Quotes about fishing
page 6

Dwight D. Eisenhower photo

“When I was a small boy in Kansas, a friend of mine and I went fishing and as we sat there in the warmth of the summer afternoon on a river bank, we talked about what we wanted to do when we grew up. I told him that I wanted to be a real major league baseball player, a genuine professional like Honus Wagner. My friend said that he'd like to be President of the United States. Neither of us got our wish.”

Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969) American general and politician, 34th president of the United States (in office from 1953 to 1961)

As quoted in Baseball's Greatest Quotes (1992) by Paul Dickson; cited in "Game Day in the Majors" at the Library of Congress http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/robinson/jrgmday.html

Harry Hill photo

“He remembers when lizards were fish. Thats how old he is!”

Harry Hill (1964) English comedian, doctor

Harry Hill's TV Burp

Rousas John Rushdoony photo
Matthew Henry photo

“To fish in troubled waters.”

Matthew Henry (1662–1714) Theologician from Wales

Psalm 60.
Commentaries

“I'd hate to spend the rest of my life trying to outwit an eighteen-inch fish.”

Harold Geneen (1910–1997) American businessman

" Harold S. Geneen, 87, Dies; Nurtured AT&T http://www.nytimes.com/1997/11/23/business/harold-s-geneen-87-dies-nurtured-itt.html?pagewanted=all" published 23 November 1997 in The New York Times.

George Monbiot photo

“Should swim along, staying and conquering
In this complex ocean of life with desire not attaching.
Lovingly in this birth, like a lotus leaf on a drop of rain
Singing Rama’s name, those who want to win and gain.
Like the cashew nut on its fruit, just touching the life path
Not keeping any desire, those devoted to the brave Srinath.
Like a fish that grabs the bait meat and gets hooked sadly
Not getting cheated, thinking of Purandara Vittala, the Lord only.”

Purandara Dasa (1484–1564) Music composer

In this three examples are cited by Das cautioning against desire as quoted here [Narayan, M.K.V., Lyrical Musings on Indic Culture: A Sociology Study of Songs of Sant Purandara Dasa, http://books.google.com/books?id=-r7AxJp6NOYC&pg=PA79, 1 January 2010, Readworthy, 978-93-80009-31-5, 77]

Herb Caen photo

“A city is where you can sign a petition, boo the chief justice, fish off a pier, gaze at a hippopotamus, buy a flower at the corner, or get a good hamburger or a bad girl at 4 a. m. A city is where sirens make white streaks of sound in the sky and foghorns speak in dark grays. San Francisco is such a city.”

Herb Caen (1916–1997) American newspaper columnist

Caen, Herb. "A city is like San Francisco, not a faceless 'burb" http://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/article/A-city-is-like-San-Francisco-not-a-faceless-burb-3168435.php S.F. Gate, 2010.
Attributed

Anthony Scaramucci photo

“It's absolutely, completely and totally reprehensible. And as you know from the Italian expression: The fish stinks from the head down. But I can tell you two fish that don't stink, and that's me and the President.”

Anthony Scaramucci (1964) American financier and political figure

Quoted in " Scaramucci: 'If Reince wants to explain he's not a leaker, let him do that' http://www.cnn.com/2017/07/27/politics/anthony-scaramucci-reince-priebus/index.html" by Dan Merica, Elizabeth Landers and Eugene Scott, CNN (July 27, 2017).

Samuel R. Delany photo
Anbumani Ramadoss photo

“We will teach people to fish, rather than provide them fish. We will bring schemes that will create jobs.”

Anbumani Ramadoss (1968) Indian politician

Announcing his candidature for the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, as quoted in " Anbumani projects himself as CM candidates, seeks vote for change http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/coimbatore/Anbumani-projects-himself-as-CM-candidates-seeks-vote-for-change/articleshow/48047305.cms", The Times of India (13 July 2015)

Ralph Klein photo

“This all came about through the discovery of a single, isolated case of mad cow disease in one Alberta cow on May 20th. The farmer — I think he was a Louisiana fish farmer who knew nothing about cattle ranching. I guess any self-respecting rancher would have shot, shovelled and shut up, but he didn’t do that. Instead he took it to an abattoir and it was discovered after testing in both Winnipeg and the U. K. that this older cow had mad cow disease.”

Ralph Klein (1942–2013) Canadian politician

Source: Ralph Klein’s most memorable quotes http://globalnews.ca/news/439807/ralph-klein-was-a-sound-bite-gold-mine/
Source: As quoted in "Welcome to Ralph's World: 10 of Ralph Klein's most colourful quotes" http://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/welcome-to-ralph-s-world-10-of-ralph-klein-s-most-colourful-quotes-1.1216791, CTV News

James Jeffrey Roche photo

“The net of law is spread so wide,
No sinner from its sweep may hide.
Its meshes are so fine and strong
They take in every child of wrong.
O wondrous web of mystery!
Big fish alone escape from thee!”

James Jeffrey Roche (1847–1908) American journalist

"The Net Of Law", The V-A-S-E & Other Bric-a-Brac (published by Richard G. Badger Company, Boston, 1900)

Alice A. Bailey photo

“I disagree with Les. We always found good cunt at the Lyceum. Friendly cunt, clean cunt, spare cunt, jeans and knicker stuffed full of nice juicy hairy cunt, handfuls of cunt, palmful grabbing the cunt by the stem, or the root – infantile memories of cunt – backrow slides – slithery oily cunt, the cunt that breathes – the cunt that’s neatly wrapped in cotton, in silk, in nylon, that announces, that speaks or thrusts, that winks that’s squeezed in a triangle of furtive cloth backed by an arse that’s creamy, springy billowy cushiony tight, knicker lined, knicker skinned, circumscribed by flowers and cotton, by views, clinging knicker, juice ridden knicker, hot knicker, wet knicker, swelling vulva knicker, witty cunt, teeth smiling the eyes biting cunt, cultured cunt, culture vulture cunt, finger biting cunt, cunt that pours, cunt that spreads itself over your soft lips, that attacks, cunt that imagines – cunt you dream about, cunt you create as a Melba, a meringue with smooth sides – remembered from school boys’ smelly first cunt, first foreign cunt, amazing cunt – cunt that’s cruel. Cunt that protects itself and makes you want it even more cunt – cunt that smells of the air, of the earth, of bakeries, of old apples, of figs, of sweat of hands of sour yeast of fresh fish cunt. So – are we going Les? We might pick up a bit of crumpet.”

East (1975), Scene 17

Alan Keyes photo
Javad Alizadeh photo

“It is a strange paradox: Humans drown in the water, fish drown in the land.”

Javad Alizadeh (1953) cartoonist, journalist and humorist

Quoted in Humor & Caricature (July 1995), p. 3

Bashō Matsuo photo

“Spring passes
and the birds cry out—tears
in the eyes of fishes”

行く春や
鳥啼き魚の
目は泪
yuku haru ya
tori naki uo no
me wa namida
Matsuo Bashō, Narrow Road to the Interior and other writings, Boston, 2000, p. 4 (Translation: Sam Hamill)
Spring is passing by!
Birds are weeping and the eyes
Of fish fill with tears.
Matsuo Bashō, The Narrow Road to Oku, Tokyo, 1996, p. 23 (Translation: Donald Keene)
The passing of spring—
The birds weep and in the eyes
Of fish there are tears.
Donald Keene, Travelers of a Hundred Ages, New York, 1999, p. 310 (Translation: Donald Keene)
Oku no Hosomichi

Poul Anderson photo
Roy Hilligenn photo

“Never fish for praise; it is not worth the bait.”

James Burgh (1714–1775) British politician

The Dignity of Human Nature (1754)

Martin Heidegger photo
Dylan Moran photo
P.G. Wodehouse photo
Thomas Shadwell photo

“I am, out of the ladies' company, like a fish out of the water.”

Thomas Shadwell (1642–1692) English poet and playwright

Act III, sc. i.
The True Widow (1679)

Jim Hightower photo

“The opposite for courage is not cowardice, it is conformity. Even a dead fish can go with the flow.”

Jim Hightower (1943) Texas author and liberal political activist

Americans who tell the truth http://www.americanswhotellthetruth.org/pgs/portraits/Jim_Hightower.html, portrait.

Henry Adams photo
Stephen King photo
Bill McKibben photo
William Saroyan photo
Robert Jordan photo

“A flapping tongue can put you in the net instead of the fish.”

Robert Jordan (1948–2007) American writer

Siuan Sanche
(15 October 1993)

Kalle Lasn photo
Robert Francis Kennedy, Jr. photo
Mick Mulvaney photo
Viktor Schauberger photo
Paul Merson photo

“He's like a fish up a tree.”

Paul Merson (1968) English footballer and manager

Interview on Rileys' News http://www.rileys.co.uk/news/240.

David Brin photo

“One great mystery is why sexual reproduction became dominant for higher life-forms. Optimization theory says it should be otherwise.
Take a fish or lizard, ideally suited to her environment, with just the right internal chemistry, agility, camouflage—whatever it takes to be healthy, fecund, and successful in her world. Despite all this, she cannot pass on her perfect characteristics. After sex, her offspring will be jumbles, getting only half of their program from her and half their re-sorted genes somewhere else.
Sex inevitably ruins perfection. Parthenogenesis would seem to work better—at least theoretically. In simple, static environments, well-adapted lizards who produce duplicate daughters are known to have advantages over those using sex.
Yet, few complex animals are known to perform self-cloning. And those species exist in ancient, stable deserts, always in close company with a related sexual species.
Sex has flourished because environments are seldom static. Climate, competition, parasites—all make for shifting conditions. What was ideal in one generation may be fatal the next. With variability, your offspring get a fighting chance. Even in desperate times, one or more of them may have what it takes to meet new challenges and thrive.
Each style has its advantages, then. Cloning offers stability and preservation of excellence. Sex gives adaptability to changing times. In nature it is usually one or the other. Only lowly creatures such as aphids have the option of switching back and forth.”

Introduction to Chapter 8 (pp. 123-124)
Glory Season (1993)

Stephen Leacock photo

“It is to be observed that "angling" is the name given to fishing by people who can't fish.”

Stephen Leacock (1869–1944) writer and economist

When Fellers Go Fishing http://books.google.com/books?id=I-kCAAAAMAAJ&q=%22It+is+to+be+observed+that+angling+is+the+name+given+to+fishing+by+people+who+can't+fish%22&pg=PA147#v=onepage, The Leacock Roundabout, (1945)

Johan Jongkind photo

“Eight days ago I left Paris and here I am at Honfleur, the place to which I return, as always, with new pleasure. It is a little seaport where there are ten or twenty ships of all nations; not counting the fishing vessels of the same nations. I tell you that this is very interesting for my studies.”

Johan Jongkind (1819–1891) Dutch painter and printmaker regarded as a forerunner of Impressionism

In a letter, August 1865, describing his visit to Honfleur; as quoted by Moreau-Nélaton, in Jongkind, raconté par lui-même, 1918, p 88
Jongkind visited Honfleur for the third time in his life, in the Summer of 1865 - staying at Isabey's farm at Sainte Adresse

Mata Amritanandamayi photo
André Maurois photo
Bill Downs photo

“Here we go, surfing the Net again, something done by humans and very gullible fish.”

Tom Holt (1961) British writer

Only Human (1999)

Bill Engvall photo
Frederic Dan Huntington photo
Tanith Lee photo
Joseph Strutt photo
Eugene Field photo

“Oh, you who've been a-fishing will indorse me
when I say
That it always is the biggest fish you catch that
gets away!”

Our Biggest Fish http://books.google.com/books?id=odM-AAAAYAAJ&q=%22Oh+you+who've+been+a-fishing+will+indorse+me+when+I+say+That+it+always+is+the+biggest+fish+you+catch+that+gets+away%22&pg=PA184#v=onepage, st. 4
A Little Book of Western Verse (1889)

Chelsea Clinton photo
Maddox photo

“When I say this game is hard, I mean hard like nipples-on-a-blind-lesbian-in-a-fish-market hard.”

Maddox (1978) American internet writer

The Best Page in the Universe

Henry Miller photo
Halldór Laxness photo
Aron Ra photo
Gautama Buddha photo
Stephen Vincent Benét photo
Halldór Laxness photo

“You're a little honey and you're quite a dish.
Saturday night we're goin' fishin' to fish.”

Tex Atchison (1912–1982) American musician

Song We're Gonna Go Fishin'

Glen Cook photo

“Asking a storyteller not to embellish is like asking a fish to give up water.”

Source: Water Sleeps (1999), Chapter 32 (p. 118)

Sylvia Earle photo

“I want to get out in the water. I wanted to see fish, real fish, not fish in a laboratory.”

Sylvia Earle (1935) American oceanographer

Interview: Sylvia Earle Undersea Explorer http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/printmember/ear0int-1, Academy of Achievement, January 27, 1991

John Cheever photo
Radhanath Swami photo
Robert Jordan photo

“Once you decide to gut a fish, there’s no use waiting till it rots.”

Robert Jordan (1948–2007) American writer

Siuan Sanche
(15 October 1991)

Yoweri Museveni photo

“The island is in Kenya, the water is in Uganda… But the [Luos, a Kenyan ethnic group] are mad, they want to fish here but this is Uganda.”

Yoweri Museveni (1944) President of Uganda

On Migingo Island's ownership, as quoted in "Kenyan MPs' fury over island row" http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8048771.stm (13 May 2009), BBC News, United Kingdom: British Broadcasting Corporation
2000s

Ingrid Newkirk photo
Leonid Feodorov photo
Idi Amin photo

“His Excellency, President for Life, Field Marshal Al Hadji Doctor Idi Amin Dada, VC, DSO, MC, Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Seas and Conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in General and Uganda in Particular.”

Idi Amin (1925–2003) third president of Uganda

His full, formal title, which he conferred upon himself. Quoted inAfricana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience (1999) by Anthony Appiah and Henry Louis Gates
Attributed

Abraham Cowley photo
Rufus Wainwright photo

“And you will believe in love
And all that it's supposed to be
But just until the fish start to smell
And you're struck down by a hammer.”

Rufus Wainwright (1973) American-Canadian singer-songwriter and composer

April Fool's
Song lyrics, Rufus Wainwright (1998)

Ralph Waldo Emerson photo

“Do what we can, summer will have its flies: if we walk in the woods, we must feed mosquitos: if we go a-fishing, we must expect a wet coat.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

1840s, Essays: First Series (1841)

Thomas Fuller (writer) photo

“1544. Fish and Guests smell at three Days old.”

Thomas Fuller (writer) (1654–1734) British physician, preacher, and intellectual

Compare Poor Richard's Almanack (1736) : Fish & Visitors stink in 3 days.
Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727), Gnomologia (1732)

Willa Cather photo
K. Barry Sharpless photo
Paula Modersohn-Becker photo
Taliesin photo
Thomas Boston photo

“And then, all of a sudden, it was as though through those dark eyes an electrical circuit had been struck. She sat fascinated. Snake-and-bird fascinated. Afterwards she could not recall the details of what he had said. She remembered only that she had been absorbed, rapt, lost, for over ten minutes by the clock. She had perceived images conjured up from the dead past: a hand trailed in clear river water, deliciously cool, while the sun smiled and a shoal of tiny fishes darted between her fingers; the crisp flesh of a ripe apple straight from the tree, so juicy it ran down her chin; grass between her bare toes, the turf like springs so that she seemed not to bear the whole of her weight on her soles but to be floating, dreamlike, in slow motion, instantly transported to the moon; the western sky painted with vast heart-tearing slapdash streaks of red below the bright steel-blue of clouds, and stars coming snap-snap into view against the eastern dark; wind gentle in her hair and on her cheeks, bearing flower perfumes, dusting her with petals; snow cold to the palm as it was shaped into a ball; laughter echoing from a dark lane where only lovers walked, not thieves and muggers; butter like an ingot of soft gold; ocean spray sharp and clean as the edge of an axe; with the same sense of safe, provided rightly used; round pebbles polychrome beside a pool; rain to which a thirsty mouth could open, distilling the taste of a continent of air... And under, and through, and in, and around all this, a conviction: “Something can be done to get that back!”
She was crying. Small tears like ants had itched their paths down her cheeks. She said, when she realized he had fallen silent, “But I never knew that! None of it! I was born and raised right here in New York!””

”But don’t you think you should have known it?” Austin Train inquired gently.
September “MINE ENEMIES ARE DELIVERED INTO MY HAND”
The Sheep Look Up (1972)

Charlie Sheen photo

“I don't believe in rock bottom. Rock bottom is like a fishing term.”

Charlie Sheen (1965) American film and television actor

On TMZ, February 28 2011

John Green photo
Hyman George Rickover photo
Elvis Costello photo

“Theres so many fish in the sea
That only rise up in the sweat and smoke like mercury”

Elvis Costello (1954) English singer-songwriter

Accidents Will Happen
Song lyrics, Armed Forces (1979)

Thomas Gray photo

“What female heart can gold despise?
What cat's averse to fish?”

Thomas Gray (1716–1771) English poet, historian

St. 4
On the Death of a Favourite Cat http://www.thomasgray.org/cgi-bin/display.cgi?text=odfc (1747)

Bill Mollison photo
Plutarch photo

“Anaximander says that men were first produced in fishes, and when they were grown up and able to help themselves were thrown up, and so lived upon the land.”

Plutarch (46–127) ancient Greek historian and philosopher

Symposiacs, book viii. Question viii
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Kage Baker photo
Haruki Murakami photo
Rowland Hill (preacher) photo
Paula Modersohn-Becker photo
Amit Ray photo

“Some fish love to swim upstream. Some people love to overcome challenges.”

Amit Ray (1960) Indian author

Walking the Path of Compassion (2015)

Oliver Wendell Holmes photo

“I firmly believe that if the whole materia medica, as now used, could be sunk to the bottom of the sea, it would be better for mankind-and all the worse for the fishes.”

Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809–1894) Poet, essayist, physician

Part of a statement at the annual meeting of the Massachusetts Medical Society (30 May 1860), generally quoted in a simplified form omitting Holmes's exceptions including opium and anaesthetics.
Throw out opium, which the Creator himself seems to prescribe, for we often see the scarlet poppy growing in the cornfields, as if it were foreseen that wherever there is hunger to be fed there must also be a pain to be soothed; throw out a few specifics which our art did not discover, and it is hardly needed to apply; throw out wine, which is a food, and the vapors which produce the miracle of anaesthesia, and I firmly believe that if the whole materia medica [medical drugs], as now used, could be sunk to the bottom of the sea, it would be all the better for mankind,—and all the worse for the fishes.
As quoted in a review of Currents and Counter-currents in Medical Science (1860) in The American Journal of the Medical Sciences, Vol. 40 (1860), p. 467 http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=zHdDAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA467
Paraphrased variant: If all the medicine in the world were thrown into the sea, it would be bad for the fish and good for humanity.

Katharine Chang photo

“We don't give them fish. However, we teach them fishing. In that way throughout your life you always have fish to eat. That is Taiwan's way in our joint co-operation in offering assistance to Taiwan's diplomatic allies in the Pacific. All these countries value their relationship with us very much.”

Katharine Chang (1953) Taiwanese diplomat

Katharine Chang (2013) cited in " Taiwan rejects chequebook diplomacy tag over Pacific aid http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-09-02/an-taiwan-reject-chequebook-diplomacy-tag/4928456" on ABC, 2 September 2013

Bill Bryson photo
Jim Hightower photo

“If you do not speak up when it matters, when would it matter that you speak? The opposite of courage is conformity. Even a dead fish can go with the flow.”

Jim Hightower (1943) Texas author and liberal political activist

[A celebration of agitation, Arizona Daily Star, 2002-07-26]

Étienne de La Boétie photo