Quotes about green
page 3

“Then
Scale by scale,
We strip off
The delicacy
And eat
The peaceful mush
Of its green heart.”

Pablo Neruda (1904–1973) Chilean poet

Source: Odes to Common Things

“But then the girl moved, and smiled, and pulled her hand from the grate- a gorgeous green stone clutched tightly in her grasp. It was covered with dust and cobwebs, but it was uncracked and unharmed.
And, of course, completely fake.”

Ally Carter (1974) American writer

Source: Uncommon Criminals

Smile, Girl

“Is Adrian here?”
“Who?”
“Adrian. Tall. Brown hair. Green eyes.”
She frowned. “Do you mean Jet?”
“I … I’m not sure. Does he smoke like a chimney?”
The girl nodded sagely. “Yup. You must mean Jet.”

Richelle Mead Bloodlines

Source: Bloodlines

Girl

“Keep a green tree in your heart and perhaps the singing bird will come.”

Lois Lowry (1937) American writer

Source: Taking Care of Terrific

Bird, Tree, Singing, Heart

“His books are kept on freestanding shelves hung at different angles on a sea-green wall. They defy gravity, as good books should.”

David Levithan Boy Meets Boy

Source: Boy Meets Boy

Books, Sea

“But always, to her, red and green cabbages were to be jade and burgundy, chrysoprase and prophyry. Life has no weapons against a woman like that.”

Edna Ferber (1885–1968) Novelist, playwright

Life

“When the light at Vernon turned green, we stepped into the street and George grabbed my hand and the ghosts of our younger selves crossed with us.”

Aimee Bender (1969) Novelist, short story writer

Source: The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake

Light

“Blue to get ready
Green to go
Yellow to guide you through the snow
Orange to warn you that over you’ll go
Then red will be the final glow
Now seek the black, there’s no going back.”

Angie Sage book Queste

Source: Queste

“They were still all beautiful and there was still enchantment and wonder, but she had crossed a line and now the fairy tale was green with corruption and evil.”

Stephen King book Carrie

Source: Carrie

Beauty, Evil

“What the trees can do handsomely-greening and flowering, fading and then the falling of leaves-human beings cannot do with dignity, let alone without pain.”

Martha Gellhorn (1908–1998) journalist from the United States

Pain, Flowers, Tree

“Colors shone with exceptional clarity in the rain. The ground was a deep black, the pine branches a brilliant green, the people wrapped in yellow looking like special spirits that were allowed to wander over the earth on rainy mornings only.”

Haruki Murakami book Norwegian Wood

Source: Norwegian Wood

People, Color

“hate blows a bubble of despair into
hugeness world system universe and bang
-fear buries a tomorrow under woe
and up comes yesterday most green and young”

E.E. Cummings (1894–1962) American poet

Source: Complete Poems, 1904-1962

Hate, World, Fear, Universe

“The green reed which bends in the wind is stronger than the mighty oak which breaks in a storm.”

Confucius (-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher

“Of asphodel, that greeny flower,

::like a buttercup

::::upon its branching stem —

save that's green and wooden —

::I come, my sweet,

::::to sing to you.

We lived long together,

::a life filled,

::::if you will,

with flowers. So that

::I was cheered

::::when I first came to know

that there were flowers also

::in hell.

::::Today

I'm filled with the fading memory of those flowers

::that we both loved,

::::even to this poor

colorless thing —

::I saw it

::::when I was a child —

little prized among the living

::but the dead see,

::::asking among themselves:

What do I remember

::that was shaped

::::as this thing is shaped?
while our eyes fill
::with tears.
::::Of love, abiding love
it will be telling
::though too weak a wash of crimson
::::colors it
to make it wholly credible.
::There is something
::::something urgent
I have to say to you
::and you alone
::::but it must wait
while I drink in
::the joy of your approach,
::::perhaps for the last time.
And so
::with fear in my heart
::::I drag it out
and keep on talking
::for I dare not stop.”

William Carlos Williams book Journey to Love

Journey to Love (1955), Asphodel, That Greeny Flower

Love, Life, Fear, Color

“When I won the Booker Prize, I said that it was nice to see a work of art winning this prize and I've never been forgiven for that. When you get a prize, you're suppose to be humble. Somebody was interviewing me and said, 'This is a great day for Ireland'. I said, 'Why? Ireland didn't do it, I did it.' I wasn't forgiven for that either. I don't wear the green jersey and I don't hobnob with Michael D in the Park, although I quite like Michael D.”

John Banville (1945) Irish writer

John Banville: Who cares whodunnit? (2013)

Art

“When people look for the road in the clouds
The cloud road disappears
The mountains are tall and steep
The streams are wide and still
Green mountains ahead and behind
White clouds to east and west
If you want to find the cloud road
Seek it within”

Han-shan Chinese monk and poet

Cold Mountain Transcendental Poetry

People, Mountain

“Andre Agassi, in his account of becoming an embittered prodigy, seems never to have liked tennis much, except as a vehicle for achievement. The kids who do like life inside the lines can find the flow within that green-and-white geometry.”

Adam Gopnik (1956) American journalist

How to Raise a Prodigy, The New Yorker (2018)

Life

“O, saw ye the lass wi’ the bonnie blue een?
Her smile is the sweetest that ever was seen,
Her cheek like the rose is, but fresher, I ween,
She ’s the loveliest lassie that trips on the green.”

Richard Ryan

O, saw ye the Lass.

Smile

“I saw a dream, Earth safe and green. No hunger no war, water so clean. I’ll work for the world that I saw, set my mind and say insha Allah.”

Dawud Wharnsby (1972) Canadian musician

Subhanallah, Alhamdulillah and Insha Allah
A Picnic of Poems in Allah's Green Garden (2011)

Hunger, War, World, Dreams

“El Duce: You know I believe in peaceful rape. You know when the broad passes out… drugs… that's… I see the green light go on. It's time to make whoopy, baby, yeah!”

Eldon Hoke (1958–1997) Singer, musician

El Duce, The Man, The Myth, The Video (1993) by Reverend Cuntbag

Peace, Light, Time, Baby

“In sports, Vijay Singh wins the Masters golf tournament and is awarded the coveted green jacket, which is quickly snatched away by angry Buick executives and given to Tiger Woods.”

Dave Barry (1947) American writer

Dave Barry's History of the Millennium (So Far) (2007)

Sport

“I shall detain you no longer in the demonstration of what we should not do, but straight conduct ye to a hillside, where I will point ye out the right path of a virtuous and noble education; laborious indeed at the first ascent, but else so smooth, so green, so full of goodly prospect and melodious sounds on every side that the harp of Orpheus was not more charming.”

John Milton (1608–1674) English epic poet

Tractate of Education (1644)

Education

“Those who, like the present writer, never had the privilege of meeting Sidgwick can infer from his writings, and still more from the characteristic philosophic merits of such pupils of his as McTaggart and Moore, how acute and painstaking a thinker and how inspiring a teacher he must have been. Yet he has grave defects as a writer which have certainly detracted from his fame. His style is heavy and involved, and he seldom allowed that strong sense of humour, which is said to have made him a delightful conversationalist, to relieve the uniform dull dignity of his writing. He incessantly refines, qualifies, raises objections, answers them, and then finds further objections to the answers. Each of these objections, rebuttals, rejoinders, and surrejoinders is in itself admirable, and does infinite credit to the acuteness and candour of the author. But the reader is apt to become impatient; to lose the thread of the argument: and to rise from his desk finding that he has read a great deal with constant admiration and now remembers little or nothing. The result is that Sidgwick probably has far less influence at present than he ought to have, and less than many writers, such as Bradley, who were as superior to him in literary style as he was to them in ethical and philosophical acumen. Even a thoroughly second-rate thinker like T. H. Green, by diffusing a grateful and comforting aroma of ethical "uplift", has probably made far more undergraduates into prigs than Sidgwick will ever make into philosophers.”

C. D. Broad (1887–1971) English philosopher

From Five Types of Ethical Theory (1930)

Sense, Strong, Teachers, Reading

“[Nelson, about Pru] She had complained for years about living with his mother and Ronnie and about his dead-end job babysitting these pathetic dysfunctionals, boosting his own ego at their expense, caring more about them than he did about his own wife and children, but what it boiled down to in his baffled mind was something she once shouted, her green eyes bright as broken glass in her reddened face: My life with you is too small. Too small. As if being a greaseball lawyer's input organiser and easy lay was bigger. But the size of a life is how you feel about it.”

John Updike book Rabbit Remembered

Rabbit Remembered (2000)

Life, Children, Feeling, Dead

“Chicken-neck weakness is like a god now. And being totally passive, and being a huge jellyfish slacker who looks like a fried egg in a chair. That is the culture of this, okay? The worship of being destroyed. Literally, I've now discovered the secrets of it. … And everyone's wearing like pink and little green non-threatening, you know, colors, and this is what we face. This is what men look like now, on average. In fact, I used to bash men who were all into being big and muscular with tattoos and black on and going "raagh", now I get it! You don't wanna be like these people! Okay? I used to get mad at guys trying to act tough—no, no! That's good! Do that! In fact, I think I'm gonna just go all out with cut-off sleeves and drive a big fast car and be like "graagh", 'cause I mean I'm starting to get it! Men are running to that, because they see the armies… literally men in pastels… Now there's men everywhere wearing dresses, I'm telling you! It's like, they're just like "New World Order, slaughter me, please!"”

Alex Jones (1974) American radio host, author, conspiracy theorist and filmmaker

And the New World Order is like "Act like a jellyfish coward and giggle at all reality", and they're like "Yes, yes!" "Alex Jones: I'm So Trendy Rant!" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBA-sa97UYg March 2012. 2012

Men, God, People, Secret

“'Kant ought to be arrested and given three years in Solovki asylum for that "proof" of his!' Ivan Nikolayich burst out completely unexpectedly. 'Ivan!' whispered Berlioz, embarrassed. But the suggestion to pack Kant off to an asylum not only did not surprise the stranger but actually delighted him. 'Exactly, exactly!' he cried and his green left eye, turned on Berlioz glittered. 'That's exactly the place for him! I said to him myself that morning at breakfast: "If you'll forgive me, professor, your theory is no good. It may be clever but it's horribly incomprehensible. People will think you're mad."' Berlioz's eyes bulged. At breakfast… to Kant?”

Mikhail Bulgakov book The Master and Margarita

Book One in 'Never Talk to Strangers', MG, here Woland, Berlioz and Ivan are talking about Kant's views on existence of God
The Master and Margarita (1967)

People, Forgiveness, Thinking, Madness

“well boss
mehitabel the cat
has reappeared in her old
haunts with a
flock of kittens

archy she said to me
yesterday
the life of a female
artist is continually
hampered what in hell
have i done to deserve
all these kittens
i look back on my life
and it seems to me to be
just one damned kitten
after another
i am a dancer archy
and my only prayer
is to be allowed
to give my best to my art
but just as i feel
that i am succeeding
in my life work
along comes another batch
of these damned kittens
it is not archy
that i am shy on mother love
god knows i care for
the sweet little things
curse them
but am i never to be allowed
to live my own life
i have purposely avoided
matrimony in the interests
of the higher life
but i might just
as well have been a domestic
slave for all the freedom
i have gained
i hope none of them
gets run over by
an automobile
my heart would bleed
if anything happened
to them and i found it out
but it isn t fair archy
it isn t fair
these damned tom cats have all
the fun and freedom
if i was like some of these
green eyed feline vamps i know
i would simply walk out on the
bunch of them and
let them shift for themselves
but i am not that kind
archy i am full of mother love
my kindness has always
been my curse
a tender heart is the cross i bear
self sacrifice always and forever
is my motto damn them
i will make a home
for the sweet innocent
little things
unless of course providence
in his wisdom should remove
them they are living
just now in an abandoned
garbage can just behind
a made over stable in greenwich
village and if it rained
into the can before i could
get back and rescue them
i am afraid the little
dears might drown
it makes me shudder just
to think of it
of course if i were a family cat
they would probably
be drowned anyhow
sometimes i think
the kinder thing would be
for me to carry the
sweet little things
over to the river
and drop them in myself
but a mother s love archy
is so unreasonable
something always prevents me
these terrible
conflicts are always
presenting themselves
to the artist
the eternal struggle
between art and life archy
is something fierce
yes something fierce
my what a dramatic
life i have lived
one moment up the next
moment down again
but always gay archy always gay
and always the lady too
in spite of hell
well boss it will
be interesting to note
just how mehitabel
works out her present problem
a dark mystery still broods
over the manner
in which the former
family of three kittens
disappeared
one day she was talking to me
of the kittens
and the next day when i asked
her about them
she said innocently
what kittens
interrogation point
and that was all
i could ever get out
of her on the subject
we had a heavy rain
right after she spoke to me
but probably that garbage can
leaks so the kittens
have not yet
been drowned”

Don Marquis (1878–1937) American writer

mehitabel and her kittens http://donmarquis.com/reading-room/kittens/ archy and mehitabel (1927)

Love, Life, Wisdom, God

“All in green went my love riding
on a great horse of gold
into the silver dawn.”

E.E. Cummings book Tulips and Chimneys

Tulips and Chimneys (1923) IV

Love, Horse

“1927. I stood in front of your grave; in radiating sunshine there was a still, green mound. And it was preaching about mortality.
My answer was: resurrection.”

Joseph Goebbels (1897–1945) Nazi politician and Propaganda Minister

1927. Ich stand an deinem Grab; im glastenden Sonnenschein lag ein stiller, grüner Hügel. Und predigte Vergänglichkeit.
Meine Antwort war: Auferstehung.
Michael: a German fate in diary notes (1926)

“Where there are neglected opportunities we will seize on them, and we will focus on the priorities of the people of London: cutting crime, improving transport, protecting green space, delivering affordable housing, giving taxpayers value for money in every one of the 32 boroughs.”

Boris Johnson (1964) British politician, historian and journalist

2000s, 2008, First Speech As London Mayor (May 3, 2008)

Money, People, Housing

“Use materials with forceful MUSCULAR colours – the reddest of reds, the most purple of purples, the greenest of greens, intense yellows, orange, vermillion – and SKELETON tones of white, grey and black.”

Giacomo Balla (1871–1958) Italian artist

(Manuscript, 1914); as quoted in Futurism, ed. Didier Ottinger; Centre Pompidou / 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008, p. 148
Futurist Manifesto of Men's clothing,' 1913/1914

“It was indeed a dead grove, made up of the corpses of trees. Even the wood of these corpses was non-living, a deathly grey, silver-green, with peeling bark; and the bark had also flaked, shrivelling and simply sloughing off like dead skin. And arching along all the dead twigs, crawled a supple, clutching, lashing, bold convolvulus-serpent. It was her leaves which glowed a cheerful green on the dead branches, on all their agonizing bifurcations; it was her flowers which hung on the branches from clusters of tiny suckers and tentacles, astonishingly tender and serene. They were so alien to that austere and honest deathly sterility that they seemed almost dazzling. It was like an explosion of something splendid, like the sombre and magical secret of that dead river and its dry valley. There was something about that copse reminiscent of the hut on chickens' legs, or Koschei's hoard, or the field sown with dead men's bones.”

Yury Dombrovsky book The Faculty of Useless Knowledge

tr. Alan Myers, The Harvill Press, 1996, Part 1, Chapter 2, pp. 100-101 cited and discussed in Peter Doyle, Iurii Dombrovskii: Freedom Under Totalitarianism, Routledge, 2000, p. 145 https://books.google.com/books?id=MoLCsjaQT08C&lpg=PA145&ots=ekC9_khOAS&dq=%22It%20really%20was%20a%20dead%20grove%22&pg=PA145#v=onepage&q=%22It%20really%20was%20a%20dead%20grove%22&f=false The Faculty of Useless Knowledge (1975)

Men, Secret, Flowers, Tree

“But one can't go without his sleep forever.
The immortals give each thing its proper place
in our mortal lives throughout the good green earth.”

Homér The Odyssey (Cowper)

XIX. 592–594 (tr. Robert Fagles).
Odyssey (c. 725 BC)

Sleep

“Any two opposite colours of the rainbow (eg yellow and blue), form a third between them, thus imparting to each other their peculiar qualities. The sight of what they were originally is quite lost, and instead, a most pleasing green is found, which colour, nature has chosen for the vestment of the earth, and with the beauty of which the eye never tires.”

William Hogarth book The Analysis of Beauty

The Analysis of Beauty (1753)

Beauty, Nature

“Well, at first I wanted to put blinds on the building [of the outdoor-sculpture Josef Strau did for her recently]. But when I do something I've already done before, I sometimes have a certain feeling of uncertainty. Although I am falling back on something that I know is safe and pretty good. But then it was all too expensive. I had seen glowing green, fresh bamboo at the KaDeWe store. It had attracted my attention and I thought it would be nice to do something with it. Back home, sitting over the photo, drawing some things on it, I remembered this lovely green bamboo again and also that there was this fascist building – or partly fascist building – next to the store, a theater, an ugly building. And then I thought, bamboo is politically correct, that's just the thing. But I also think it's visually beautiful. Simple. The work is called 'Haare wachsen wie sie wollen”

Isa Genzken (1948) German sculptor

'Hair grows the way it wants'
2001 - 2010, Isa Genzken in conversation with Wolfgang Tillmans' (2003)

Love, Beauty, Way, Feeling

“Ten thousand branches of tall trees begin to sprout,
They droop like fringes of a robe made of green jade.
But do you know by whom these young leaves are cut out?
The early spring wind is as sharp as scissor blade.”

He Zhizhang (659–744) Chinese writer

"Willow Trees" (《咏柳》), in 150 Tang Poems, trans. Xu Yuan-zhong

Spring, Tree

“For many years, the country has believed these pesticides are vital to keeping away starvation, to advance the green revolution. The main concern was food production and disease control - not public health safety. Some of us believe this must change, but it... will take some time.”

Maneka Gandhi (1956) Indian politician and activist

Commenting on a pesticide-poisoning incident, "Where Toxic Pesticides Seep Into Everyday Life" http://articles.philly.com/1990-09-23/news/25879516_1_hazardous-pesticides-pesticide-action-network-indian-village, The Philadelphia Inquirer (23 September 1990) 1981-1990

Health, Disease, Food, Change

“The mountains dwindled away into hills covered with a dark, stunted scrub. Beyond them the land flattened out to the horizon, a treeless immensity of white and gray-green, a spongy mossiness flecked with a million icy ponds. The wind blew, sometimes hard, sometimes harder.”

Leigh Brackett (1915–1978) American novelist and screenwriter

Source: The Ginger Star (1974), Chapter 10 (p. 63)

Mountain

“A high-tech Green utopia, in which a few humans live happily in balance with the rest of life, is scientifically feasible; but it is humanly unimaginable. If anything like it ever comes about, it will not be through the will of homo rapiens.”

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

Non-Progress: Yet another utopia (p. 184)
Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals (2002)

Life

“It was a summer evening,
Old Kaspar's work was done,
And he before his cottage door
Was sitting in the sun,
And by him sported on the green
His little grandchild Wilhelmine.”

Robert Southey (1774–1843) British poet

St. 1. The Battle of Blenheim http://www.poetry-archive.com/s/the_battle_of_blenheim.html (1798)

Sport, Sun, Summer

“It will be readily admitted that brown tints have never coursed beneath our skin; it will be discovered that yellow shines forth in our flesh, that red blazes, and that green, blue and violet dance upon it with untold charms, voluptuous and caressing.”

Umberto Boccioni (1882–1916) Italian painter and sculptor

As quoted in Futurism, ed. Didier Ottinger; Centre Pompidou / 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008, p. 136.
1910, Manifesto of Futurist Painters,' April 1910

Dance

“I lay wake […] listening to the rain drip from the eaves and thinking of the big map that hung from the top of the chalkboard in my primary school in Wilton, Connecticut, so many years ago, back in the days of cars, television, and air-conditioning. The states on this map were muted tones of pink, green, and yellow. Over it hung the flag that we pledged allegiance to every single morning. "One nation under God, indivisible…"”

James Howard Kunstler book World Made By Hand

Source: World Made By Hand (2008), Chapter 31, p. 150

God, School, Cars, Thinking

“I wish I had the talent to paint the way I feel about you, for my words always feel inadequate. I imagine using red for your passion and pale blue for your kindness; forest green to reflect the depth of your empathy and bright yellow for your unflagging optimism. And still I wonder: can even an artist's palette capture the full range of what you mean to me?”

Nicholas Sparks (1965) American writer and novelist

Ira Levinson, Chapter 28, p. 326-327
2009, The Longest Ride (2013)

Way, Feeling, Imagination, Optimism

“[From Ernest von Hermanstadt]; Action—action in the sunshine—passion—but little feeling, and less thought: such was meant to be our existence. But we refine—we sadden and we subdue—we call up the hidden and evil spirits of the inner world—we wake from their dark repose those who will madden us. The heart is like the wood on yonder flickering hearth: green and fresh, haunted by a thousand sweet odours, bathed in the warm air, and gladdened by the summer sunshine—so grew it at first upon its native soil. But nature submitteth to art, and man has appointed for it another destiny: it is gathered, and cast into the fire. It seems, then, as if its life had but just begun. A new spirit has crept into the kindled veins—a brilliant light dances around it—it is bright—it is beautiful—and it is consumed! What remains?—A warmth on the atmosphere soon passing away, and a heap of blackened ashes! What more will remain of the heart?”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

The Monthly Magazine

Life, World, Beauty, Art

“Ironically, or so it seemed to Tristam, the day was perfect and the green countryside rolled past in ordered tranquillity, the death of a single man having shockingly little impact on the larger world.”

Sean Russell (1952) author

Source: World Without End (1995), Chapter 5 (p. 67)

Death, World, Past, Perfection

“Rood was in my possession the day after the appearance of Philippe Gille's book review, published by 'Le Figaro', 1881 (change of palette). I abandon earth colors from [18]82 to 1884. On Pissarro's advice I stop using emerald green”

Georges Seurat (1859–1891) French painter

1885
Rood etait en ma possession le lendemain du jour oil paru la revue biblio graphique de Philippe Gille, collection du Figaro 1881 [changement de palette]. J'abandonne les terres en 82 a 1884. Sur le conseil de Pissarro je lache le verr emeraud (1885
Quotes, 1881 - 1890, Letter to Félix Fénéon', June 1890

Books, Color, Appearance, Change

“Theirs is no vulgar sepulchre--green sods
Are all their monument, and yet it tells
A nobler history than pillared piles
Or the eternal pyramids.”

James Gates Percival (1795–1856) American geologis, poet, and surgeon

"The Graves of the Patriots," first published in the United States Literary Gazette, Vol. 2 (1825).

History

“The gods are growing old;
The stars are singing Golden hair to gray
Green leaf to yellow leaf,—or chlorophyl
To xanthophyl, to be more scientific.”

Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869–1935) American poet

Captain Craig (1902)

God, Star, Singing

“Shōnen Jump: Several readers have asked if Namekians are plants. Of course, based on their names, they seem to be slugs… but they are green, they have a strange method of reproduction, and they live on water.”

Akira Toriyama (1955) manga artist and video game character designer

Interview with Shōnen Jump

Water

“Do you see all those beautiful trees there? I sketched them all thirty years ago; I have had all their portraits. Look at that beech there, the sun lights it up and makes of it a marble column, a column that has muscles, limbs, hands and a fair skin, white and pallid... See the modest green of the heath and its plants, rosy, amaranthine, which distil honey for the bees and fragrance for the butterflies. The sun lights them up and gives them a diapason of extraordinary color. Ah, the sun..”

Théodore Rousseau (1812–1867) French painter (1812-1867)

Quote of Th. Rousseau, Sept. 1867; recorded by fr:Alfred Sensier; as cited by Charles Sprague Smith, in Barbizon days, Millet-Corot-Rousseau-Barye; publisher, A. Wessels Company, New York, July 1902, p. 164
In September 1867 (two months before Rousseau’s death, when already half paralyzed), Th. Rouseau took a ride with Sensier to look once more at the heather. He was pointing to the Sully, a giant of the wood
1851 - 1867

Beauty, Color, Tree, Light

“In 1946 it was the first time I saw a Van Gogh, a painting from his years in France. It was excactly what I had always felt here [in the fields of Friesland]: infinity, the unimaginable. I was bewildered and thought: who has been painting here for God's sake? Pink stripes in a green sky, you can't imagine! Ultramarine and carmine in the soil with a big yellow sun behind it..”

Jopie Huisman (1922–2000) Dutch painter

translation, Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018
version in original Dutch / citaat van Jopie Huisman, in het Nederlands: In 1946 zag ik voor het eerst een Van Gogh, uit z'n Franse tijd. Dàt was wat ik hier [in Friesland] altijd gevoeld had: de oneindigheid, het onvoorstelbare. Ik was verbouwereerd, [en] dacht: wie is hier in godsnaam bezig geweest? Roze strepen in een groene lucht, moet je es nagaan. Ultramarijn en karmijn in de bodem, een grote gele zon erachter..
Mens & Gevoelens: Jopie Huisman', 1993

God, Imagination, Time, Sun

“A four wood I hit on the 13th hole at Bel Air Country Club in June of 1945. It landed right on the green and rolled into the cup for a hole in one.”

Fred Astaire (1899–1987) American dancer, singer, actor, choreographer and television presenter

Fred Astaire on his proudest achievement in Lewis, Jerry D. "Interview : Fred Astaire." Glendale Federal Magazine, Summer 1982, pp. 8-10. (M).

Country

“Knowledge is like the carrot, few know by looking at the green top that the best part, the orange part, is there. Like the carrot, if you don't work for it, it will wither away and rot. And finally, like the carrot, there are a great many donkeys and jackasses that are associated with it.”

Nasreddin (1208–1284) philosopher, Sufi and wise man from Turkey, remembered for his funny stories and anecdotes

Dan Keding, Elder Tales: stories of wisdom and courage from around the world (2008), ISBN 1591585945, p. 151

Knowledge, Parting

“Although I can look a bit grumpy myself, I love it when the sun shines in the water, but besides that I think my country is colored and what I particularly noticed when I came from abroad: our country is colored sappy fat, that's why our beautiful- colored and built cattle, their flesh, milk and butter, nowhere you can find this, but they [the cows] are also fed by that sappy, greasy and colored land - I have often heard strangers say, those Dutch painters all paint gray and their land is green.... the more I observe the more colored and transparent nature becomes and then the air seen altogether, something very different and yet so [strong] in harmony, it is delightful when one has learned to see, because that too must be learned, I repeat, our country is not gray, even not in gray weather, the dunes aren't gray either.”

Paul Gabriël (1828–1903) painter (1828-1903)

translation from the Dutch original: Fons Heijnsbroek
version in original Dutch / citaat van Paul Gabriël, in Nederlands: Alhoewel ik er zelf wat knorrig uit kan zien houd ik er veel van dat het zonnetje in het water schijnt, maar buiten dat ik vind mijn land gekleurd en wat mij bijzonder opviel wanneer ik uit den vreemde kwam: ons land is gekleurd sappig vet, vandaar onze schoone gekleurde en gebouwde runderen, hun vleesch melk en boter, nergens vind men dat zoo maar ze worden ook door dat sappige vette en gekleurde land gevoed - ik heb vreemdelingen dikwijls horen zeggen, die Hollandsche schilders schilderen allemaal grijs en hun land is groen.. ..hoe meer ik opserveer hoe gekleurder en transparanter de natuur word en dan de lucht erbij gezien een heel ander iets en toch zoo in harmonie, het is verrukkelijk wanneer men heeft leeren zien, want ook dat moet geleerd worden, ik herhaal het ons land is niet grijs, zelfs niet bij grijs weer, de duinen zijn ook niet grijs.
written note of Paul Gabriël, 1901; as cited in De Haagse School. Hollandse meesters van de 19de eeuw, ed. R. de Leeuw, J. Sillevis en C. Dumas); exhibition. cat. - Parijs, Grand Palais / Londen, Royal Academy of Arts / Den Haag, Haags Gemeentemuseum, Parijs, Londen, Den Haag 1983, p.183 - 23
after 1900

Love, Beauty, Color, Nature

“The gray-green stretch of sandy grass,
Indefinitely desolate;
A sea of lead, a sky of slate;
Already autumn in the air, alas!
One stark monotony of stone,
The long hotel, acutely white,
Against the after-sunset light
Withers gray-green, and takes the grass's tone.”

Arthur Symons (1865–1945) British poet

Color Studies. At Dieppe (1895).

Autumn, Light, Grass, Sea

“Look at the ivy on the cold clinging wall
Look at the flowers and the green grass so tall
It's not a matter of when push comes to shove
It's just an hour on the wings of a dove.”

Van Morrison (1945) Northern Irish singer-songwriter and musician

Warm Love
Song lyrics, Hard Nose the Highway (1973)

Flowers, Grass

“To change our laws and culture, the green movement must attract and include the majority of all people, not just the majority of affluent people.”

Van Jones book The Green Collar Economy

The Green Collar Economy (2008)

People, Law, Change

“This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks,
Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight,
Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic,
Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms.”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie

Prelude.
Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie (1847)

Sadness

“And the young gay people in the Altoona, Pennsylvanias and the Richmond, Minnesotas who are coming out and hear Anita Bryant in television and her story. The only thing they have to look forward to is hope. And you have to give them hope. Hope for a better world, hope for a better tomorrow, hope for a better place to come to if the pressures at home are too great. Hope that all will be all right. Without hope, not only gays, but the blacks, the seniors, the handicapped, the us'es, the us'es will give up. And if you help elect to the central committee and other offices, more gay people, that gives a green light to all who feel disenfranchised, a green light to move forward. It means hope to a nation that has given up, because if a gay person makes it, the doors are open to everyone.”

Harvey Milk (1930–1978) American politician who became a martyr in the gay community

A version of his staple "Hope Speech," quoted in Randy Shilts, The Mayor of Castro Street: The Life and Times of Harvey Milk (1982), p. 363

People, World, Hope, Feeling

“When the law can stop the blades of grass
From growing as they grow,
And when the leaves in summer time
Their verdure dare not show,
Then I will change the colour
I wear in my caubeen,
But till that day I'll stick for aye
To wearing of the green.”

Dion Boucicault (1820–1890) Irish actor and dramatist

The Wearing of the Green, in Arragh na Pogue, or the Wicklow Wedding (1864)

Law, Grass, Change, Time

“Saw pardelas and a green rush near the vessel. The crew of the Pinta saw a cane and a log; they also picked up a stick which appeared to have been carved with an iron tool, a piece of cane, a plant which grows on land, and a board. The crew of the Nina saw other signs of land, and a stalk loaded with rose berries. These signs encouraged them, and they all grew cheerful.”

Cristoforo Colombo (1451–1506) Explorer, navigator, and colonizer

11 October 1492
Journal of the First Voyage

Appearance

“At the Galerie Colette Allendy I exhibited some twenty monochrome surfaces, all in different colours: greens, reds, yellows, purples, blues, oranges.... and so found myself at the start of my career in this style... I was trying to show colour, but I realized at the private view that the public were prisoners of a preconceived point of view and that, confronted with all these surfaces of different colours, they responded far more to the inter-relationship of the different propositions, they reconstituted the elements of a decorative polychromy.”

Yves Klein (1928–1962) French artist

In 1956; p. 30
before 1960, "Yves Klein, 1928 – 1962, Selected Writings"

“I am glad you encouraged me with the 'Stoke' [his painting 'Stoke-by-Nayland', circa 1835] What say you to a summer morning? July or August, at eight or nine o’clock, after a slight shower during the night, to enhance the dews in the shadowed part of the picture, under 'Hedge row elms and hillocks green.' Then the plough, cart, horse, gate, cows, donkey, &c. are all good paintable material for the foreground, and the size of the canvas sufficient to try one's strength, and keep one at full collar.”

John Constable (1776–1837) English Romantic painter

Letter to William Purton (6 February 1836), as quoted in Leslie Parris and Ian Fleming-Williams, Constable (Tate Gallery Publications, London, 1993), p. 380
1830s

Horse, Summer, Parting, Painting

“Flow gently, sweet Afton! amang thy green braes,
Flow gently, I'll sing thee a song in thy praise.
My Mary's asleep by thy murmuring stream,
Flow gently, sweet Afton, disturb not her dream.”

Robert Burns Sweet Afton

Sweet Afton, st. 1 (1789)

Dreams, Singing

“But ah! what a drear hell it was we now had to venture through! What a maelstrom of relentless gorging, one creature upon another! The claws and jaws of the upper world are red enough—who denies it?—but the carnage has intermissions, periods of amiable association, zones of green peace and fructification. In the subworlds, the merciless seethe of appetites never simmers down.”

Michael Shea book Nifft the Lean

Part 3, Chapter 8 (p. 142)
Nifft the Lean (1982)

World, Peace, Hell

“Jean, Jean, roses are red
All the leaves have gone green
And the clouds are so low
You can touch them, and so
Come out to the meadow, Jean.”

Rod McKuen (1933–2015) American poet, songwriter, composer, and singer

Music to The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1968)

“Does the sweet morning rise,
Bride-like, from sleep,
When their first revelries
Bird and bee keep,
Singing out joyously
In the green tree?
Then, when my hopes are high,
Think I of thee.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

(5th January 1833) Songs
The London Literary Gazette, 1833-1835

Hope, Bird, Thinking, Sleep

“Of all kind of authors there are none I despise more than compilers, who search every where for shreds of other men's works, which they join to their own, like so many pieces of green turf in a garden: they are not at all superior to compositors in a printing house, who range the types, which, collected together, make a book, towards which they contribute nothing but the labours of the hand. I would have original writers respected, and it seems to me a kind of profanation to take those pieces from the sanctuary in which they reside, and to expose them to a contempt they do not deserve. When a man hath nothing new to say, why does not he hold his tongue? What business have we with this double employment?”

Montesquieu (1689–1755) French social commentator and political thinker

No. 66.
Lettres Persanes (Persian Letters, 1721)

Men, Books, Search, Business

“The human eye loves to rest upon wide expanses of pure colour: the moors in the purple heyday of heather, miles of green downland, and the sea when it lies calm and blue and boundless, all delight it; but to some none of these, lovely though they all are, can give the same satisfaction of spirit as acres upon acres of golden corn. There is both beauty and bread and the seeds of bread for future generations.”

Flora Thompson book Lark Rise

Source: Lark Rise, ch. 15, Harvest Home

Love, Beauty, Future, Sea

“It's no coincidence that the worst published writer in the world today is also one of the world's most successful writers… Dan Brown. Now Dan Brown is not a good writer, The Da Vinci Code is not literature. Dan Brown writes sentences like "The famous man looked at the red cup." …and it's only to be hoped that Dan Brown never gets a job where he's required to break bad news. "Doctor is he going to be alright?" "The seventy five year old man died a painful death on the large green table… it was sad".”

Stewart Lee (1968) English stand-up comedian, writer, director and musician

Series 1 Episode 1: "Toilet Books"

Death, Pain, World, Sadness

“My starting point is as an academic who always thought nuclear was the answer, but who then looked at the figures and came to an inescapable conclusion that solar-hydrogen is the long-term future. I did not come at this as a green evangelist. I am a reluctant convert.”

Derek Abbott (1960) Physicist, engineer

On energy supply and solar power

Future

“At this season of the year we draw close to Good Friday. All the eyes of the world will turn back to "a green hill far away, without a city wall," where the founder of Christianity was crucified by those forces of selfishness, greed, and lust for gain that are still at work in the world. It seems to me that unless we do something in Canada about the question of the export of war materials there will be another crucifixion - the crucifixion of a generation of young men, crucified upon a cross of nickel.”

Tommy Douglas (1904–1986) Scottish-born Canadian politician

Debate, House of Commons, Ottawa, Ontario, April 3, 1939.

Men, War, World, Question

“Wonderful but true! Shall future progeny of men believe, when crops grow again and this desert shall once more be green, that cities and peoples are buried below and that an ancestral countryside vanished in a common doom? Nor does the summit yet cease its deadly thrust.”
Mira fides! credetne virum ventura propago, cum segetes iterum, cum iam haec deserta virebunt, infra urbes populosque premi proavitaque tanto rura abiisse mari? necdum letale minari cessat apex.

Statius Silvae

iv, line 81
Silvae, Book IV

Men, People, Future

“Why should they also be accepted by private persons in private transactions in exchange for goods and services?
The short answer—and the right answer—is that private persons accept these pieces of paper because they are confident that others will. The pieces of green paper have value because everybody thinks they have value. Everybody thinks they have value because in everybody's experience they have had value…”

Milton Friedman (1912–2006) American economist, statistician, and writer

Source: Money Mischief (1992), Ch. 2 The Mystery of Money

Confidence, Thinking, Personality

“I don't have counsel, I have more idioms as: Don't come to monkey mother with green bananas.”

Patricia Conde (1979) Spanish actress

No soy de consejos, soy más de frases hechas como: A mamá mono no le vengas con bananas verdes.
blog oficial Patricia Conde

“One must always paint in opposition to nature, and to one’s own 'mood'. To let oneself go is a weakness, a sort of hysterics. If you are full of red, choose a green or a blue; if you feel like yellow, choose grey or black. In this continuous opposition lies the entire secret of plastic creation… To create a great work of art demands self-mortification.”

Theo van Doesburg (1883–1931) Dutch architect, painter, draughtsman and writer

Quote in his article 'Elementarism', as cited in De Stijl – Van Doesburg Issue, January 1932, pp. 17–19
1926 – 1931

Secret, Art, Feeling, Mood

““Sir Tristano spoke: “Stop! You are taking the great green pearl!”
“Naturally!” said the voice from a point close behind. “That is the whole point of robbery: to acquire the victim’s valuables!””

Jack Vance Lyonesse Trilogy

Source: Lyonesse Trilogy (1983-1989), The Green Pearl (1985), Chapter 1, section 4 (p. 375)

Nature

“My brother works for a forestry commission. He writes only in green ink to persuade his bosses to make it a standard ecological colour for all forestry business. I asked him what colour ink he would use if he gave up eating whale meat and worked for a whaling company. He said whales were colour blind.”

Peter Greenaway (1942) British film director

One of the calligraphers
The Pillow Book

Business

“"Anne, my sister Anne, do you see nothing coming?"
"I see nothing but the sun that makes everything dusty, and the grass that grows green."”

Charles Perrault (1628–1703) French author

Tales of Mother Goose, 1727, "Bluebeard"

Sister, Grass, Sun

“The Bayeux Tapestry is accepted as an authority on many details of life and the fine points of history in the eleventh century. For instance, the horses in those days had green legs, blue bodies, yellow manes, and red heads, while the people were all double-jointed and quite different from what we generally think of as human beings.”

Will Cuppy (1884–1949) American writer

The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (1950), Part V: Merrie England, William the Conqueror

Life, People, History, Thinking

“Time past on as lightly as he always steps over flowers, Brussels carpets, marble terraces, green turfs, or whatever simile may best express a path without an impediment.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

Other Gift Books

Flowers, Time, Past

“I didn’t know what to expect when I made my first convention appearance (in Las Vegas in 2005). I was blown away by the loyalty and knowledge of the fans. They attend these events annually and know more about our characters than we do. Some of them were even dressed in costumes, even as Orion slaves painted in green. Star Trek fans are the most loyal fans.”

Menina Fortunato (1980) Canadian actress

Enterprise's Orion Slave Girls https://www.startrek.com/article/exclusive-interview-enterprises-orion-slave-girls (March 16, 2016)

Star, Knowledge, Appearance, Painting

“Behind the top hats, a little lady wearing lila-coloured tights was balancing on a tightrope in the middle of all that blue-grey tobacco-laden air. I sauntered in among the standing clientele. I was on the lookout for an attractive girl. Yes – that one wasn’t bad. When she became aware of my gaze her facial expression changed to that of a frozen mask and she stared emptily into space. I found a stair – and collapsed into it – tired and listless. Everyone clapped. The Lila-clad tightrope-walker curtsied, smiled and disappeared. A group of Romanian singers took her place. There was love and hate – and longing and reunion – and lovely dreams – and that soft music melting together with the colours. The melted notes became green palm trees and steely blue water floating in the blue haze of the room. An artwork is a crystal. A crystal has a soul and a mind, and the artwork must also have these.”

Edvard Munch (1863–1944) Norwegian painter and printmaker

a note of Munch, written in Ekely, 1929; Munch Museum
1896 - 1930

Love, Hate, Smile, Dreams

“We are all inclined to accept conventional forms or colours as the only correct ones. Children sometimes think that stars must be star-shaped, though naturally they are not. The people who insist that in a picture the sky must be blue, and the grass green, are not very different from these children. They get indignant if they see other colours in a picture, but if we try to forget all we have heard about green grass and blue skies, and look at the world as if we had just arrived from another planet on a voyage of discovery and were seeing it for the first time, we may find that things are apt to have the most surprising colours.”

Ernst Gombrich book The Story of Art

Source: The Story of Art (1978), p. 26.

Children, People, World, Star

“The Green Belt is a Labour achievement — and we mean to build on it.”

John Prescott (1938) Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1997–2007)

Remark on BBC Radio (19 January 1998), quoted in "Passing Comment", The Times (31 January 1998)

“That man is a fool,” Lady Marta said, her dark eyes staring at Baron Hepplethong’s retreating back. “Most men are fools, but he carries it to unnatural extremes. I have the misfortune to be distantly related to him. He believes in the natural superiority of the white race, the noble class, and the male sex. He also feels that people who wear green are morally superior to those who wear red or brown. I do not jest.”

Michael Kurland book Ten Little Wizards

Source: Ten Little Wizards (1988), Chapter 14 (p. 141)

Men, People, Fools, Sex

“Among
of
green stiff
old
bright broken
branch
come white
sweet
May again”

William Carlos Williams book An Early Martyr and Other Poems

"The Locust Tree in Flower"
An Early Martyr and Other Poems (1935)

“First I will make different color tests: I will study the dark – deep blue, deep violet, deep dirty green, etc. Often I see the colors before my eyes. Sometimes I imitate with my lips the deep sounds of the trumpet – then I see various deep mixtures which the word is uncapable od conceiving and which the palette can only feebly reproduce.”

Wassily Kandinsky (1866–1944) Russian painter

Quote in Kandinsky's letter to Gabriele Münter, 1915; as cited in Schönberg and Kandinsky: An Historic Encounter, by Klaus Kropfinger; edited by Konrad Boehmer; published by Routledge (imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informal company), 2003, p. 16 note 54
1910 - 1915

Color, Study

“The practical effects of the Marxian-Federovian cult of technology were ruinous. Inspired by a materialist philosophy, the Soviet Union inflicted more far-reaching and lasting damage on the material environment than any regime in history. Green earth became desert, and pollution rose to life-threatening levels. No advantage to mankind was gained by the Soviet destruction of nature. Soviet citizens lived no longer than people in other countries - many of them a good deal less.”

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

The Unsaved: Nikolai Federov, Bolshevism and the Technological Pursuit of Immortality (p. 138)
Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals (2002)

Life, People, History, Nature