Quotes about flu (34 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

“When we think of the major threats to our national security, the first to come to mind are nuclear proliferation, rogue states and global terrorism. But another kind of threat lurks beyond our shores, one from nature, not humans — an avian flu pandemic.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

New York Times Op-Ed "Grounding a Pandemic" (6 June 2005) http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/06/opinion/06obama.html?ex=1275710400&en=69f51e47097d5dd9&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss by Barack Obama and Richard Lugar
2005

Nature , Thinking

“To be depressed or neurotic is passive. It happened to us; we are its victim, and we have no control over it. This use of nouns and adjectives makes it logical for us to believe that we can do nothing for ourselves…but you are capable of choosing something better. If it is a choice, it follows that you are responsible for making it. With verbs, you are not a victim of mental illness; you are either the beneficiary of your own good choices or the victim of your own bad choices. You are not ill in the usual sense of having the flu or food poisoning. A choice theory world is a tough responsible world; you cannot use grammar to escape responsibility for what you are doing.”

William Glasser (1925–2013) American psychiatrist

Source: Choice Theory (1997), p. 75

World , Food , Sense

“We're famous" iggy whispered so low that Fang could barely hear him.
"So's Swine Flu" Fang whispered back.”

James Patterson (1947) American author

Source: Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports

Swine

“I think myself I ought to be shot for writing such nonsense…. But it's unquestionably good escapist literature and I think I should rather like it if I were sitting in an air-raid shelter or recovering from flu.”

Georgette Heyer (1902–1974) British historical romance and detective fiction novelist

Literature , Thinking

“Over and over again, medical writers liken withdrawal [from heroin], at worst, to a dose of flu. … Let me ask the reader this: if you were given a choice between suffering a bout of flu in the above sense, or avoiding it by robbing someone in the street or breaking into a house and stealing its contents, which would you choose?”

Theodore Dalrymple (1949) English doctor and writer

Romancing Opiates: Pharmacological Lies and the Addiction Bureaucracy (2006)

Sense , Suffering , Housing

“I am so pro-swine flu it's ridiculous. We need a plague. It's gotta happen. And don't worry, it's only gonna kill the weak. Seriously. Put on a sweater, take some vitamins, you're gonna be fine! We gotta let mother nature do her thing, man. She keeps trying to help us out and we won't let her do it.”

Bill Burr (1968) American actor, comedian and a celebrity podcaster

Let It Go (2010)

Nature , Swine , Help

“Here [in the Netherlands] there is absolutely nothing, nowhere and permanently committees to deliver the visual artists some money, since all are hungry. It is such a difficult time for Holland. I had flu, I was very sick and I am still too weak to work.”

Jacoba van Heemskerck (1876–1923) Dutch painter

translation from Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018
version in Dutch / citaat van Jacoba van Heemskerck, in het Nederlands vertaald: Hier [in Nederland] is absoluut niets, nergens geld en voortdurend comités om de beeldende kunstenaars geld te bezorgen, aangezien allen honger lijden. Voor Holland zijn het zo moeilijke tijden. Ik had griep, was erg ziek en ben nog te zwak om te werken.
In her letter to Herwarth Walden, 17 Feb. 1922; as cited in Jacoba van Heemskerck van Beest, 1876 – 1923: schilderes uit roeping, A. H. Huussen jr. (ed. Marleen Blokhuis), (ISBN: 90-400-9064-5); Waanders, Zwolle, 2005, p. 183
Jacoba is often ill these last years and rather vulnerable, but nevertheless busy with her designs of ordered glass-windows.
1920's

Money , Time

“Unendowed with wealth or pity,
Little birds with scarlet legs
Sitting on their speckled eggs,
Eye each flu-infected city. Altogether elsewhere, vast
Herds of reindeer move across
Miles and miles of golden moss,
Silently and very fast.”

W. H. Auden (1907–1973) Anglo-American poet

The Fall of Rome (1947), lines 21–28

Bird , Wealth

“Money spent on vegetative patients is money not spent on preventive care, such as flu shots and mammograms. Each night in an ICU bed for such patients is a night that another patient with a genuine prognosis for recovery is denied such high-end care. Every dollar exhausted on patients who will never wake up again is a dollar not devoted to finding a cure for cancer.”

Jacob M. Appel (1973) American author, bioethicist, physician, lawyer and social critic

"Rational Rationing vs. Irrational Rationing" http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jacob-m-appel/rational-rationing-vs-irr_b_622057.html, The Huffington Post (2010-06-23)

Money , Night

“Avian flu, which has already killed 50 people, is only a mutation away from being transmissible from person to person. We have no immunity, no vaccines, and no cure. It is imperative that we strengthen our domestic vaccine supply, expand legal protections, encourage collaboration between the public and private sectors, and advance research and development. These initiatives will help protect us from a deadly viral outbreak that experts warn could come to our shores any day.”

Bill Frist (1952) physician, businessman, and politician

On the potential for a flu pandemic.
The Associated Press, April 12, 2005.

People , Help , Personality

“Few dogs were around anymore. Some had been eaten during the hunger that followed the flu in the spring of that year. People didn't talk about it, it was so demoralizing.”

James Howard Kunstler book World Made By Hand

Source: World Made By Hand (2008), Chapter 7, p. 36

Hunger , People , Dogs , Spring

“Back when a hoe was a hoe.
Coke was a coke.
And crack's what you were doing.
When you were cracking jokes.
Back when a screw was a screw.
The wind was all that blew.
And when you said I'm down with that.
Well, it meant you had the flu.
I miss back when.
I miss back when.
I miss back when.”

Tim McGraw (1967) American country singer

Back When
Song lyrics, Live Like You Were Dying (2004)

“[I decided to go vegan] three and a half years ago. At first, I approached it from a scientific standpoint. However, I then came to have some ethical views about this diet. I love happy, living animals! … There are so many [benefits]. First, I no longer eat the suffering and pain of defenceless animals. Secondly, my body has become lighter, so to say “clearer”. Thirdly, in my profession, flexibility and elasticity are incredibly important, and I increased both of these. And fourthly, now I almost never suffer from a cold or flu.”

Alexey Voyevoda (1980) bobsledder

"Alexey Voyevoda: Russia’s Vegan Olympian" https://www.peta.org.uk/blog/alexei-voyevoda-russias-vegan-olympian/, interview with PETA (17 February 2014).

Love , Pain , Suffering , Animals

“White blood cells and other cells of ours actively seek out and kill foreign microbes. The specific antibodies that we gradually build up against a particular microbe infecting us make us less likely to get reinfected once we become cured. As we all know from experience, there are some illnesses, such as flu and the common cold, to which our resistance is only temporary; we can eventually contract the illness again. Against other illnesses, though—including measles, mumps, rubella, pertussis, and the now defeated smallpox — our antibodies stimulated by one infection confer lifelong immunity. That's the principle of vaccination: to stimulate our antibody production without our having to go through the actual experience of the disease, by inoculating us with a dead or weakened strain of microbe.”

Jared Diamond book Guns, Germs, and Steel

Source: Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies (1997), p. 200

Disease , Dead

“[Jerry Krause] said organizations win championships. I said, "I didn't see organizations playing with the flu in Utah."”

Michael Jordan (1963) American retired professional basketball player and businessman

Hall of Fame induction address, 2009 http://www.nba.com/bulls/news/jordanhof_speech_090912.html

“Mad cow disease, monkey pox, bird flu, mosquito viruses — did the animal kingdom have a meeting? "Who here is tired of being food and clothing? … Cows, get on it… MOO!"”

Christopher Titus (1964) actor, writer, podcaster

The Fifth-Annual End-of-the-World Tour (2007)

Disease , Food , Bird , Animals

“No one is safe from religious ideas and confessional phenomena. Neither you nor I. We can fall victim to them when we least expect it. It's like Mao flu, or being struck by lightning. You're utterly helpless. Exposed. As I see it today, any relapse is utterly out of the question. But I can't say it's out of the question tomorrow.”

Ingmar Bergman (1918–2007) Swedish filmmaker

Jonas Sima interview
Bergman on Bergman (1970)

Idea , Question

“Foot-and-mouth disease is a form of flu, treatable by proper veterinary care, preventable by vaccination, lethal neither to humans nor to animals. These animals, millions of them not even infected, were all killed only because their market value had been diminished and because trade policies required it—because, in short, under the circumstances it was the quick and convenient thing to do. By the one measure we now apply to these creatures, they had all become worthless. For them, the difference between what happened and what awaited them anyway was one of timing. And for us the difference was visibility. This time, we had to watch.”

Matthew Scully (1959) American political writer and speechwriter

Dominion (2002)

Disease , Time , Animals

“I did a piece about four years ago about coming out. Telling my parents that I'm gay. It occurred to me that my parents have known for years that I'm gay. I'm sure of it. They have never told me; they have never needed to tell me. In some ways I will never be gay to them. And they would prefer that I never use that word with them. They know the man that I have been closest to. They also know that he's godfather to two of my nephews. They invite him to Christmas dinner. They know he's part of my life. When he had the flu this Christmas they knew I had to leave early, and no one protested. Will he ever be introduced as my lover? No”

Richard Rodríguez (1944) American journalist and essayist

Violating the Boundaries: An Interview with Richard Rodriguez (1999)

Life , Way , Lovers , Parent

“For me, pressure is bird flu. I'm feeling a lot of pressure with the problem in Scotland. It's not fun and I'm more scared of it than football.”

José Mourinho (1963) Portuguese association football player and manager

http://www.goal.com/en/news/1716/champions-league/2009/02/23/1122426/italy-v-england-10-classic-jose-mourinho-quotes
2006

Feeling , Problem , Bird , Football

“If you don't sleep you get run down. Sloths never get a flu, cos its good innit thats when your body's replemishing”

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

NME Radio Show
On Biology

Sleep

“More people have probably died from eating dodgy Chinese food than contracting some form of avian flu. The last thing we want is for the Daleks from Defra to start suggesting that they want to exterminate wildlife—as is their normal response when confronted with such a problem. We do not want any proposal that migrating birds are going to be destroyed because of alarmist figures and notions that appear in the Tory press.”

Tony Banks (1942–2006) British politician

House of Lords debate http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200405/ldhansrd/pdvn/lds05/text/51026-16.htm on "bird flu", 26 Oct 2005; quoted by United Kingdom Parliament World Wide Web Service.

People , Food , Problem , Bird

“I worried that my vegan diet might fail me. I worried that I'd run out of energy. I worried that the heat might prove too much. True, I wasn't as sore as I had been before going to a plant-based diet, and my recovery time was faster than ever. True, I almost never got congested, and whenever a cold or flu swept through Seattle, sending a lot of other runners to bed, I stayed healthy. And of course, I had battled Mount Si and prevailed, if a man could be said to prevail. I had also gone to California a week earlier and trained every day in the 100-degree canyons. But if you can imagine running 100 miles, you can imagine almost anything.”

Scott Jurek (1973) American ultramarthon runner

Source: Eat and Run (2012), Ch. 11, p. 91

Imagination , Time , Training

“Last week I got a flu that I caught, 'cause my daughter coughed … into my mouth.”

Louis C.K. (1967) American comedian and actor

Chewed Up

Daughters

“I've long since retired and my son's moved away.
I called him up just the other day.
I said, "I'd like to see you if you don't mind."
He said, "I'd love to, dad, if I could find the time.
You see, my new job's a hassle, and the kid's have the flu,
But it's sure nice talking to you, dad.
It's been sure nice talking to you."
And as I hung up the phone, it occurred to me,
He'd grown up just like me.
My boy was just like me.”

Harry Chapin (1942–1981) American musician

Cat's in the Cradle
Song lyrics, Verities & Balderdash (1974)

Love , Boy , Time

“The children of fighter pilots tell different stories than other kids do. None of our fathers can write a will or sell a life insurance policy or fill out a prescription or administer a flu shot or explain what a poet meant. We tell of fathers who land on aircraft carriers at pitch-black night with the wind howling out of the China Sea. Our fathers wiped out aircraft batteries in the Philippines and set Japanese soldiers on fire when they made the mistake of trying to overwhelm our troops on the ground. Your Dads ran the barber shops and worked at the post office and delivered the packages on time and sold the cars, while our Dads were blowing up fuel depots near Seoul, were providing extraordinarily courageous close air support to the beleaguered Marines at the Chosin Reservoir, and who once turned the Naktong River red with blood of a retreating North Korean battalion. We tell of men who made widows of the wives of our nations' enemies and who made orphans out of all their children. You don't like war or violence? Or napalm? Or rockets? Or cannons or death rained down from the sky? Then let's talk about your fathers, not ours. When we talk about the aviators who raised us and the Marines who loved us, we can look you in the eye and say "you would not like to have been American's enemies when our fathers passed overhead". We were raised by the men who made the United States of America the safest country on earth in the bloodiest century in all recorded history. Our fathers made sacred those strange, singing names of battlefields across the Pacific: Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima, Okinawa, the Chosin Reservoir, Khe Sanh and a thousand more. We grew up attending the funerals of Marines slain in these battles. Your fathers made communities like Beaufort decent and prosperous and functional; our fathers made the world safe for democracy.”

Pat Conroy (1945–2016) American novelist

Eulogy for a Fighter Pilot (1998)

Love , Life , Death , Men

“There wouldn't be a swine flu if we treated the pigs better!”

Jim Carrey (1962) Canadian-American actor, comedian, and producer

Swine

“The threat of pandemic flu is the number one health security concern, are we ready to respond? I fear the answer is no.”

Luciana Borio American physician and public health administrator

At a symposium at Emory University in Atlanta in 2018, marking the 100th anniversary of 1918 flu pandemic. As quoted in Contrary to Trump’s Claim, A Pandemic Was Widely Expected at Some Point https://www.factcheck.org/2020/03/contrary-to-trumps-claim-a-pandemic-was-widely-expected-at-some-point/ (March 20, 2020) by Rem Rieder, FactCheck.org.

Fear , Health

“In the light of the coronavirus pandemic, I focus criticism on capitalism and the vulnerabilities it has accumulated for several reasons. Viruses are part of nature. They have attacked human beings—sometimes dangerously—in both distant and recent history. In 1918, the Spanish Flu killed nearly 700,000 in the United States and millions elsewhere. Recent viruses include SARS, MERS and Ebola. What matters to public health is each society's preparedness: stockpiled tests, masks, ventilators, hospital beds, trained personnel, etc., to manage dangerous viruses. In the U.S., such objects are produced by private capitalist enterprises whose goal is profit. It was not profitable to produce and stockpile such products, that was not and still is not being done. Nor did the U.S. government produce or stockpile those medical products. Top U.S. government personnel privilege private capitalism; it is their primary objective to protect and strengthen. The result is that neither private capitalism nor the U.S. government performed the most basic duty of any economic system: to protect and maintain public health and safety. U.S. capitalism's response to the coronavirus pandemic continues to be what it has been since December 2019: too little, too late. It failed. It is the problem.”

Richard D. Wolff (1942) American economist

COVID-19 and the Failures of Capitalism (2020)

History , Light , Health , Nature

“The 1918 flu almost certainly didn’t originate in Spain. One popular theory for how it acquired the “Spanish” name posits that Spain was the only country where you could read about the disease. That’s because Spain remained neutral during World War I, and therefore its newspapers weren’t censoring any information deemed harmful to national morale. The disease was also rampaging through other countries, including France, Germany, Britain, and the United States, but those governments suppressed or downplayed reports on the extent of the damage. Accurate and timely information is vital to combating a pandemic, but still, some countries’ first impulses are to cover up the spread of the disease.”

Joshua Keating American journalist

Strongman Medicine: Suspicious Numbers and Brutal Quarantines (April 02, 2020)

Time , Reading , Country , War

“We are getting great marks for the handling of the CoronaVirus pandemic, especially the very early BAN of people from China, the infectious source, entering the USA. Compare that to the Obama/Sleepy Joe disaster known as H1N1 Swine Flu. Poor marks, bad polls - didn’t have a clue!”

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

As quoted by * 2020-05-10

Trump claims he is ‘getting great marks’ for coronavirus response as US death toll nears 80,000

Richard Hall

Independent

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/trump-coronavirus-us-response-barack-obama-joe-biden-a9507346.html
2020s, 2020, May

Bad luck , People , Swine

“There is an invaluable treasure trove of useful historical data that has only just begun to be used to inform our actions. The lessons of 1918 (Spanish flu), if well heeded, might help us to avoid repeating the same history today (COVID-19).”

Stephen S. Morse (1951) American virologist and epidemiologist

Source: Stephen S. Morse (2020) cited in " How some cities ‘flattened the curve’ during the 1918 flu pandemic https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/2020/03/how-cities-flattened-curve-1918-spanish-flu-pandemic-coronavirus/" on National Geographic, 27 March 2020.

Help , History

“I am not going to allow the little flu to knock me down.”

Jair Bolsonaro (1955) Brazilian president elect

Said about the Covid-19 pandemic, as quoted in "Bolsonaro Denies that He Called Covid-19 A "Little Flu" https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/internacional/en/scienceandhealth/2020/11/bolsonaro-denies-that-he-called-covid-19-a-little-flu.shtml, Folha de S.Paulo (March 2020)
2020

“A strong, healthy man won’t be hit easily by the flu. It is the same with business: A healthy business will not be hit easily by a crisis.”

Liu Chuanzhi (1944) Chinese businessman

Lenovo Group’s Liu Chuanzhi on ‘Building a Healthy Company’ https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/lenovo-groups-liu-chuanzhi-on-building-a-healthy-company/ in Knowledge @ Wharton (8 July 2009)

Business , Strong