peninsula since its elevation above the sea, while others have doubtless failed to find suitable conditions in its low and swamp-bordered water courses.”

Archie Carr (1909–1987) American university professor, zoologist, herpetologist, conservationist

[A key to the fresh-water fishes of Florida, In: Proceedings of the Florida Academy of Sciences, vol. 1, 72–86, 1936, http://www.jstor.org/stable/24313266] (quote from p. 72)

Fish , Water , Time , Sea

“(mimicking a big fish talking to a little fish)
"Hey - Perch…"
(points at his eyes, then at the imaginary perch's)
"Look at me…"
(thinks, concedes, then points at the sides of his head where a fish's eyes would be)
"Look at me… Both eyes…" - oh, I've thought it all through - "if you ever see a worm… in the shape of a J… swim away. That's how we lost your Uncle Pike."”

Bill Engvall (1957) American comedian and actor

15° Off Cool (2007)

Thinking , Fish

“The total turtle count - two hundred and thirty species - doesn't seem like an irresistible horde compared to the several thousand mammals in today's global ecosystem. However, turtles have scored quite an impressive ecological triumph in one very important role, that of freshwater predator-omnivore… All through the Temperate Zone, otters delight the naturalist and the lay public. But how many other freshwater, semi-aquatic mammal predators can you name? Mink, of course. Relatives of otters on one hand, land weasels on the other, mink do hunt in streams. How many others? If you caught the excellent BBC series "Life on Earth", you saw footage of the swimming shrew, the Desman of the Pyrenees, a molelike furball that dives for aquatic worms and other freshwater small fry. Our own New England star-nosed mole goes hunting in water, using its starburst-shaped snout tip to feel out wriggling prey. Andean streams flowing through Preu are host to the fish-spearing mouse, Ichthyomys, that impales prey on its projecting front teeth. But if we go to a tropical lake or sluggish river, is it full of otters, mink, and paddling shrews? No, it is full of turtles.”

Robert T. Bakker book The Dinosaur Heresies

The Dinosaur Heresies: A Revolutionary View of Dinosaurs (1986), Longman Scientific & Technical, p. 57
The Dinosaur Heresies (1986)

Life , Feeling , Star , Fish

“The best thing fishing taught me, I think was how to be alone. Without this ability no writer can really survive or work, and there is a strong relationship between the activity of the fisherman, letting his line down into unknown depths in the hope of catching an unseen prey (which may be worth keeping, or may not) and that of a writer trolling his memory and reflections for unexpected jags and jerks of association.”

Robert Hughes (1938–2012) Australian critic, historian, writer

Things I Didn't Know (2006)

Hope , Jerk , Thinking , Fish

“The title of this movie should be "Here's a Fish. You're Stupid."”

Richard Jeni (1957–2007) American comedian

On Jaws 4: The Revenge
Showtime Triple Crowns of Comedy

Stupidity , Fish

“My body is a monster driven insane,
My heart is a fish toasted in flames.”

Nick Cave (1957) Australian musician

Song lyrics, Prayers on Fire (1981), Zoo-Music Girl

Fish , Heart

“…nobody has told the coelancath, a fish that lives off Madagascar and looks exactly like its ancestors of 300 million years ago, that it has broken some law by not evolving.”

Matt Ridley (1958) economist

Source: The Red Queen (1993), Ch. 2. The Enigma

Law , Fish

“When they see me holding fish, they can see that I am comfortable with kings as well as with paupers.”

Imelda Marcos (1929) Former First Lady of the Philippines

As quoted in Today (April 1998).

Fish

“Now spread the night her spangled canopy,
And summoned every restless eye to sleep;
On beds of tender grass the beasts down lie,
The fishes slumbered in the silent deep,
Unheard were serpent's hiss and dragon's cry,
Birds left to sing, and Philomen to weep,
Only that noise heaven's rolling circles kest,
Sung lullaby to bring the world to rest.”

Torquato Tasso (1544–1595) Italian poet

Era la notte allor ch'alto riposo
Han l'onde e i venti, e parea muto il mondo,
Gli animai lassi, e quei che 'l mare ondoso,
O de' liquidi laghi alberga il fondo,
E chi si giace in tana, o in mandra ascoso,
E i pinti augelli nell’oblio giocondo
Sotto il silenzio de' secreti orrori
Sopían gli affanni, e raddolciano i cori.
Canto II, stanza 96 (tr. Fairfax)
Gerusalemme Liberata (1581)

Lie , World , Bird , Fish

“Although some dinosaurs may have spent some time feeding in the water like moose or fishing cats, at most a few became strongly amphibious in the manner of hippos, much less marine as per seals and whales. The only strongly aquatic dinosaurs are some birds. The occasional statement that there were marine dinosaurs is therefore incorrect - these creatures of Mesozoic seas were various forms of reptiles that had evolved over the eons.”

Gregory Scott Paul book The Princeton Field Guide to Dinosaurs

Gregory S. Paul (2010) The Princeton Field Guide to Dinosaurs, Princeton University Press, p. 14
The Princeton Field Guide to Dinosaurs

Cats , Bird , Fish , Water

“To him life was never monotonous or stale. There was always Pisah, the fish, to be caught in the many streams and the little lakes, and Sabor, with her ferocious cousins to keep one ever on the alert and give zest to every instant that one spent upon the ground.
Often they hunted him, and more often he hunted them, but though they never quite reached him with those cruel, sharp claws of theirs, yet there were times when one could scarce have passed a thick leaf between their talons and his smooth hide.
Quick was Sabor, the lioness, and quick were Numa and Sheeta, but Tarzan of the Apes was lightning.”

Edgar Rice Burroughs book Tarzan of the Apes

Tarzan of the Apes (1912)

Life , Fish , Time

“When you fell in the sea, you should have heard them cheer. I made them rope the yard and fish you up. I said a ducking in water washes the witch-skill out of a woman until next full moon, and it would be bad luck to let you drown. How about that for a clever story? They’d believe anything if you make it sound silly enough.”

Tanith Lee (1947–2015) British writer

Source: Short fiction, The Winter Players (1976), Chapter 3, “Red Ship” (p. 136)

Bad luck , Fish , Water , Sea

“Macroevolution is properly defined as the emergence of new taxa at or above the species level. The only time creationists will use the proper definition is when they are as-yet unaware of the fact that speciation has already been directly-observed and documented dozens of times –both in the lab and in naturally-controlled conditions in the field. In fact, we’ve seen it so many times we’ve had to categorize recurrent types of macroevolution we’ve seen so often repeated. Once creationists find out about all this, their first reaction is to use the excuse that some newly evolved species of fruit fly or fish somehow still doesn’t count because it’s “still” a fly or it’s “still” a fish. Well of course it is! Evolution couldn’t permit them to be anything else. Creationists demand that the new species be so different from their parents that one can’t even tell they’re related. The irony there is that evolutionary theory never suggests that one “kind” of thing ever turned into another, fundamentally-different “kind” of anything, not unless you ignore all the intermediate stages –which of course creationists do.”

Aron Ra (1962) Aron Ra is an atheist activist and the host of the Ra-Men Podcast

"11th Foundational Falsehood of Creationism" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dm277H3ot6Y, Youtube (June 26, 2008)
Youtube, Foundational Falsehoods of Creationism

Nature , Parent , Fish , Time

“Then as we linger at luncheon here
O'er many a dainty dish,
Let us drink anew to the time when you
Were a tadpole and I was a fish.”

Langdon Smith Evolution

Evolution (1895; 1909)

Drink , Fish , Time

“Out of the East on an Irish stallion came bounty hunter Dan.
His heart quickened and burdened by the need to get his man.
He found Pete peacefully fishing by the river.
Pulled his gun and got the drop.
He said "Pete you think you've changed but you have not."”

Bruce Springsteen book Outlaw Pete

"Outlaw Pete"
Song lyrics, Working on a Dream (2009)

Thinking , Fish , Change , Heart

“For the moment we will put aside the consideration of the effect upon others — which is so infinitely more important — and think only of the results for the man himself. It is necessary to do this because one of the objections frequently brought against vegetarianism is that it is a beautiful theory, but one the working of which is impracticable, since it is supposed that a man cannot live without devouring dead flesh. That objection is irrational, and is founded upon ignorance or perversion of facts. I am myself an example of its falsity; for I have lived without the pollution of flesh food — without meat, fish or fowl — for the last thirty-eight years, and I not only still survive, but have been during all that time in remarkably good health. Nor am I in any way peculiar in this, for I know some thousands of others who have done the same thing. I know some younger ones who have been so happy as to be unpolluted by the eating of flesh during the whole of their lives; and they are distinctly freer from disease than those who partake of such things.”

Charles Webster Leadbeater (1854–1934) English theosophist

Source: Vegetarianism and Occultism (1913), p. 4-5

Health , Disease , Food , Beauty

“The Japanese have hit the shores like dead fish. They're just like dead fish washing up on the shores.”

Steve Jobs (1955–2011) American entrepreneur and co-founder of Apple Inc.

As quoted in Playboy (February 1985)
1980s

Fish , Dead

“"Well, mother, people have different names for different things. I hear a great deal about Ellery Davenport's tact and knowledge of the world, and all that; but he does a great deal of what I call lying, — so there! Now there are some folks who lie blunderingly, and unskilfully, but I 'll say for Ellery Davenport that he can lie as innocently and sweetly and prettily as a French woman, and I can't say any more. And if a woman does n't want to believe him, she just must n't listen to him, that 's all. I always believe him when he is around, but when he 's away and I think him over, I know just what he is, and see just what an old fool he has made of me."
These words dropped into my childish mind as if you should accidentally drop a ring into a deep well. I did not think of them much at the time, but there came a day in my life when the ring was fished up out of the well, good as new.”

Harriet Beecher Stowe book Old Town Folks

Old Town Folks (1869) Ch. 25.

Life , People , Lie , World

“They may the better fish in the water when it is troubled.”

Richard Grafton (1511–1572) Printer in the Tudor era

Chronicles (I, 283).

Fish , Water

“When my grandfather was born there were barely two thousand people living in the capital; in my own childhood there were nearly five thousand. In grandfather's childhood the only people who counted were a few government officials and a few foreign merchants, mainly Jews from Schleswig and Holstein who spoke Low German and called themselves Danes... The rest of the town's inhabitants were cottagers who went out to the fishing and sometimes owned a small share in a cow, or had a few sheep. They had little rowing-boats, on which they could sometimes hoist a sail.”

Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) Icelandic author

Brekkukotsannáll (The Fish Can Sing) (1957)

People , Fish , Childhood

“.. and Dr. Isaiah Williams, whose body was recovered from a ravine near San Pablo. Inquiries are being hampered by what an Army spokesman termed the obstinate attitude of the local people. “They won’t admit they know their left hands from their right,” he asserted. Here at home Senator Richard Howell (Rep., Col.) today launched a fierce attack on the quote chlorophyll addicts unquote who, he claims, are hamstringing American business, already staggering under the load of high unemployment and recession, by insisting that our manufacturers comply with regulations ignored by foreign competition. In Southern Italy rioting continues in many small towns formerly dependent on fishing. Meantime, dust storms in the Camargue...”

John Brunner book The Sheep Look Up

.
January “AND IT GOES ON”
The Sheep Look Up (1972)

People , Quotes , Home , Business

“It seems curious that we know so much about sheep, so little about those animals which outweigh them per hectare by factors of ten or a hundred times, and that we do not investigate these matters far more seriously. Our most sustainable yields may be grubs or caterpillars rather than sheep; we can convert these invertebrates to use by feeding them to poultry or fish. We can't go wrong in encouraging a complex of life in soils, from roots and mycorrhiza to moles and earthworms, and in thinking of ways in which soil life assists us to produce crop, it itself becomes a crop.”

Bill Mollison (1928–2016) Australian permaculturist

Source: Permaculture: A Designers' Manual (1988), chapter 8.12

Life , Way , Thinking , Fish

“Many Christians who agree that harming a dog or cat is wrong think nothing of harming cows, pigs, chickens, fish and other creatures. We need to understand that if we’re eating meat, we are paying people to be cruel to animals. For the simple reasons that all animals are creatures beloved by God and that God created them with a capacity for pain and suffering, we should adopt a vegetarian diet.”

John Dear (1959) Catholic priest from the United States

Christianity and Vegetarianism (1990)

God , Pain , People , Dogs

“In Taoist thought, the good life comes spontaneously; but spontaneity is far from simply acting on the impulses that occur to us. In Western traditions such as Romanticism, spontaneity is linked with subjectivity. In Taoism it means acting dispassionately, on the basis of an objective view of the situation at hand. The common man cannot see things objectively, because his mind is clouded by anxiety about achieving his goals. Seeing clearly means not projecting our goals into the world; acting spontaneously means acting according to the needs of the situation. Western moralists will ask what is the purpose of such action, but for Taoists the good life has no purpose. It is like swimming in a whirlpool, responding to the currents as they come and go. 'I enter with the inflow, and emerge with the outflow, follow the Way of the water, and do not impose my selfishness upon it. This is how I stay afloat in it,' says the Chuang-Tzu. In this view, ethics is simply a practical skill, like fishing or swimming. The core of ethics is not choice or conscious awareness, but the knack of knowing what to do. It is a skill that comes with practice and an empty mind.”

John Gray book Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals

The Vices of Morality: Animal virtues (p. 113)
Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals (2002)

Life , World , Way , Fish

“Anglers have a way of romanticizing their battles with fish and of forgetting that the fish has a hook in his mouth, his gullet, or his belly and that his gameness is really an extreme of panic in which he runs, leaps, and pulls to get away until he dies. It would seem to be enough advantage to the angler that the fish has the hook in his mouth rather than the angler.”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist

Introduction to S. Kip Farrington Jr., Atlantic Game Fishing (1937)

Way , Game , Fish , Forgetting

“Keep your head clear and know how to suffer like a man. Or a fish, he thought.”

Ernest Hemingway book The Old Man and the Sea

The Old Man and the Sea (1952)

Fish , Suffering

“You are a man now, and to be un hombre, a man must not only know right from wrong, he must also know who he is and who he isn’t. Because if a man doesn’t know who he is and who he isn’t, then no matter how much he knows about right and wrong, he will always be like a fish out of water.”

Victor Villaseñor (1940) American writer

Crazy Loco Love: A Memoir (2008)

Fish , Water

“Which do you think came first—the blood or the heart—and why? Did the heart in all these different species of fish, reptiles, birds, and mammals evolve before there were blood vessels throughout their bodies? When did the blood evolve? Was it before or after the vessels evolved? If it was before, what was it that carried blood to the heart, if there were no vessels? Did the heart beat before the blood evolved? Why was it beating if there was no blood to pump? If it wasn’t beating, why did it start when it had no awareness of blood? If the blood vessels evolved before there was blood, why did they evolve if there was no such thing as blood? And if the blood evolved before the heart evolved, what was it that caused it to circulate around the body? The marvelous human body (and the bodies of all the other creatures) consists of so many amazingly interdependent parts: a heart, lungs (to oxygenate the blood), kidneys (to filter wastes from the blood), blood vessels, arteries, blood, skin (to protect it all), etc. The intricate codependence of just the respiratory system and the circulatory system—not to mention all the other bodily systems—is difficult to explain.”

Ray Comfort (1949) New Zealand-born Christian minister and evangelist

The Origin of Species: 150th Anniversary Edition (2009)

Bird , Thinking , Fish , Heart

“The English, I now know, eat mashed fish and deviled sheep’s hearts to guarantee a bad digestion (and consequent irritability). It is their abominable cooking which has given them half the world as their Empire.”

Michael Moorcock book The City in the Autumn Stars

Source: The City in the Autumn Stars (1986), Chapter 5 (p. 245)

World , Fish , Heart , Cooking

“I shall stay him no longer than to wish him a rainy evening to read this following discourse; and that if he be an honest angler, the east wind may never blow when he goes a-fishing.”

Izaak Walton book The Compleat Angler

Epistle to the Reader.
The Compleat Angler (1653-1655)

Fish , Reading

“Over the years I learned which hooks to use to catch which fish.”

Adolf Eichmann (1906–1962) German Nazi SS-Obersturmbannführer

Audiotape recording of Eichmann in Argentina (1957), as quoted in Eichmann Before Jerusalem: The Unexamined Life of a Mass Murderer by Bettina Stangneth (2015). ISBN 978-0307950161.

Fish , Learning

“I had the opportunity to fish as a kid, I just follow through with it. I'm not the best fisherman in the world, but I have a lot more fun than a lot of my other fishing friends in this world, who think they're supposedly experts. Sometimes the fish cooperate, sometimes they don't.”

John du Pont (1938–2010) American heir to the Du Pont family fortune, ornothologist, conchologist, murderer

1988 interview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4WOqUkJmFQ&t=3m
Quote

World , Thinking , Fish

“My darling, I will try to guess
What do you want or wish.
I know you prefer to dream
About a Gold Fish.
But I believe that you will find
The famous and gold key.
So, you will open the door.
You saw it in your dreams.
I know: you shall overcome
All troubles in your way.
But do remember every time
About “must” and “may.””

Volodymyr Melnykov (1951) Ukrainian writer, poet, composer

To my friend http://imirelnik.io.ua/s1954083/to_my_friends

Dreams , Way , Fish , Time

“In the last few years there has been a harvest of books and lectures about the "Mysterious Universe." The inconceivable magnitudes with which astronomy deals produce a sense of awe which lends itself to a poetic and philosophical treatment. "When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy hands, the moon and the starts, whuch thou hast ordained: what is man that thou art mindful of him? The literary skill with which this branch of science has been exploited compels one's admiration, but alos, a little, one's sense of the ridiculous. For other facts than those of astronomy, oother disciplines than of mathematics, can produce the same lively feelings of awe and reverence: the extraordinary finenness of their adjustments to the world outside: the amazing faculties of the human mind, of which we know neither whence it comes not whither it goes. In some fortunate people this reverence is produced by the natural bauty of a landscape, by the majesty of an ancient building, by the heroism of a rescue party, by poetry, or by music. God is doubtless a Mathematician, but he is also a Physiologist, an Engineer, a Mother, an Architect, a Coal Miner, a Poet, and a Gardener. Each of us views things in his own peculiar war, each clothes the Creator in a manner which fits into his own scheme. My God, for instance, among his other professions, is an Inventor: I picture him inventing water, carbon dioxide, and haemoglobin, crabs, frogs, and cuttle fish, whales and filterpassing organisms ( in the ratio of 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 to 1 in size), and rejoicing greatly over these weird and ingenious things, just as I rejoice greatly over some simple bit of apparatus. But I would nor urge that God is only an Inventor: for inventors are apt, as those who know them realize, to be very dull dogs. Indeed, I should be inclined rather to imagine God to be like a University, with all its teachers and professors together: not omittin the students, for he obviously possesses, judging from his inventions, that noblest human characteristic, a sense of humour.”

Archibald Hill (1886–1977) English physiologist and biophysicist

The Ethical Dilemma of Science and Other Writings https://books.google.com.mx/books?id=zaE1AAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false (1960, Cap 1. Scepticism and Faith, p. 41)

God , War , People , Books

“My mother, whom I loved very much, had trouble with me. I had very good school certificates. But I tormented her with horribly stinky collections. It was not enough for me at home to have a dog, a cat, a canary, a fish, and even a white mouse, which loved to walk around the apartment, although it lived in a cage. I added the protozoa to this menagerie. Traditional definitions regarded these small organisms – such as, for example, amoebae, flagellates, sponges, algae – as single-celled. What in these asexually reproducing animals or plants could intrigue the little boy so much that he permanently endured this abomination (as the mother would say) home?! After all, neither the request nor the threat of this exceptionally tolerant woman, who carried out her home diligently on a daily basis, did not help. A trip to the ponds, or actually to the stagnant at Bonarka – where today is Mateczny Roundabout – were exciting for the little boy. And even more he enjoyed moments when he could watch for hours what was happening in aquariums, jars or cages.”

Włodzimierz Ptak (1928–2019) immunologist

Bętkowska, Teresa (August–September 2010). "Mistrz niszowej dyscypliny" http://www2.almamater.uj.edu.pl/126/17.pdf (PDF). Alma Mater (in Polish). Kraków: Jagiellonian University (126–127): pp. 41–46.

Love , School , Dogs , Home

“[After struggle with heart disease] I've stopped eating meat, cheese, milk, even fish. No dairy at all. I've lost more than 20 pounds so far, aiming for about 30 before Chelsea's wedding. And I have so much more energy now! I feel great. … I just decided that I was the high-risk person, and I didn't want to fool with this anymore. And I wanted to live to be a grandfather. So I decided to pick the diet that I thought would maximize my chances of long-term survival. … The main thing that was hard for me actually … was giving up yogurt and hard cheese. I love that stuff, but it really made a big difference when I did it. … [To truly change the conditions that lead to bad habits and poor health] we have to demand it by changing the way we live. You have to make a conscious decision to change for your own well-being, and that of your family and your country.”

Bill Clinton (1946) 42nd President of the United States

" Bill Clinton Explains Why He Became a Vegan http://www.aarp.org/health/healthy-living/info-08-2013/bill-clinton-vegan.html" by Joe Conason, AARP The Magazine, August/September 2013.
2010s

Love , Health , Disease , Family

“Calico Jam,
The little Fish swam,
Over the syllabub sea,
He took off his hat,
To the Sole and the Sprat,
And the Willeby-Wat,—
But he never came back to me!”

Edward Lear (1812–1888) British artist, illustrator, author and poet

Calico Pie, st. 2.

Fish , Sea

“Now, if the principle of toleration were once admitted into classical education — if it were admitted that the great object is to read and enjoy a language, and the stress of the teaching were placed on the few things absolutely essential to this result, if the tortoise were allowed time to creep, and the bird permitted to fly, and the fish to swim, towards the enchanted and divine sources of Helicon — all might in their own way arrive there, and rejoice in its flowers, its beauty, and its coolness.”

Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811–1896) Abolitionist, author

Source: Little Foxes (1865), Ch. 5.

Education , Beauty , Way , Flowers

“Binabik had taught him to do only what he could at any given time. “You cannot catch three fish with two hands,” the little man often said.”

Tad Williams (1957) novelist

Source: Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, To Green Angel Tower (1993), Part 2, Chapter 24, “The Graylands” (p. 540).

Fish , Time

“I will try to explain what I mean by metamorphosis. For me no object can be tied down to any sort of reality. A stone may be part of a wall, a piece of sculpture, a lethal weapon, a pebble on a beach or anything else you like.... when you ask me whether a particular in one of my paintings depicts a woman's head, a fish, a vase, a bird, or all four at once, I can't give you a categorical answer, for this 'metamorphosic' confusion is fundamental to the poetry.”

Georges Braque (1882–1963) French painter and sculptor

1946 - 1963, interview with John Richardson' (1957)

Bird , Reality , Fish , Parting

“Well, Mr. Baldwin, this is a pretty kettle of fish!”

Mary of Teck (1867–1953) Queen consort of the United Kingdom Empress of India

Statement to Stanley Baldwin during the abdication crisis. (1936)
Quoted by James Pope-Hennessy in Queen Mary, 1867-1953 http://books.google.com/books?id=Cos4AAAAIAAJ&q=%22Well+Mr+Baldwin%22+%22this+is+a+pretty+kettle+of+fish%22&pg=PA575#v=onepage (1959).

Fish

“Compatibility, not incompatibility, is the issue. For pc set 'analysis' is incompatible with nothing, as the fact of its universal potential applicability already testifies. It begins not with observation of musical particularities but with a universe of possibilities. The comparison of any musical entity with such a universe yields an inexhaustible quarry of 'true facts' but no criterion of relevence. As long as not such criterion has been established…the endless stream of ostensible relations stemming from the pc survey can persuade us for a while that analysis is being accomplished. But in fact it is only a tabulation that can just as well be carried on in the presense of analysis as in its absence (hence the universal 'compatibility'). Nor is it really so innocuous as I may be making it seem, since in its anodyne effect (one never comes back from the fishing expedition empty-handed, there is always 'something to say' some 'finding' to report) it can deflect attention away from the task at hand, which is to formulate analytical methods, not concoct a universal solvent.”

Richard Taruskin (1945) American writer

Taruskin, Richard. "Reply to van den Toorn", p. 57.

Music , Fish , Universe

“[After discovering Soren's former home is abandoned] Then Twilight spoke, "Soren, they're gone. Maybe something happened to them. You shouldn't take it personally. Buck up now, old buddy."
"Personally? What do you know, Twilight, that is personal about any family? You've never had a family. Remember, you're always telling us about how much you learned in your own orphan school of tough learning. You don't know the feel of a mother's down. You don't know what it's like to hear stories from a father, or to hear him sing. Do you know what a psalm is, Twilight? I bet you don't. Well, we Barn Owls know about psalms and books and the feeling of down."
Twilight's feathers had ruffled up, spiky with ice crystals. He looked fearsome. "I'll tell you what I know, you miserable little owl. The whole world is my family. I know the softness of a fox's fur, and the strange green light that comes into their eyes during the spring moons. I know how to fish because I learned from an eagle. And when meat is scarce I know how to find the ripest part of a rotten tree and peck the juiciest bugs from it. I know plenty."”

Kathryn Lasky (1944) American children's writer

Source: The Capture (2003), Chapter Twenty-four: "Empty Hollows", p. 181

Books , World , School , Family

“Make a list of all the environmental and social problems that today afflict us and our poor battered planet. – not just the extinction of species and animals and plants, that fifty years ago was the first signs of impending global disaster, but traffic congestion, oil prices, pressure on the health service, the growth of mega-cities, migration patterns, immigration policies, unemployment, the loss of arable land, desertification, famine, increasingly violent weather, the acidification of the oceans, the collapse of fish stocks, rising sea temperatures, the loss of rain forest. The list goes on and on. But they all share an underlying cause. Every one of these global problems, environmental as well as social becomes more difficult – and ultimately impossible - to solve with ever more people.”

David Attenborough (1926) British broadcaster and naturalist

How Many People Can Live on Planet Earth? (BBC Horizon, 2009)

People , Health , Problem , Fish

“The cat would eate fish, and would not wet her feete.”

John Heywood (1497–1580) English writer known for plays, poems and a collection of proverbs

Part I, chapter 11.
Proverbs (1546), Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Cats , Fish

““I wish Doc Pickering was here.”
“Yeah, and if fish had feet, they’d be mice.””

Robert A. Heinlein book Space Cadet

Source: Space Cadet (1948), Chapter 14 “The Natives are Friendly...”, p. 160

Fish

“But our Don Quixote, the inward, the immortal Don Quixote, conscious of his own comicness, does not believe that his doctrines will triumph in this world, because they are not of it. And it is better that they should not triumph. And if the world wished to make Don Quixote king, he would retire alone to the mountain, fleeing from the king-making crowds, as Christ retired alone to the mountain when, after the miracle of the loaves and fishes, they sought to proclaim him king. He left the title of king for the inscription written over the cross.”

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

World , Mountain , Fish , Christ

“If you are a believer in evolution, answer this. Did the first fish that crawled out of the ocean to become an animal have lungs or gills? If he had lungs (which were needed to breathe while on land), why did they evolve while he was underwater? If he had only gills (which were needed to survive while underwater, he wouldn't survive on land for more than two minutes.”

Ray Comfort (1949) New Zealand-born Christian minister and evangelist

God doesn't believe in atheists (2002)

Fish , Animals

“She is nether fish nor flesh, nor good red herring.”

John Heywood (1497–1580) English writer known for plays, poems and a collection of proverbs

Part I, chapter 10.
Proverbs (1546), Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Fish

“Actually, it was in Paris in 1914 that I did my first collages, for an occultist friend. They were mysterious portico's which were supposed to replace mural paintings and which evoked the structure of palm branches or fish-bones. [remark on the first collages Arp made, in different materials]”

Hans Arp (1886–1966) Alsatian, sculptor, painter, poet and abstract artist

Source: 1960s, Jours effeuillés: Poèmes, essaies, souvenirs (1966), p. 430

Fish , Painting

“The fisherman fishes as the urchin eats cream buns, from lust.”

T. H. White (1906–1964) author

England Have My Bones (1936)

Fish

“Like fish who do not know they swim in water, we are seldom aware of the atmosphere of the times through which we move, how strange and singular they are. But when we approach another age, its alienness stands out before us, almost as if that were its most obvious quality…”

Thomas Cahill (1940) American scholar and writer

Introduction
Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea: Why the Greeks Matter (2003)

Age , Fish , Water , Time

“The vegan diet in the western industrial society is important to me because I feel that if you open yourself up to eating dairy and meat then you’re taking part in basically a holocaust for animals. You know it’s very different if you’re in some tribal situation where people are fishing — like how we used to live. Maybe we would have eaten meat sometimes. But this kind of American idea we have of traditional eating is the cause of so much torture and misery. I don’t want to eat that – it’s gross. Animals are my friends and so it feels weird to eat them.”

Daniela Sea (1977) American filmmaker, actor, and musician

" Farm Sanctuary Exclusive: Daniela Sea Won't Take Part In An Animal Holocaust http://www.ecorazzi.com/2008/12/09/farm-sanctuary-exclusive-daniela-sea-wont-take-part-in-an-animal-holocaust/", interview with Ecorazzi (9 December 2008).

People , Feeling , Idea , Fish

“There seem to two kinds of searchers: those who seek to make their ego something other than it is, i. e. holy, happy, unselfish (as though you could make a fish unfish), and those who understand that all such attempts are just gesticulation and play-acting, that there is only one thing that can be done, which is to disidentify themselves with the ego, by realising its unreality, and by becoming aware of their eternal identity with pure being.”

Wei Wu Wei (1895–1986) writer

Fingers Pointing Towards The Moon (1958)

Understanding , Fish , Happiness

“The National Enquirer published this thing called the "Chow like Cho Diet," which was this fake diet that I never went on, with all these fake quotes from me, like "When I was a little girl, I was raised on rice and fish. So when I get heavy, I go back to that natural Asian way of eating." That is so Mulan. You can almost hear the mandolin in the background. "When I was a little girl, I grow up on the rice paddy… and although we have no food, I have a tendency to put on weight."”

Margaret Cho (1968) American stand-up comedian

From Her Tours and CDs, I'm The One That I Want Tour

Food , Way , Quotes , Girl

“In his Experiment in Autobiography (1934), H. G. Wells pointed out that ever since the beginning of life, most creatures have been 'up against it'. Their lives are a drama of struggle against the forces of nature. Yet nowadays you can say to a man: Yes, you earn a living, you support a family, you love and hate, but -- what do you do? His real interest may be in something else -- art, science, literature, philosophy. The bird is a creature of the air, the fish is a creature of the water, and man is a creature of the mind.”

Colin Wilson book From Atlantis to the Sphinx

Source: From Atlantis to the Sphinx (1996), p. 346-347

Love , Life , Hate , Family

“The unsuspecting fish, who knew nothing but a life in the river, went about its routine like any other day, but in an instant was ripped out of its reality to meet with death. Like that fish, we routinely live our lives hardly aware that, at the least expected moment, the yellow-eyed hawk of fate in the form of crises, tragedy or even death, may wrench us out of our comfortable environment. We regularly hear of it in the news or see it around us but rarely take seriously that it could happen to us. Perhaps the lesson here is to guard against complacency and give a higher priority to our spiritual needs. If the fish swam deeper, the hawk would not be able to reach it. Similarly, if we go deeper into our connection to God, we will find an inner reality so deep and satisfying that it lifts the consciousness to a place where we could deal with the effects of unforeseeable fate with a stable, detached mind.”

Radhanath Swami (1950) Gaudiya Vaishnava guru

?
The Journey Home: Autobiography of an American Swami (Tulsi Books, 2010)

Life , Death , God , Fate

“A Frenchman cried and Connelly squatted beside him, took the man's hand, and talked of Ireland. He told the uncomprehending Frenchman of Connaught's beauty, of its women, of fields so fat that a lamb was full grown in a week, of rivers so thick that the fish begged to be caught, and the Frenchman quieted and Connelly patted his hair and told him he was brave, and he was proud of him, and beyond the small grating the sky darkened into dusk and the orderlies came down again and dragged the Frenchman, who had died, head-bumping up the steps.”

Bernard Cornwell (1944) British writer

Narrator, p. 184
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Sword (1983)

Women , Beauty , Fish

“…her breasts swam towards me like two pink-nosed fish and she let me hold them.”

Philip Roth book Goodbye, Columbus

Source: Goodbye, Columbus (1959), Chapter 2

Fish

“Fish and guests in three days are stale.”
Quasi piscis itidem est amator lenae: nequam est nisi recens.

Plautus Asinaria

Source: Asinaria (The One With the Asses), Act I, scene 3. http://books.google.com/books?id=fo0QAAAAIAAJ&q=%22Quasi+piscis+itidem+est+amator+lenae+nequam+est+nisi+recens%22&pg=PA63#v=onepage

Fish

“Somebody just back of you while you are fishing is as bad as someone looking over your shoulder while you write a letter to your girl.”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist

"Trout Fishing in Europe" The Toronto Star Weekly (17 November 1923)

Girl , Fish

“This is senseless cruelty. It must stop forthwith… I am told that people kill albinos and chop their body parts, including fingers, believing they can get rich when mining or fishing.”

Jakaya Kikwete (1950) Tanzanian politician and president

When ordering a crackdown on witchdoctors, 2008-04-03 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7327989.stm
2008

People , Fish , Parting

“Robert, after spending 48 hours with this fish, we have transcended the conventional "food to consumer" relationship. this fish is now my friend.”

Darby Conley (1970) American cartoonist

Bucky Katt's Big Book of fun, page 129
Bucky Katt

Food , Fish

“[about Phil Fish leaving the game industry] "My first reaction, when thinking about covering this, was just to finish by saying, 'NNNope!' and go straight onto the next segment."”

TotalBiscuit (1984–2018) British game commentator

The Content Patch, Episode 122

Game , Thinking , Fish

“I'm not above acting like a seal every once in a while and waiting for the next fish, I just don't want to do it all the time.”

Fred Thompson (1942–2015) American politician and actor

(full quote in context) Asked why he had not done more debates, Thompson replied "Standing up here 10 in a row, you know, like a bunch of seals waiting for somebody to throw you the next fish, is not necessarily the best way to impart your information to the American people. I'm not above acting like a seal every once in a while and waiting for the next fish, I just don't want to do it all the time."
[Ryan Sager, The New York Sun, http://www.nysun.com/article/62678?page_no=3, Mr. Sunshine State, September 14, 2007, 2007-09-21]

Fish , Time , Waiting

“[Footnote:] The head of a Pike, served at supper, is said to have caused the death from terror of Theodoric the Goth, who imagined the fish's features to be those of Symmachus, a man he had just killed. But for this story, we of today would have no idea what Symmachus looked like.”

Will Cuppy (1884–1949) American writer

The Pike
How to Become Extinct (1941)

Death , Imagination , Idea , Fish

“A cat is the ideal literary companion. A wife, I am sure, cannot compare except to her disadvantage. A dog is out of the question. It may do at a butcher's – it would be out of place in a bookseller's. A cat for a bookseller is a different creature temperamentally from the same animal at a fishmonger's or a baker's. In these shops the cat is a useful animal – I suppose it is employed to eat fish entrails or to keep down rats and mice – but in my shop its function is that of a familiar. It is at once decorative – contemplative – philosophical, and it begets in me great calm and contentment.”

William Darling (politician) (1885–1962) Scottish politician

Source: The Bankrupt Bookseller (1947), p. 48

Dogs , Cats , Question , Fish

“Had a buddy of mine caught a rainbow trout, and threw it back. He said he didn't want a gay fish.”

Larry the Cable Guy (1963) American stand-up comedian, actor, country music artist, voice artist

Morning Constitutions (2007)

Fish

“Give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day. Give a man a sub-prime fish loan and you're in business, buddy.”

Stephen Colbert (1964) American political satirist, writer, comedian, television host, and actor

A parody of the "Give a man a fish..." proverb alluding to the subprime mortgage crisis of the aughts on The Colbert Report (14 May 2008)

Business , Fish

“We have fish and chips, which W. and I fetch from the shop in Settle market-place. Some local boys come in and there is a bit of chat between them and the fish-fryer about whether the kestrel under the counter is for sale.…Only when I mention it to W. does he explain Kestrel is now a lager. I imagine the future is going to contain an increasing number of incidents like this, culminating with a man in a white coat saying to one kindly, "And now can you tell me the name of the Prime Minister?"”

Alan Bennett (1934) English actor, author

Diary entry for July 25, 1985, p. 144.
Writing Home (1994)

Imagination , Boy , Fish , Future

“the octopus's secret wish
is not to be a formal fish
he dreams that some time he may grow
another set of legs or so
and be a broadway music show”

Don Marquis (1878–1937) American writer

archy and mehitabel (1927)

Secret , Dreams , Music , Fish

“Many people think it impossible for guerrillas to exist for long in the enemy's rear. Such a belief reveals lack of comprehension of the relationship that should exist between the people and the troops. The former may be likened to water the latter to the fish who inhabit it. How may it be said that these two cannot exist together?”

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

On Guerilla Warfare http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/works/1937/guerrilla-warfare/ch06.htm (1937), Chapter 6 - "The Political Problems of Guerilla Warfare"
This is usually aphorized as "The people are the sea that the revolutionary swims in," or an equivalent.

People , Thinking , Fish , Water