Quotes about flat (340 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

“That rifle on the wall of the labourer's cottage or working class flat is the symbol of democracy. It is our job to see that it stays there.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

"Don't Let Colonel Blimp Ruin the Home Guard" article for the Evening Standard, 8 January 1941
Context: Even as it stands, the Home Guard could only exist in a country where men feel themselves free. The totalitarian states can do great things, but there is one thing they cannot do: they cannot give the factory-worker a rifle and tell him to take it home and keep it in his bedroom. THAT RIFLE HANGING ON THE WALL OF THE WORKING-CLASS FLAT OR LABOURER'S COTTAGE, IS THE SYMBOL OF DEMOCRACY. IT IS OUR JOB TO SEE THAT IT STAYS THERE.

Democracy

“The silence depressed me. It wasn't the silence of silence. It was my own silence. I knew perfectly well the cars were making a noise, and the people in them and behind the lit windows of the buildings were making a noise, and the river was making a noise, but I couldn't hear a thing. The city hung in my window, flat as a poster, glittering and blinking, but it might just as well not have been there at all, for the good it did me.”

Sylvia Plath book The Bell Jar

Source: The Bell Jar (1963), Ch. 2

People , Cars , Silence

“The two women were alone in the London flat.
"The point is," said Anna, as her friend came back from the telephone on the landing, "the point is, that as far as I can see, everything's cracking up."”

Doris Lessing book The Golden Notebook

First lines, "Free Women: 1"
The Golden Notebook (1962)

Women

“I will drive flat out all the time … I love racing.”

Gilles Villeneuve (1950–1982) Canadian racecar driver

Henry, pg. 25

Love , Time

“If we spend all our time gazing at the wonders ahead without remembering where we're standing right now, we're going to trip and fall flat on our face, over and over agaain.”

Greg Egan (1961) Australian science fiction writer and former computer programmer

Source: Fiction, Zendegi (2010), Ch. 1

Time

“The Church says that the Earth is flat, but I know that it is round. For I have seen the shadow of the earth on the moon and I have more faith in the Shadow than in the Church.”

Ferdinand Magellan (1480–1521) Portuguese explorer

This quotation is often found on the internet attributed to Magellan, but never with a source, and no English occurrence prior to its use by Robert Green Ingersoll in his essay "Individuality" http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/robert_ingersoll/individuality.html (1873) has been located. Thus, it it most likely spurious. In that essay Ingersoll states:
It is a blessed thing that in every age some one has had individuality enough and courage enough to stand by his own convictions, — some one who had the grandeur to say his say. I believe it was Magellan who said, "The church says the earth is flat; but I have seen its shadow on the moon, and I have more confidence even in a shadow than in the church." On the prow of his ship were disobedience, defiance, scorn, and success.
Disputed
Variant: The Church says that the Earth is Flat, but I know that it is Round. For I have seen its Shadow on the Moon and I have more Faith in a Shadow than in the Church.
Source: As quoted in Oxford Academic (25 July 2013) http://oupacademic.tumblr.com/post/56463634957/misquotation-i-have-seen-the-shadow-of-the-earth

Faith

“Cause sometimes you feel tired, feel weak, and when you feel weak, you feel like you wanna just give up. But you gotta search within you, you gotta find that inner strength and just pull that shit out of you and get that motivation to not give up and not be a quitter, no matter how bad you wanna just fall flat on your face and collapse.”

Eminem (1972) American rapper and actor

"Till I Collapse"
2000s, The Eminem Show (2002)

Motivation , Bad luck , Feeling , Search

“Grown men, he told himself, in flat contradiction of centuries of accumulated evidence about the way grown men behave, do not behave like this.”

Douglas Adams book So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish

Source: So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish

Men , Way

““Some of us get dipped in flat, some in satin, some in gloss….” He turned to me. “But every once in a while you find someone who's iridescent, and when you do, nothing will ever compare.””

Wendelin Van Draanen Flipped

Source: Flipped (2001)

“I felt dull and flat and full of shattered visions.”

Sylvia Plath book The Bell Jar

Source: The Bell Jar

“Sex is a doorway to something so powerful and mystical, but movies usually depict it in a completely flat way.”

David Lynch (1946) American filmmaker, television director, visual artist, musician and occasional actor

Sex , Way

“What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise.”

Stephen Hawking book A Briefer History of Time

Source: A Briefer History of Time

World , Support

“You spend too much time alone, too much time watching television, and too little time cultivating the inner man. You live in a squalid little flat in what is referred to as a no-go zone from which your friends, of whom you see less and less, have all fled for the suburbs long ago with wives and sprogs in tow. You are exceedingly unlucky in love, having invested years in a romantic relationship which, as you know only too well, is neither romantic nor much of a relationship. In short, you have all the social prospects of a garden gnome.”

Stephen R. Lawhead (1950) American writer

Source: The Skin Map (2010), p. 12

Love , Time

“Any Organized social group is always a stratified social body. There has not been and does not exist any permanent social group which is "flat" and in which all members are equal.”

Pitirim Sorokin (1889–1968) American sociologist

Pitirim Sorokin (1927) Social Mobility, p. 12

“Although most of us conduct our lives as omnivores, in that we eat flesh as well as vegetables and fruits, human beings have characteristics of herbivores, not carnivores. The appendages of carnivores are claws; those of herbivores are hands or hooves. The teeth of carnivores are sharp; those of herbivores are mainly flat (for grinding). The intestinal tract of carnivores is short (3 times body length); that of herbivores, long (12 times body length). Body cooling of carnivores is done by panting; herbivores, by sweating. Carnivores drink fluids by lapping; herbivores, by sipping. Carnivores produce their own vitamin C, whereas herbivores obtain it from their diet. Thus, humans have characteristics of herbivores, not carnivores.”

William C. Roberts (1932) American physician

Twenty questions on atherosclerosis

Drink , Time

“Through centuries of centuries, fire and water face each other; the fire, upright, buoyant and leaping; the water flat, creeping, gliding, widening its lines and its surface. When they touch, is it the water which hisses and roars, or is it the fire?”

Henri Barbusse (1873–1935) French novelist

Light (1919), Ch. XVI - De Profundis Clamavi

Water

“Tis surprising to see how rapidly a panic will sometimes run through a country. All nations and ages have been subject to them. Britain has trembled like an ague at the report of a French fleet of flat-bottomed boats; and in the fourteenth [sic (actually the fifteenth)] century the whole English army, after ravaging the kingdom of France, was driven back like men petrified with fear; and this brave exploit was performed by a few broken forces collected and headed by a woman, Joan of Arc. Would that heaven might inspire some Jersey maid to spirit up her countrymen, and save her fair fellow sufferers from ravage and ravishment! Yet panics, in some cases, have their uses; they produce as much good as hurt. Their duration is always short; the mind soon grows through them, and acquires a firmer habit than before. But their peculiar advantage is, that they are the touchstones of sincerity and hypocrisy, and bring things and men to light, which might otherwise have lain forever undiscovered. In fact, they have the same effect on secret traitors, which an imaginary apparition would have upon a private murderer. They sift out the hidden thoughts of man, and hold them up in public to the world. Many a disguised Tory has lately shown his head, that shall penitentially solemnize with curses the day on which Howe arrived upon the Delaware.”

Thomas Paine (1737–1809) English and American political activist

The Crisis No. I.
1770s, The American Crisis (1776–1783)

Men , Secret , Age , World

“Belafonte sent his people to pick me up and I went back and shook his hand, then went back to my little flat. I was very happy to have met a president of the United States - little me!”

Miriam Makeba (1932–2008) South African singer and civil rights activist

Interview with Robin Denselow (May 2008)
Source: Denselow, Robin, http://arts.guardian.co.uk/filmandmusic/story/0,,2280144,00.html, Robin Denselow talks to African superstar and activist Miriam Makeba, The Guardian, 15, London, 16 May 2008, 18 November 2010

People , Happiness

“Now that's a thing I WILL NOT STAND,
And so I tell you flat.”

Lewis Carroll (1832–1898) English writer, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer

Canto 3
Phantasmagoria (1869)

“It is a serious question among them whether they [Africans] are descended from monkeys or whether the monkeys come from them. Our wise men have said that man was created in the image of God. Now here is a lovely image of the Divine Maker: a flat and black nose with little or hardly any intelligence. A time will doubtless come when these animals will know how to cultivate the land well, beautify their houses and gardens, and know the paths of the stars: one needs time for everything.”

Voltaire (1694–1778) French writer, historian, and philosopher

C’est une grande question parmi eux s’ils [les africains] sont descendus des singes ou si les singes sont venus d’eux. Nos sages ont dit que l’homme est l’image de Dieu: voilà une plaisante image de l’Être éternel qu’un nez noir épaté, avec peu ou point d’intelligence! Un temps viendra, sans doute, où ces animaux sauront bien cultiver la terre, l’embellir par des maisons et par des jardins, et connaître la route des astres il faut du temps pour tout.
Les Lettres d'Amabed (1769): Septième Lettre d'Amabed http://www.voltaire-integral.com/Html/21/10AMABED.html
Citas

Love , Men , God , Star

“It is not altogether true that persuasion is one thing and force is another. Many forms of persuasion – even many of which everybody approves – are really a kind of force. Consider what we do to our children. We do not say to them: "Some people think the earth is round, and others think it is flat; when you grow up, you can, if you like, examine the evidence and form your own conclusion." Instead of this we say: "The earth is round."”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

By the time our children are old enough to examine the evidence, our propaganda has closed their minds.
Source: 1930s, Power: A New Social Analysis (1938), Ch. 17: The Ethics of Power

Children , People , Thinking , Time

“And I rejoiced to think that I has found in Anaxagoras a teacher of the causes of existence such as I desired, and I imagined that he would tell me first whether the earth is flat or round; and then he would further explain that this position was the best, and I should be satisfied… and not want any other sort of cause. And I thought that I would then go and ask him about the sun and moon and stars, and he would explain to me their comparative swiftness, and their returnings and various states, and how their several affections, active and passive, were all for the best. For I could not imagine that when he spoke of mind as the disposer of them, he would give any other account of their being as they are, except that this was best; and I thought when he had explained to me in detail the cause of each and the cause of all, he would go on to explain to me what was best for me and what was best for all. …I seized the books and read them as fast as I could in my eagerness to know the better and the worse.”

Socrates (-470–-399 BC) classical Greek Athenian philosopher

Plato, Phaedo

Books , Imagination , Star , Thinking

“Politics was good a hundred years ago. Today, politicians have no ability to solve any problems because they are not students of behavior. They are not students of agriculture, oceanography, they know nothing about the factors that operate the world. So, they say things that people like to hear. And that gets them elected. Now scientists on the other hand are not concerned with public approval. What they do, even if everybody on earth believe the earth was flat, they would say: 'You're wrong, this is the evidence we have to support the fact that the earth is round' but they don't say: 'it's a little round and a little flat' - that's politicians.”

Jacque Fresco (1916–2017) American futurist and self-described social engineer

Support , People , Problem , World

“Life is like topography, Hobbes. There are summits of happiness and success, flat stretches of boring routine and valleys of frustration and failure.”

Bill Watterson (1958) American comic artist

Life , Failure , Success , Happiness

“To dwellers in a wood almost every species of tree has its voice as well as its feature. At the passing of the breeze the fir-trees sob and moan no less distinctly than they rock; the holly whistles as it battles with itself; the ash hisses amid its quiverings; the beech rustles while its flat boughs rise and fall.”

Thomas Hardy Under the Greenwood Tree

Source: Under the Greenwood Tree (1872), ch. 1

Tree

“Always Wear Flats and Have Your Friends Sleep Over: A Step-by-Step How-To Guide for Avoiding Getting Murdered”

Mindy Kaling book Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?

Source: Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?

Sleep

“All the hundreds of millions of people who, in their time, believed the Earth was flat never succeeded in unrounding it by an inch.”

Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, known for his works of science fiction …

People , Time

“You told us to leave you in the desert, because you planned to start a new life as cactus," Catarina said, her voice flat. "Then you conjured up tiny needles and threw them at us. With pinpoint accuracy.”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

Source: What Really Happened in Peru

Life

“I can't fight.
I was once run over by a car with a flat tire, being pushed by two guys.”

Woody Allen (1935) American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, author, playwright, and musician

Cars , Guy , Fight

“At least I thought it was a wall. It sure felt like one. It was hard. It was flat. It stretched out on either side of me. You know… wall.”

D.J. MacHale The Quillan Games

Source: The Quillan Games

“It's a long way from not having enough serotonin to thinking the world is "stale, flat and unprofitable"; even further to writing a play about a man driven by that thought.”

Susanna Kaysen book Girl, Interrupted

Source: Girl, Interrupted

World , Way , Thinking

“I really can't believe what a state the Pyramids are in. I thought they had flat rendered sides, but when you get up close, you see how they are just giant boulders balanced on top of each other, like a massive game of Jenga that has got out of hand.”

Karl Pilkington (1972) English television personality, social commentator, actor, author and former radio producer

Source: An Idiot Abroad: The Travel Diaries of Karl Pilkington

Game

“Flat muscled and honey coloured. Sea secrets in his eyes. A silver raindrop in his ear.”

Arundhati Roy book The God of Small Things

Source: The God of Small Things

Secret , Sea

“Like a cartoon world, where the figures are flat and outlined in black, jerking through some kind of goofy story that might be real funny if it weren't for the cartoon figures being real guys…”

Ken Kesey book One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Source: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

World , Jerk , Guy

“Tis a strange thing, that the only friends I have I found in the same way, lying flat in the meadows, crying as if their hearts would break.”

Elizabeth George Speare book The Witch of Blackbird Pond

Source: The Witch of Blackbird Pond

Way , Lying , Heart , Cry

“I never wear flats. My shoes are so high that sometimes when I step out of them, people look around in confusion and ask, "Where'd she go?" and I have to say, "I'm down here.”

Marian Keyes (1963) Irish writer

People , Shoe

“you roll me out flat”

D.H. Lawrence book Lady Chatterley's Lover

Lady Chatterley's Lover

“I cannot write to anyone outside myself--if I tried, it would be a horrible story, flat and lifeless. I write to myself. That's the only person I'm trying to please.”

Shannon Hale (1974) American fantasy novelist

Personality

“Only in books the flat and final happens,
Only in dreams we meet and interlock….”

Philip Larkin (1922–1985) English poet, novelist, jazz critic and librarian

Books , Dreams

“I had the brief notion that his heart, pressed flat as a flower, crimson and thin as tissue paper, lay in this file. It was a very thin one.”

Angela Carter (1940–1992) English novelist

Source: The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories

Flowers , Heart

“Men exist because a vibrator can't fix a flat tire. On second thought, I should just buy a AAA card…”

Jill Shalvis (1963) American writer

Source: Get A Clue

Men

“Nico jumped into the crowd, kicking groins, smacking faces with the flat of his blade, bashing helmets with his pommel. In ten seconds, the Romans all lay groaning and dazed on the ground.”

Rick Riordan book The Blood of Olympus

Source: The Blood of Olympus

“Life's not linear at all. It happens in lighting flashes. So fast you don't see those lay-you-out cold moments coming at you until you're Wile E. Coyote, steamrolled flat as a pancake by the Road Runner, victim of your own elaborate schemes.”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: Dreamfever

Life , Light

“My heart skipped a beat and then flat-out tripped over itself and fell on its face. Then my heart stood up, brushed itself off, took a deep breath and announced: "I want a spiritual teacher.”

Elizabeth Gilbert book Eat, Pray, Love

Source: Eat, Pray, Love

Teachers , Heart

“Rose doesn’t like the flat country, but I always did – flat country seems to give the sky such a chance.”

Dodie Smith book I Capture the Castle

Source: I Capture the Castle

Chance , Country

“Mary-Lynnette had an inexplicable impulse to knock Ash flat and fall down on top of him. She'd never felt that for any boy before.”

L.J. Smith (1965) American author

Source: Night World, No. 1

Boy

“It’s funny," I said. "It’s very funny. And it’s a lot of fun, too, to be in love."

"Do you think so?" her eyes looked flat again.

"I don’t mean fun that way. In a way it’s an enjoyable feeling."

"No," she said. "I think it’s hell on earth.”

Ernest Hemingway book The Sun Also Rises

Source: The Sun Also Rises

Love , Way , Feeling , Hell

“There are parts of Texas where a fly lives ten thousand years and a man can't die soon enough. Time gets strange there from too much sky, too many miles from crack to crease in the flat surface of the land.”

Katherine Dunn book Geek Love

Source: Geek Love

Time , Parting , Flying

“And he whose soul is flat -- the sky
Will cave in on him by and by.”

Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892–1950) American poet

Source: Renascence and Other Poems

Soul

“parenting isn't a noun but a verb--an ongoing process instead of an accomplishment. And that no matter how many years you put into the job, the learning curve is, well, fairly flat.”

Jodi Picoult book House Rules

Source: House Rules

Parent , Learning

“It’s a lifelong failing: she has never been prepared. But how can you have a sense of wonder if you’re prepared for everything? Prepared for the sunset. Prepared for the moonrise. Prepared for the ice storm. What a flat existence that would be.”

Margaret Atwood book Stone Mattress: Nine Tales

Source: Stone Mattress: Nine Tales

Sense

“We often cause ourselves suffering by wanting only to live in a world of valleys, a world without struggle and difficulty, a world that is flat, plain, consistent.”

Bell Hooks (1952) American author, feminist, and social activist

Source: Belonging: A Culture of Place

World , Suffering

“Odd to think that the piece of you I know best is already dead. The cells on the surface of your skin are thin and flat without the blood vessels or nerve endings. Dead cells, thickest on the palms of your hands and the soles of your feet.”

Jeanette Winterson (1959) English writer

Source: Written on the Body

Thinking , Dead

“And when he came to, he was flat on his back on the beach in the freezing sand, and it was raining out of a low sky, and the tide was way out.”

David Foster Wallace book Infinite Jest

Source: Infinite Jest

Way

“Right, because I'm flat-chesteda midget.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Bones

Source: City of Bones

“In her way, she was a hard one. Faith in any sort of natural justice was nothing but a night light; she knew of that. Whatever she did, she would end the same way with everyone does: flat on her back with a tube in her nose, wondering, "Is this all?”

Thomas Harris Red Dragon

Source: Red Dragon

Faith , Justice , Way , Nature

“Other people sound flat to my ear; their words just hang in the air. But when my mother says something, the ends curl.”

Augusten Burroughs book Running with Scissors

Source: Running with Scissors

People

“Genius is fine for the ignition spark, but to get there someone has to see that the radiator doesn't leak and no tire is flat.”

Rex Stout book The Doorbell Rang

Source: The Doorbell Rang

“Last Sunday we made a bicycle tour of 80 km. Through the North along the edge of the province [Groningen].... On such a day I get again a lot of impressions which will reappear in altered forms in due time. Beautiful landscapes, nice small roads, beautiful farms, meadows with horses and cattle, birds, water and a lot of sunshine. Mills and towers and trees are breaking the lines of the flat land..”

Hendrik Werkman (1882–1945) Dutch artist

version in original Dutch (origineel citaat van Hendrik Werkman, in het Nederlands): Zondag maakten we een fietstocht van 80 km. Door het Noorden langs de rand van de provincie [Groningen].. .Op zoo’n dag doe ik weer heel wat indrukken op die te gelegener tijd omgewerkt weer tevoorschijn komen. Mooie landschappen, aardige weggetjes, prachtige boerderijen, weiden met paarden en vee, vogels, water en zonneschijn volop. Molens en torens en boomen breken de lijnen van het vlakke land..
In a letter to Henkels, 12 July 1944; as cited in H. N. Werkman - Leven & Werk - 1882-1945, ed. A. de Vries, J. van der Spek, D. Sijens, M. Jansen; WBooks, Groninger Museum / Stichting Werkman, 2015 (transl: Fons Heijnsbroek), p. 18
1940's

Beauty , Bird , Tree , Water

“We live in a three-dimensional world, and our brains are organized in three dimensions, so we might as well compute in three dimensions. …Right now, chips, even though they're very dense, are flat.”

Ray Kurzweil (1948) Author, scientist, inventor, and futurist

"The Singularity," The New Humanists: Science at the Edge (2003)

World

“In boxing, the style has changed over the years from crouching to being more and more vertical. Also people used to jump around, but the modern boxer like Tyson just moves in flat footed to demolish his opponent in a scientific way. In Wing Chun a person does not bob as in boxing. When two beginners fight it doesn't matter how they fight, but against professionals it makes a difference. Even a smaller [person] is better off to keep the body vertical and step back, then to bob and weave. This is because the hand can move faster than the body. Boxing is still like a game because there are rules for how you can hit and how you can't hit. If you attack someone and they bend their head, then in Wing Chun you can still hit them with your hand even without pulling your hand back.”

Wong Shun Leung (1935–1997) martial artist

Boxing
Source: Comments From Wong Shun Leung and Tsui Shan Ting, by Ray Van Raamsdonk http://www.springtimesong.com/wcqanda.htm

People , Way , Game , Change

“If that impression does not remain on this intrepid and powerful people, into whose veins all nations pour their mingling blood, it will be our immense calamity. Public action, without it, will lose the dignity of consecration. Eloquence, without it, will miss what is loftiest, will give place to a careless and pulseless disquisition, or fall to the flatness of political slang. Life, without it, will lose its sacred and mystic charm. Society, without it, will fail of inspirations, and be drowned in an animalism whose rising tides will keep pace with its wealth.”

Richard Salter Storrs (1821–1900) American Congregational clergyman

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 23.

Life , People , Animals , Wealth

“Some stories, she'd say, the more you tell them, the faster you use them up. Those kind, the drama burns off, and every version, they sound more silly and flat. The other kind of story, it uses you up. The more you tell it, the stronger it gets. Those kind of stories only remind you how stupid you were. Are. Will always be.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Haunted

Haunted (2005)

Stupidity

“The positive energy theorem was for half a century or more an open challenge to relativists. Many attempts were made to prove flat spacetime was stable, but none completely succeeded completely until a majestic tour de force of geometric reasoning of Shoen and Yau. This was followed two years later by a proof of Witten, which was as elegant as it was short. It is this proof of Witten’s that we take as a template here for the quantum theory.”

Lee Smolin (1955) American cosmologist

"Positive energy in quantum gravity" arXiv (Jun 10, 2014)

“I understand why other people would want to stay in B&Bs. They're pretty. They're personal. They're “quaint,” a polite way of saying “no TV.” They are “romantic,” i. e., every object large enough for a flower to be printed on it is going to have a flower printed on it. They're “cozy,” meaning that a guest has to keep her belongings on the floor because every conceivable flat surface is covered in knickknacks, except for the one knickknack she longs for, a remote control.”

Sarah Vowell book Assassination Vacation

Source: Assassination Vacation (2005), p. 2

People , Way , Flowers , Understanding

“The essence of modernism lies in the use of the characteristic methods of a discipline to criticize the discipline itself, not in order to subvert it but in order to entrench it more firmly in its area of competence. Modernism used art to call attention to art. The limitations that constitute the medium of painting - the flat surface, the shape of the support, the properties of the pigment - came to be regarded as positive factors, and were acknowledged openly.”

Clement Greenberg (1909–1994) American writer and artist

1960s, Modernist Painting (1960)

Art , Support , Painting

“Like Fichte, Brentano had one simple and powerful insight. He declared: there is a basic difference between a mental and physical act. if I slip on the snow and fall flat on my back, that is an unintentional physical act. But there is no such thing as an unintentional mental act. When I think, I have to think about something; I have to focus my mind on it. You could compare all mental acts (thinking, willing, loving, trying to remember something) to a searchlight beam stabbing into the darkness. There is an element of will, of 'intentionality,' in all mental activity. So it is quite inaccurate to compare mental activity to chemistry, or to a kind of drifting, like leaves on a stream. It flows purposefully or not at all.”

Colin Wilson (1931–2013) author

Source: Rudolf Steiner: The Man and His Vision (1985), p. 35

Love , Thinking

“But there is a scary side to acting for me, because I have always wanted to develop rather than plateau out. When people come to me and tell me I was terrific in this or that, I do not want to fall flat on my face the next time. But, tough, I have fallen flat before. You just get up and dust yourself off.”

Geoffrey Rush (1951) Australian actor and film producer

"Geoffrey Rush interview" http://www.virgin.net/movies/interviews/geoffreyrush2.html.

People , Time

“You might as well fall flat on your face as lean over too far backward.”

James Thurber (1894–1961) American cartoonist, author, journalist, playwright

"The Bear Who Let It Alone", The New Yorker (29 April 1939); Fables for Our Time & Famous Poems Illustrated (1940)
From Fables for Our Time and Further Fables for Our Time

“Why is space-time doomed? There are many reasons, among which: In string theory we can change the dimension of space-time by changing the strength of the string force. Thus, the so-called II-A string theory, which semi-classically describes closed strings moving in ten-dimensional flat space for very weak coupling is dual for strong coupling to a theory, called M-theory, that at low energies is described by eleven-dimensional supergravity. By increasing the string coupling we can grow an extra dimension. How can the spatial continuum be fundamental if the number of spatial dimensions can be so changed?”

David Gross (1941) American particle physicist and string theorist

"Einstein and the Search for Unification", p. 11 https://books.google.com/books?id=rEaUIxukvy4C&pg=PA11, in The legacy of Albert Einstein: a collection of essays in celebration of the year of physics (2007)

Strong , Change , Time

“Is there something you lack
When I'm flat on my back
Is there something that I can do for you?”

Justine Frischmann (1969) English musician

"Stutter", from Elastica (1995)
Lyrics

“May the Gods, if they did not die of boredom, never give you one of those flat kingdoms to govern; may lead you through mountain paths; may they give you for a companion a good Andalusian mule with eyes like wells, a brow like an anvil, and who stops dead in his tracks because he sees the shadow his ears make on the road in front of him.”

Alain (1868–1951) French philosopher

The King is Bored
Alain On Happiness (1928)

God , Mountain , Dead

“We don't need a flat tax, but a flattening tax, to truly level the playing field.”

Jello Biafra (1958) singer and activist

Address to the US Green Party

“Well I'm starvin' and freezin'
In this measly old bed
(Then I'll crawl across the salt flats
To stroke your sweet head)
Come across the desert,
with no shoes on?
(I love you truly,
or I love no-one)”

Joanna Newsom (1982) American musician

Only Skin
Ys (2006)

Love , Shoe

“And this is where it went. In places all around the eastern Mediterranean the sea is separated from the mainland by strips of flat marshy land like this. Made up of the soil that once clothed the hills beyond. All this was deposited during the last 2000 years. This is the marsh that now separates the sea from the city of Ephesus. These ruined buildings mark the edge of the quay where once merchant ships lay moored. As the harbour died, so did the trade upon which the city's wealth was based, and so, well, ultimately did Ephesus itself. What was once one of the most splendid cities in the Roman Empire fell into decay and was abandoned.”

David Attenborough (1926) British broadcaster and naturalist

50 min 10 sec
The First Eden (1987)

Sea , Clothes , Wealth

“Even more than religious belief, acceptance or denial of evolution is a test of character. For if you deny evolution is true, you are either pandering to the public even though you know better (showing that you’re ambitious but lack character), are truly ignorant of the facts (which means you can’t be trusted to be informed about crucial issues), or are a flat-out creationist”

Jerry Coyne (1949) American biologist

showing that you’re batshit crazy
" Lying and/or ignorant Republican candidates still refuse to accept evolution https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2015/05/07/lying-andor-ignorant-republican-candidates-still-refuse-to-accept-evolution/" May 7, 2015

“I think that for me any picture that works even if it is in the guise of pure color application, if it works, involved drawing. That is falt space on a flat surface. And for me, and I always say this, whether it's a Titian or a [Kenneth] Noland, the ones that come off work in that depth and the color perhaps it is divine and the thing that makes it work, but it is line color. If it doesn't work then it's decorative or dead or just applied colors on a surface. That's what wallpaper is. And that's the difference between the striped wallpaper and a great Noland.”

Helen Frankenthaler (1928–2011) American artist

quote about drawing in a picture
1960s, Interview with Barbara Rose', Archives - American Art, 1968

Color , Thinking , Drawing , Dead

“I remember distinctly, during the summer of 1901, at Les Andelys-on-Seine, that upon two days and for two hours in the afternoons of those days all Nature, animate and inanimate, bore the aspect of things seen under a strong glare of violet light, exactly as though a tinted glass were suspended between the sun's rays and the earth. The effect was most curious and disturbing. Nature appears to be toneless and flat. Highlights and shadows are attenuated almost to extinction, whilst in this dull purple glare the heat became more intense than ever, possibly through lack of wind, for all was still.”

Wynford Dewhurst (1864–1941) British artist

Wynford Dewhurst, 'What is Impressionism?' in Contemporary Review. vol. XCIX, 1911, p. 300.

Nature , Light , Strong , Appearance

“Can a geology teacher blithely tell his students that the earth is flat, or a European history professor that the Holocaust didn’t happen? That’s not academic freedom, but dereliction of duty.”

Jerry Coyne (1949) American biologist

" More creationism sneaks into public schools http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2013/04/29/more-creationism-sneaks-into-public-schools/" April 29, 2013

History , Freedom , Teachers

“The existing and long-standing use of the word 'evolution' in our state's textbooks has not adversely affected Georgians' belief in the omnipotence of God as creator of the universe, There can be no incompatibility between Christian faith and proven facts concerning geology, biology, and astronomy. There is no need to teach that stars can fall out of the sky and land on a flat Earth in order to defend our religious faith.”

Jimmy Carter (1924) American politician, 39th president of the United States (in office from 1977 to 1981)

Carter slams Georgia's 'evolution' proposal, 30 January, 2004 http://edition.cnn.com/2004/EDUCATION/01/30/georgia.evolution/
Post-Presidency

God , Faith , Star , Universe

“It was, I saw, a flat to get out of rather than one to stay in. It was a machine for eating and sleeping in, a suitable dwelling place for a working woman, whose main interest is in her work. I disliked this version of myself, which seemed to negate my other activities, reduced them to after-hours amusements, whereas I had always thought them pretty central. These mute, white walls had been silent witnesses to many encounters; nevertheless, they withheld comment, and their very withholding struck me as unfriendly. Unheimlich was the word which came to mind when I stood on the threshold of my bedroom.”

Anita Brookner (1928–2016) British novelist and art historian.

A Friend From England (1987)

Sleep

“I rise today to commemorate one of the most fateful days in the history of the State of Colorado, the day the Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Plant outside of Boulder nearly became America's own Chernobyl, some 30 years before that terrible accident in the Ukraine.”

Jared Polis (1975) American entrepreneur, philanthropist, and US Representative

Jared Polis, "Commemorating the Rocky Flats 1969 Fire", Congressional Record, May 12, 2009.

Fate , History

“In response to Adarsh Housing Society incident - "There were flats reserved for the scheduled [lower] castes which we applied for and were allotted one of them. We paid the cost of the flat in full. But now it seems we have been cheated. They are neither giving [us] the flat nor any sign of returning our money."”

Uttam Khobragade (1951) bureaucrat

India’s Devyani Khobragade advocated for women’s rights, accused in nanny scandal http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/indias-devyani-khobragade-advocated-for-womens-rights-but-underpaid-her-nanny/2013/12/20/13e23688-69a2-11e3-8b5b-a77187b716a3_story.html, The Washington Post, 20 December 2013

Money , Housing , Cheating

“What's happening is that each year our old flat earth of conventional reason becomes less and less adequate to handle the experiences we have and this is creating widespread feelings of topsy-turviness. As a result we're getting more and more people in irrational areas of thought—occultism, mysticism, drug changes and the like—because they feel the inadequacy of classical reason to handle what they know are real experiences.”

Robert M. Pirsig book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Source: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (1974), Ch. 14

People , Feeling , Change

“I didn't care as an ex-ballet dancer wrote and told me she had seen the production and fallen in love with my legs. She said that in other circumstances she could have lived happily with my legs but that she only had a small flat in Holland Park.”

Tom Baker (1934) English actor

Love

“The world there was the flat world of the ancients; to the east, a cornfield that stretched to daybreak; to the west, a corral that reached to the sunset; between, the conquests of peace, dearer-bought than those of war.”

Willa Cather book Youth and the Bright Medusa

Youth and the Bright Medusa, "A Wagner Matinee" (1920)

War , World , Peace

“More than 30 years ago, … I wrote, and Foreign Affairs published, an article now being circulated in the blogosphere as evidence of an alleged anti-Israel point of view. Some commentators reach farther, suggesting that since I have been an active supporter of Barack Obama's presidential bid he, too, is anti-Israel. Both these assertions fall flat after any objective reading of the historical record.”

Merrill McPeak (1936) United States Air Force general

How to Secure Israel: Demilitarized land for peace is the key to a settlement (April 2008)

Support , Reading

“I had long believed that the Heath aberration of authoritarian centralist corporatism apart, most of the values, ethos and policies of Conservatism were strongly supported by working-class voters. Those voters—especially the socio-economic groups C1 and C2—I saw as natural Conservatives who nevertheless saw themselves for tribal reasons as Labour voters. However much we tried to reach them by argument, we always failed because they were unable to identify themselves with the representatives of the Tory Party they saw. I was determined to be a Conservative who spoke their language, not just what is often described as my flat North-London accent—which was after all my mother tongue—but their practical realism, lack of humbug and strong attachment to many traditional standards and values.”

Norman Tebbit (1931) English politician

Norman Tebbit, Upwardly Mobile (Futura, 1991), p. 172.

Support , Nature , Strong

“Milton's Paradise Lost is admirable; but am I therefore bound to maintain, that there are no flats amongst his elevations, when it is evident he creeps along sometimes for above an hundred lines together? Cannot I admire the height of his invention, and the strength of his expression, without defending his antiquated words, and the perpetual harshness of their sound? It is as much commendation as a man can bear, to own him excellent; all beyond it is idolatry.”

John Dryden (1631–1700) English poet and playwright of the XVIIth century

Preface to Translations from Theocritus, Lucretius, and Horace, in Sylvæ: or, The second part of Poetical Miscellanies, published by Mr. Dryden, third edition (London, 1702).

“"Tighter and Tighter" was actually written around the same time as "Black Hole Sun." In fact, I did a demo with four songs on it to play for the band. "Black Hole Sun," "Sounds Like Days," "Tighter and Tighter" and a song called "Anxious." We blew off "Anxious" entirely and recorded "Tighter and Tighter" for the last record. It was the last song we did. It was number 16 and we ran out of studio time. We had the rhythm tracks done and it was just needing vocals and my guitar solos. We just ran out of time. It was falling flat anyway. I changed the arrangement a little bit.”

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

Soundgarden Era

Change , Time , Sun

“I don't know why this [flat earth theory is] becoming an issue now. I… suspect strongly this is a hoax put forth by the atheists to see how far the Christians will take it.”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

Dr. Kent Hovind Q/A - Bible/Creation/Ministry Questions https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WP-JZfjrxxk, Youtube (July 28, 2015)

“Samuel Spade’s jaw was long and bony, his chin a jutting v under the more flexible v of his mouth. His nostrils curved back to make another, smaller v. His yellow-grey eyes were horizontal. The v motif was picked up again by thickish brows rising outward from twin creases above a hooked nose, and his pale brown hair grew down-from high flat temples-in a point on his forehead. He looked rather pleasantly like a blonde Satan.”

Dashiell Hammett book The Maltese Falcon

The Maltese Falcon (1930)

“This calls for an explanation and it may be this, that no painting, however good it seems to us is anything in itself, except chemicals smeared on a flat surface. The value in the work of art is in the spectator, you see, and a painting has no bigger value than the mental and intellectual forces it arouses in the spectator.”

Asger Jorn (1914–1973) Danish artist

Jorn's quote, from his speech at the library of Silkeborg, September l0th 1953 (translated from an unpublished Danish manuscript by Guy Atkins) ; as quoted on the website of the Jorn Museum Articles by Jorn http://www.museumjorn.dk/en/article_presentation.asp?AjrDcmntId=255
1949 - 1958, Various sources

Art , Painting

“A work can be as powerful as it can be thought to be. Actual space is intrinsically more powerful and specific than paint on a flat surface.”

Donald Judd (1928–1994) artist

Source: 1960s, "Specific Objects," 1965, p. 76; As quoted in: De gids, Vol. 131, Nr. 1-5, (1968), p. 262

Painting

“The economy is crooked not straight; and mainstream economists are like flat-earthers who keep saying the world is flat despite all the evidence to the contrary.”

David Orrell (1962) Canadian mathematician

Source: The Other Side Of The Coin (2008), Chapter 7, Straight Versus Crooked, p. 228

World

“For a hundred and fifty years the Virgin and Queens ruled French taste and thought so successfully that the French man has never yet quite decided whether to be more proud or ashamed of it. Life has ever since seemed a little flat to him, and art a little cheap. He saw that the woman, in elevating herself, had made him appear ridiculous, and he tried to retaliate with a wit not always sparkling, and too often at his own expense.”

Henry Adams (1838–1918) journalist, historian, academic, novelist

Mont Saint Michel and Chartres (1904)

Life , Art , Appearance

“You couldn't advance in a finance department in this country unless you taught that the world was flat.”

Warren Buffett (1930) American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist

As quoted in "The Heresy That Made Them Rich" by Joseph Nocera, in The New York Times (29 October 2005) http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B00E1D71E3FF93AA15753C1A9639C8B63

World , Country