Quotes about hand
page 21

“Do you want to see what human eyes have never seen? Look at the moon. Do you want to hear what ears have never heard? Listen to the bird's cry. Do you want to touch what hands have never touched? Touch the earth. Verily I say that God is about to create the world.”

Jorge Luis Borges book The Theologians

The Theologians, translated by James E. Irby (1964)

God, World, Bird, Cry

“He thought about crossing his fingers, but clasped her hand instead.”

Tim Powers book Last Call

Epilogue (p. 535)
Last Call (1992)

“Time has laid his hand
Upon my heart, gently, not smiting it,
But as a harper lays his open palm
Upon his harp, to deaden its vibrations.”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) American poet

The Golden Legend http://www.gutenberg.org/files/10490/10490-h/10490-h.htm, Pt. IV, The Cloisters (1872).

Time, Heart

“Yes, a woman makes a fine weapon in capable hands…slim and supple as a sword blade…and a blade to which no man’s armor is completely proof.”

Lin Carter (1930–1988) American fantasy writer, editor, critic

Source: Tower at the Edge of Time (1968), Chapter 9, “Slaves of Chan” (p. 86)

“The extent of our country was so great, and its former division into distinct States so established, that we thought it better to confederate as to foreign affairs only. Every State retained its self-government in domestic matters, as better qualified to direct them to the good and satisfaction of their citizens, than a general government so distant from its remoter citizens, and so little familiar with the local peculiarities of the different parts. […] There are now twenty-four of these distinct States, none smaller perhaps than your Morea, several larger than all Greece. Each of these has a constitution framed by itself and for itself, but militating in nothing with the powers of the General Government in its appropriate department of war and foreign affairs. These constitutions being in print and in every hand, I shall only make brief observations on them, and on those provisions particularly which have not fulfilled expectations, or which, being varied in different States, leave a choice to be made of that which is best. You will find much good in all of them, and no one which would be approved in all its parts. Such indeed are the different circumstances, prejudices, and habits of different nations, that the constitution of no one would be reconcilable to any other in every point. A judicious selection of the parts of each suitable to any other, is all which prudence should attempt […].”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

1820s, Letter to A. Coray (1823)

War, Distant, Parting, Country

“Charlotte: 'I have some more [paintings she recently made] to show you'.
Daberlohn: Well, let's meet this evening…..
Isn't it absurd to address each other so formally? You're such a baby – here, let me hold your hand.... Real painter's hands'.
Charlotte: 'To me they're just ugly'....'You would be a wonderful subject for a portrait -'
Daberlohn (to himself) : 'Little girl, if you only knew what one has to go through to be able to paint.”

Charlotte Salomon (1917–1943) German painter

written text with brush, in her paintings JHM no. 4640 + 4641 + 4642 + 4643: in 'Life? or Theater..', p. 522-525
Charlotte Salomon - Life? or Theater?

Girl, Baby, Painting

“I have in this treatise followed the mathematical method, if not with all strictness, at least imitatively, not in order, by a display of profundity, to procure a better reception for it, but because I believe such a system to be quite capable of it, and that perfection may in time be obtained by a cleverer hand, if stimulated by this sketch, mathematical investigators of nature should find it not unimportant to treat the metaphysical portion, which anyway cannot be got rid of, as a special fundamental department of general physics, and to bring it into unison with the mathematical doctrine of motion.”

Immanuel Kant book Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science

Preface, Tr. Bax (1883)
Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science (1786)

Mathematics, Nature, Time, Perfection

“The paper is breathless
Under the hand
And the pencil is poised
Like a warlock's wand.”

Mervyn Peake (1911–1968) English writer, artist, poet and illustrator

Poem in The Glassblowers (1950)

“A handful of soldiers is always better than a mouthful of arguments.”

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–1799) German scientist, satirist

E 19
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook E (1775 - 1776)

“A dead man, Sir Moses,” Lord Darcy told him.
“Remember, young man, he isn’t dead until I say he’s dead,” Sir Moses said. He pushed Lord Darcy aside and stepped over to the throne. He stared down at Master Sorcerer Dandro Bittman.
“This man is dead,” Sir Moses said.
“Indeed he is, Sir Moses,” Master Sean said, coming up behind him. “And that’s something that neither you with your bone cutting nor I with my spells, nor the finest healer with the most sensitive hands in the kingdom, can do aught about.”

Michael Kurland book Ten Little Wizards

Source: Ten Little Wizards (1988), Chapter 15 (p. 151)

Dead

“And, growing tired, we turn aside at last,
Remember our secret selves, seek out our towers,
Lay weary hands on the banisters, and climb;
Climbing, each, to his little four-square dream
Of love or lust or beauty or death or crime.”

Conrad Aiken (1889–1973) American novelist and poet

The House of Dust (1916 - 1917)

Love, Death, Secret, Beauty

“If you look at early shamanic texts and cultures, the magical powers that the shaman hopes the gods might give him, flying, turning into animals, invisibility, poetry – as if poetry was a magic power. As if it was the equivalent of turning into a dog or flying. As if. What does this tell us? Maybe there was a time when we could legitimately ask the gods for it as a gift. But we know there aren’t any gods, and that they can’t give those gifts, so the best thing we can do is go to church, listen to the lesson and hope we don’t burn. Have no direct contact with whatever form of god we choose to worship. It’s like the magical or spiritual equivalent of the big flaw in Marxism. Karl Marx, lovely geezer, very humane, a bit middle class but we’ll gloss over that, but his big flaw was that when he said “The reins of society will inevitably rest in the hands of those who control the means of production” didn’t take into account middle management. All the people who get between those with the means of production and the society. That translates onto a spiritual level as the shift from our earliest beliefs, which are all shamanic.”

Alan Moore (1953) English writer primarily known for his work in comic books

De Abaitua interview (1998)

Love, God, People, Dogs

“Dutifully I thumbed the rides, hopped the B & Os and the Great Northerns, balled the lithe small-town girls in the band shells of their hometown parks, held the job as field hand and day laborer and soda jerk, saw the crude spectacles of American landscape slide past me as I lay in an open boxcar and drank cheap red wine; and if I didn't, I might as well have.”

Michael Chabon book Wonder Boys

Wonder Boys (1995)

Jerk, Girl, Wine, Past

“When the first mission of Rainbow Six was actually coming together we really started to realize that we might have a hit on our hands, but hadn't really expected the runaway success.”

Tom Clancy (1947–2013) American author

2000s, GameSpy interview

Success

“There was a white man sitting at the kitchen table, warming his hands by wrapping them around a hot cup of tea. He had kind of an oblong face, curly red hair piled on top, a close-cropped but dense red beard, shocking blue eyes that always looked wide open. He face was ruddy with the outdoors, and the way he was sitting there with that tea, he looked so calm, so centered, almost like he was in meditation. When I came in, he looked at me and smiled just a trace, without showing his teeth…”

Neal Stephenson book Zodiac

The legendary S.T. finally meets the legendary Hank Boone (proto-Enoch Root character), end of chapter 24
Zodiac (1988)

Smile, Way, Tea

“We got a thousand points of light
For the homeless man.
We got a kinder, gentler,
Machine gun hand.
We got department stores
And toilet paper
Got styrofoam boxes
For the ozone layer.
Got a man of the people,
Says keep hope alive
Got fuel to burn,
Got roads to drive.”

Neil Young (1945) Canadian singer-songwriter

Rockin' in the Free World
Song lyrics, Freedom (1989)

People, Hope, Light, Box

“War breeds war. That is all it can do. War does nothing but devour valuable resources and destroy precious lives for the sole purpose of perpetuating itself. As Randolph Bourne wrote, “War is the health of the State.” War is a mechanism used by the ruling elites of the State to coerce and control the people, so it becomes essential that whenever one war is complete, another is instigated elsewhere so that the mechanism keeps running.
On the other hand, peace breeds prosperity. If War is indeed the “health of the State,” then Peace can be nothing less than the “health of the People.” Being at peace means valuable natural resources can be preserved and used at home where we need them most. Being at peace means young fathers and mothers can live and enjoy free trade, not only among themselves but with the world, instead of dying capriciously and unnecessarily, for political gain or to line the pockets of those who profit from their sacrifice.
History teaches us that the key elements to prosperity are freedom and peace. You don’t go to war with people you like, or with people you know, or with people with whom you are trading and doing business. Even after our fledgling republic was nearly torn asunder in civil war which literally pitted brother against brother and nearly destroyed the South, our reunited nation and all its people advanced and prospered after peace was restored.”

R. Lee Wrights (1958–2017) American gubernatorial candidate

" Why Peace? Why Not? http://www.libertyforall.net/?p=7277," Liberty For All (11 February 2012, retrieved 25 February 2012). Republished http://original.antiwar.com/lee-wrights/2012/02/15/why-peace-why-not/ by Antiwar.com (16 February 2012). 2012

War, People, Health, World

“Muhammad ibn Tughlaq “led forth his army to ravage Hindostan. He laid the country waste from Kanauj to Dalmau [on the Ganges, in the Rai Baréli District, Oudh], and every person that fell into his hands he slew. Many of the inhabitants fled and took refuge in the jungles, but the Sultan had the jungles surrounded, and every individual that was captured was killed.””

Muhammad bin Tughluq (1290–1351) Turkic Sultan of Delhi

Vincent Arthur Smith, The Oxford History of India: From the Earliest Times to the End of 1911 (Clarendon Press, 1920), 241-2. as quoted in Spencer, Robert (2018). The history of Jihad: From Muhammad to ISIS.

Personality, Country

“How could that have happened? … Even if it was a hand of God … I’d read – and I don’t know how they know this – but in approximately 3000 BC there was a massive undersea volcano and earthquake, which created a tsunami wave that had to have been a couple of hundred feet high. Just off the heel of Italy. Diagonally across you’re staring right up the mouth of the Nile, so I’m wondering if that had anything to do with that.”

Ridley Scott (1937) English film director and film producer

On the parting of the Red Sea in the tales of Moses, as quoted in "Exodus: Gods And Kings - How Ridley Scott And Christian Bale Are Rebooting The Biblical Epic" at Yahoo Movies (16 September 2014) https://uk.yahoo.com/movies/exodus-gods-and-kings-set-visit-97667462271.html

God, Reading

“Until last year, although this town was barely fifty miles from Denver, the road had been bad and only a handful of visitors had chanced on it. The increasing tendency for people to take mountain vacations, however, since the sea had become too filthy to be tolerable, could not be ignored. The road now was excellent and the area had exploded.”

John Brunner book The Sheep Look Up

January “SNOW JOB”
The Sheep Look Up (1972)

People, Mountain, Chance, Sea

“Anyone who really carries out this existence [ of the Discalced Carmelites ] in spirit and letter must see it as a foretaste of death, of the radical and irrevocable parting from all things that make life rich, sweet and attractive. It is a venturing into death in the hope of receiving a new, mysterious life from the hand of the Lord.”

Ida Friederike Görres (1901–1971) Austrian writer and noble

The Hidden Face p. 142.

Life, Death, Hope, Parting

“Why did you fight with my Giridhara (Kṛṣṇa)? You are a young maiden, and my Giridhara (Kṛṣṇa) is but a child, why did you hold his arm? My Giridhara (Kṛṣṇa) is crying, sobbing repeatedly, and you stand [looking at him] smirkingly! O Ahir lady (cowherd girl), you are excessively inclined to quarrel, and come and stand here uninvited." Giridhara (the poet) sings - so says Yaśodā, holding on to the hand of Giridhara (Kṛṣṇa) and covering [her face] with the end of her Sari.”

Rāmabhadrācārya (1950) Hindu religious leader

mere giridhārī jī se kāhe larī ।
tuma taruṇī mero giridhara bālaka kāhe bhujā pakarī ॥
susuki susuki mero giridhara rovata tū musukāta kharī ॥
tū ahirina atisaya jhagarāū barabasa āya kharī ॥
giridhara kara gahi kahata jasodā āŉcara oṭa karī ॥
[Nagar, Shanti Lal, The Holy Journey of a Divine Saint: Being the English Rendering of Swarnayatra Abhinandan Granth, Acharya Divakar, Sharma, Siva Kumar, Goyal, Surendra Sharma, Susila, B. R. Publishing Corporation, First, Hardback, New Delhi, India, 2002, 8176462888]
[Prasad, Ram Chandra, Sri Ramacaritamanasa The Holy Lake Of The Acts Of Rama, Motilal Banarsidass, 1999, Illustrated, reprint, Delhi, India, 8120807626, First published 1991]

Girl, Singing, Fight, Cry

“Thus far woman has struggled through life with bandaged eyes, accepting the dogma of her weakness and inability to take care of herself not only physically but intellectually. She has held out a trembling hand and received gratefully the proffered aid. She has foregone her right to study, to know the laws and purposes of government to which she is subject. But there is now awakened in her a consciousness that she is defrauded of her legitimate Rights and that she never can fulfill her mission until she is placed in that position to which she feels herself called by the divinity within. Hitherto she has surrendered her person and her individuality to man, but she can no longer do this and not feel that she is outraging her nature and her God.”

Sarah Grimké (1792–1873) American abolitionist

Written in 1857, as quoted in ch. 87.
The Female Experience (1977)

Life, God, Law, Feeling

“"What are you doing here, Caroni?" Brother Leon asked, looking up from his desk. He squinted toward the doorway. "It is Caroni, isn't it?" "Yes, it is," David answered, closing the door soundlessly, hiding the object in his hand behind his back.”

Robert Cormier book Beyond the Chocolate War

Source: Beyond the Chocolate War (1985), p. 232

“… Nothing is so simple as the subject matter of his works. The two greatest of his creations, the character of Satan and the character of Eve, are two of the simplest—the latter probably the very simplest—in the whole field of literature. On this side, Milton's art is classical. On the other hand, in no writer is the imagery more profuse, the illustrations more various, the dress altogether more splendid; and in this respect the style of his art seems romantic and modern. In real truth, however, it is only ancient art in a modern disguise: the dress is a mere dress, and can be stripped off when we will.—we all of us do perhaps in memory strip it off for ourselves.”

Walter Bagehot (1826–1877) British journalist, businessman, and essayist

[ART. VII—John Milton, National Review, July 1859, 9, 150–186, https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015027193559;view=1up;seq=184] (quote from p. 174)
John Milton (1859)

Truth, Art, Literature, Memory

“Oh, I'm not entirely without blame! It was a mistake to have chosen Lon Nol as my right-hand man, my chief of staff, my prime minister, without ever suspecting that he was a traitor in league with the CIA. I thought he was a patriot… Who would have thought the Americans would use him? After all, he was a complete idiot! He never understood a damn thing, always staring at me with those bovine eyes of his, and spending all his time praying.”

Norodom Sihanouk (1922–2012) Cambodian King

Said during his exile in Peking, as quoted by Oriana Fallaci (June 1973), Intervista con la Storia (sixth edition, 2011). pages 112-113.
Interviews

Time

“The powerful have historically tried to impose their will through mechanisms of enforced ignorance such as censorship, secrecy, threats, physical intimidation and violence. This model is difficult to sustain in a networked world based on Enlightenment values. This is not to say that Western democracies have abandoned these heavy-handed tactics, but more often the methods have shifted to more sophisticated ways of maintaining power such as media management, public relations and legal intimidation. In the midst of all this information and misinformation how can we filter out what is important and true?”

Heather Brooke (1970) American journalist

Page 72.
The Revolution Will Be Digitised: Dispatches From the Information War, 1st Edition

World, Way, Democracy

“At some point along the way, people had introduced me to bands like Depeche Mode and stuff that was on the softer side of electronic music and that completely intrigued me because of the sonic capabilities and possibilities. I got intrigued with that and then somewhere along the way somebody handed me a Skinny Puppy record and I think that changed my musical life.”

Klayton (1970) American musician

"Klayton Scott - Celldweller," (2003)

Life, People, Music, Way

“Science has toiled too long forging weapons for fools to use. It is time she held her hand.”

H. G. Wells book The First Men in the Moon

Source: The First Men in the Moon (1901), Ch. 18: In the Sunlight

Fools, Science, Time

“The whole prospect of Gaelic appals me, the more I think of the difficulties and the likelihood of its extinction in a generation or two. A … language with … no modern prose of any account, no philosophical or technical vocabulary to speak of, no correct usage except among old people and a few university students, colloquially full of gross English idiom lately taken over, exact shades of meanings of most words not to be found in any of its dictionaries and dialectally varying enormously (what chance of the appreciation of the overtones of poetry, except amongst a handful?) Above all, all economic, social and political factors working against it, and, with that, the notorious, moral cowardice of the Highlanders themselves.”

Sorley MacLean (1911–1996) Scottish poet

Sorley MacLean, June 1943, quoted in Krause, Corinna. "Translating Gaelic Scotland" https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/beae/ab4c968782c1c0eeb7ee0f9459d009fab52d.pdf and "Gaelic Scotland – A Postcolonial Site?" https://www.gla.ac.uk/media/media_41178_en.pdf Letters and interviews

People, Thinking, Universe, Chance

“Feeling that the silver chord of life is loosing, and that his spirit is ready to quit her old companion the body, he extends himself on his bed — closes his eyes for the last time, with his own hands — folds his arms decently on his breast, then breathing out "Father of mercies! take me to thyself," — he fell asleep. Swift on angels' wings the brightening saint ascended; while voices more than human were heard (in Fancy's ear) warbling through the happy regions, and hymning the great procession towards the gates of heaven. His glorious coming was seen far off, and myriads of mighty angels hastened forth, with golden harps, to welcome the honored stranger.”

Mason Weems (1759–1825) fictionalizing biographer of George Washington

Description of Washington's death in Life of Washington (1800); this fanciful account bears no relation to the report of Washington's last words by his personal secretary Tobias Lear, who wrote in his journal (14 December 1799) http://gwpapers.virginia.edu/project/exhibit/mourning/lear.html: About ten o'clk he made several attempts to speak to me before he could effect it, at length he said, — "I am just going. Have me decently buried; and do not let my body be put into the Vault in less than three days after I am dead." I bowed assent, for I could not speak. He then looked at me again and said, "Do you understand me? I replied "Yes." "Tis well" said he.

Life, Angels, Feeling, Time

“The labouring poor, to use a vulgar expression, seem always to live from hand to mouth. Their present wants employ their whole whole attention, and they seldom think of the future. Even when they have an opportunity of saving they seldom exercise it, but all that is beyond their present neccessities goes, generally speaking, to the ale house.”

Thomas Robert Malthus (1766–1834) British political economist

Source: An Essay on The Principle of Population (First Edition 1798, unrevised), Chapter V, paragraph 13, lines 8-13

Exercises, Thinking, Future, Housing

“God does not need to speak for himself in order for us to discover definitive signs of his will; it is enough to examine the normal course of nature and the consistent tendency of events. I know without needing to hear the voice of the Creator that the stars trace out in space the orbits which his hand has drawn.”

Alexis De Tocqueville book Democracy in America

Original text: Il n’est pas nécessaire que Dieu parle lui-même pour que nous découvrions des signes certains de sa volonté; il suffit d’examiner quelle est la marche habituelle de la nature et la tendance continue des événements; je sais, sans que le Créateur élève la voix, que les astres suivent dans l’espace les courbes que son doigt a tracées.
Introduction
Democracy in America, Volume I (1835)

God, Star, Nature

“Thus adorned, the two heroes, 'twixt shoulder and elbow,
Shook hands and went to 't; and the word it was bilbow.”

John Byrom (1692–1763) Poet, inventor of a shorthand system

Upon a Trial of Skill between the Great Masters of the Noble Science of Defence, Messrs. Figg and Sutton as quoted in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“People aren't either wicked or noble," the hook-handed man said. They're like chef's salad, with good things and bad things chopped and mixed together in a vinaigrette of confusion and conflict.”

Daniel Handler book The Grim Grotto

The Grim Grotto (2004)

People

“It is sufficient here to observe that the supreme coordinating authority must be anterior to leadership in logical order, for it is this coordinating force which makes the organization. Leadership, on the other hand, always presupposes the organization. There can be no leader without something to lead.”

James D. Mooney (1884–1957) American businessman

Source: Onward Industry!, 1931, p. 21

“The last book, the one on the bottom, was a copy of the 1,500-page Gray’s Anatomy. The weight was all wrong in her hands. She opened the cover, revealing a space hollowed out with surgical precision.”

Lis Wiehl (1961) American legal scholar

Source: Heart of Ice A Triple Threat Novel with April Henry (Thomas Nelson), p. 130

Books

“If I get a parking ticket, there is always a parallel universe where I didn't. On the other hand, there is yet another universe where my car was stolen.”

Max Tegmark (1967) Swedish-American cosmologist

BBC Horizons - What is Reality? (January 17, 2011)

Cars, Universe

“Would you like to play
With the thought of a friend
In a distant passing stage
While you lie around
With your hands up and out
So resigned you will fall down.”

Dave Matthews (1967) American singer-songwriter, musician and actor

The Song That Jane Likes
Remember Two Things (1993)

Lie, Distant

“We are told by the word of the Gospel that in this His fold there are two swords—a spiritual, namely, and a temporal. […] Both swords, the spiritual and the material, therefore, are in the power of the Church; the one, indeed, to be wielded for the Church, the other by the Church; the one by the hand of the priest, the other by the hand of kings and knights, but at the will and sufferance of the priest.”
In hac ejusque potestate duos esse gladios, spiritualem videlicet et temporalem, evangelicis dictis instruimur. […] Uterque ergo est in potestate ecclesiae, spiritualis scilicet gladius et materialis. Sed is quidem pro ecclesia, ille vero ab ecclesia exercendus, ille sacerdotis, is manu regum et militum, sed ad nutum et patientiam sacerdotis.

Pope Boniface VIII Unam sanctam

Unam sanctam (1302)

Suffering

“The first day I can remember looking into a mirror and being able to stand what I saw was the day I had a guitar in my hand.”

Bruce Springsteen (1949) American singer and songwriter

Bruce Springsteen Talking

“Often we comfort ourselves only with words, but if we pray enough, the conviction will come too that Christ is our King, not Stalin, Bevins, or Truman. That He has all things in His hands, that 'all things work together for good for those that love Him.”

Dorothy Day (1897–1980) Social activist

On Pilgrimage (1948), p. 18

Love, Christ

“The attack of the Luddites was not occasioned by the introduction of new machinery, however, as is commonly thought, for there is no evidence of such in 1811 and 1812 when Luddism proper began. Rather, the destruction was leveled at the new slip-shod methods which were ordered into effect on the extant machinery. Not an attack against production on economic grounds, it was above all the violent response of the textile workers (soon joined by others) to their attempted degradation in the form of inferior work; shoddy goods — the hastily-assembled "cut-ups," primarily — was the issue at hand.”

John Zerzan (1943) American anarchist and primitivist philosopher and author

Source: Elements of Refusal (1988), p. 108

“Oh, hello," Dr. M says, shaking Balder's hand. "Wonderful costume. I'm a bit of a role player myself on the weekends. Tell me, where did you get the helmet?"
"It was forged in the North, blessed by the hands of Odin, given to me by my mother, Frigg," Balder answers.
"Lovely. I got mine on the Internet.”

Libba Bray Going Bovine

Source: Going Bovine (2009), p. 318

Love

“To me it is quite credible that the Martians may be descended from beings not unlike ourselves, by a gradual development of brain and hands (the latter giving rise to the two bunches of delicate tentacles at last) at the expense of the rest of the body. Without the body the brain would, of course, become a mere selfish intelligence, without any of the emotional substratum of the human being.”

H. G. Wells book The War of the Worlds

Book II, Ch. 2 (Ch. 19 in editions without Book division): What We Saw from the Ruined House
The War of the Worlds (1898)

Intelligence, Selfishness

“I will take my hands off Medicare when there is no Medicare, then I will come and see you sir.”

Allen West (politician) (1961) American politician; retired United States Army officer

Republican Rep. Allen West: “I will take my hands off Medicare when there is no Medicare”
Blogging Blue
2011-05-20
http://bloggingblue.com/2011/05/20/republican-rep-allen-west-i-will-take-my-hands-off-medicare-when-there-is-no-medicare/
2011-06-07
To an audience member chanting "Hands off Medicare!"
2010s

“He was not condemned to death, freedom awaited
him. What was the temptation, the one that worked?
Perhaps he wanted to live with a woman whose life
he had saved, who had seen down into the earth but
had nevertheless followed him back up to life. It was
his only chance to be a hero, to one person at least,
for if he became the hangman the others would
despise him. He was in prison for wounding another
man, on one finger of the right hand, with a sword.
This too is history.”

Margaret Atwood (1939) Canadian writer

Selected Poems 1976-1986 (1987), Marrying the Hangman

Life, Death, History, Freedom

“I commend you on all you've done for PETA, wrestling the one-eyed trouser snake with your bare hands, gently cuddling it in your arms, and nurturing it back to health.”

Sarah Silverman (1970) American comedian and actress

To Pamela Anderson on the Comedy Central Roast (14 August 2005)

Health

“And I'm amazed at how many guys hit on you when you're brunette. I've had a few occasions where I've found a stray hand on my knee, which never happened when I was an icy blonde. Blokes obviously get drunk and think: 'I might as well try it on a brunette - she'll probably be grateful.”

Alice Evans (1971) British actress

"She may have lost a Picasso..." The Daily Express, 15 January 2001.

Guy, Thinking

“There is no law, in literature, against picking up a rusty weapon; the important thing is to be able to sharpen the blade and to reforge the hilt to fit one's hand.”

Alphonse Daudet (1840–1897) French novelist

Il n'est pas défendu, en littérature, de ramasser une arme rouillée; l'important est de savoir aiguiser la lame et d'en reforger la poignée à la mesure de sa main.
Souvenirs d'un homme de lettres (Paris: C. Marpon et E. Flammarion, 1888) p. 178; George Burnham Ives (trans.) Thirty Years in Paris (Boston: Little, Brown, 1900) p. 134.

Law, Literature

“Sri Ram Sharma reproduces Aurangzeb's order about the imposition and collection of Jiziyah dated 26th July, 1696. It says that "Jiziyah lapses on death and on acceptance of Islam". During the course of the year some people used to die and some used to convert, but the amount of Jiziyah for the place remained unaltered. In view of this the first type of payment was disadvantageous to Hindus. The last paragraph of the order reads: "The nonMuslim should himself bring the Jiziyah; if he sends it through his deputy it should not be accepted. At the time of payment the non-Muslim should keep standing, while the chief should keep sitting. The hand of the non-Muslim should be below and that of the chief above it and he should say. 'Make payment of Jiziyah, O! non-Muslim' and should not say, 'O! infidel'."”

K. S. Lal book Theory and Practice of Muslim State in India

Aurangzeb thus imposed it in the true spirit and letter of the tax.
Source: Theory and Practice of Muslim State in India (1999), Chapter 4

Death, People, Time, Reading

“A divine life is hidden in every seed we sow for Jesus. It matters not how small the seed may be, nor in what secluded part of the vineyard it may be sown — a prayer, a word, a look, a pressure of the hand — God's almighty energy is enfolded in every seed which we sow in the Master's name and for His glory.”

Abbott Eliot Kittredge (1834–1912) American minister

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 128.

Life, God, Parting

“If you could breathe a breath so strong you could blow out the wolf. Like you blow out the copo. Like you blow out the fire from the candela. The wolf is made the way the world is made. You cannot touch the world. You cannot hold it in your hand for it is made of breath only.”

Cormac McCarthy book The Crossing

The Crossing (1994)

World, Way, Strong, Wolf

“This “sublime revenge” of ressentiment (in Nietzsche's words) has indeed played a creative role in the history of value systems. It is “sublime,” for the impulses of revenge against those who are strong, healthy, rich, or handsome now disappear entirely. Ressentiment has brought deliverance from the inner torment of these affects. Once the sense of values has shifted and the new judgments have spread, such people cease to be enviable, hateful, and worthy of revenge. They are unfortunate and to be pitied, for they are beset with “evils.” Their sight now awakens feelings of gentleness, pity, and commiseration. When the reversal of values comes to dominate accepted morality and is invested with the power of the ruling ethos, it is transmitted by tradition, suggestion, and education to those who are endowed with the seemingly devaluated qualities. They are struck with a “bad conscience” and secretly condemn themselves. The “slaves,” as Nietzsche says, infect the “masters.” Ressentiment man, on the other hand, now feels “good,” “pure,” and “human”—at least in the conscious layers of his mind. He is delivered from hatred, from the tormenting desire of an impossible revenge, though deep down his poisoned sense of life and the true values may still shine through the illusory ones. There is no more calumny, no more defamation of particular persons or things. The systematic perversion and reinterpretation of the values themselves is much more effective than the “slandering” of persons or the falsification of the world view could ever be."”

Max Scheler (1874–1928) German philosopher

Variant: The man of ressentiment cannot justify or even understand his own existence and sense of life in terms of positive values such as power, health, beauty, freedom, and independence. Weakness, fear, anxiety, and a slavish disposition prevent him from obtaining them. Therefore he comes to feel that “all this is vain anyway” and that salvation lies in the opposite phenomena: poverty, suffering, illness, and death. This “sublime revenge” of ressentiment (in Nietzsche’s words) has indeed played a creative role in the history of value systems. It is “sublime,” for the impulses of revenge against those who are strong, healthy, rich, or handsome now disappear entirely. Ressentiment has brought deliverance from the inner torment of these affects. Once the sense of values has shifted and the new judgments have spread, such people cease to been viable, hateful, and worthy of revenge. They are unfortunate and to be pitied, for they are beset with “evils.” Their sight now awakens feelings of gentleness, pity, and commiseration. When the reversal of values comes to dominate accepted morality and is invested with the power of the ruling ethos, it is transmitted by tradition, suggestion, and education to those who are endowed with the seemingly devaluated qualities. They are struck with a “bad conscience” and secretly condemn themselves. The “slaves,” as Nietzsche says, infect the “masters.” Ressentiment man, on the other hand, now feels “good,” “pure,” and “human”—at least in the conscious layers of his mind. He is delivered from hatred, from the tormenting desire of an impossible revenge, though deep down his poisoned sense of life and the true values may still shine through the illusory ones. There is no more calumny, no more defamation of particular persons or things. The systematic perversion and reinterpretation of the values themselves is much more effective than the “slandering” of persons or the falsification of the world view could ever be.
Source: Das Ressentiment im Aufbau der Moralen (1912), L. Coser, trans. (1973), pp. 76-77

Life, Hate, People, World

“Giving a camera to Diane Arbus is like putting a live grenade in the hands of a child.”

Norman Mailer (1923–2007) American novelist, journalist, essayist, playwright, film maker, actor and political candidate

Newsweek (22 October 1984)

“My hands were steady,
My eyes were clear and bright.
My walk had purpose,
My steps were quick and light.
And I held firm to what I felt was right.
Like a rock.”

Bob Seger (1945) American singer-songwriter

Like a Rock.
Song lyrics, Like a Rock (1986)

Light

“A horn of plenty
spills from your hands into the
starved lives of millions.”

Aberjhani (1957) author

(haiku from poem Notes for an Elegy in the Key of Michael).
From Articles, Essays, and Poems, On Michael Jackson

“No one can eat the flesh of a slaughtered animal without having used the hand of a man as slaughterer. Suppose that we had to kill for ourselves the creatures whose bodies we would fain have upon our table, is there one woman in a hundred who would go to the slaughterhouse to slay the bullock, the calf, the sheep or the pig?… Dare we call ourselves refined if we purchase our refinement by the brutalization of others, and demand that some should be brutal in order that we may eat the results of their brutality? We are not free from the brutalizing results of that trade simply because we take no direct part in it.”

Annie Besant (1847–1933) British socialist, theosophist, women's rights activist, writer and orator

A speech given at Manchester UK (18 October 1897)

Animals, Parting

“Only the other day. a missionary descended on a famine area with money in his pocket, distributed it among the famine-stricken, converted them to his fold, took charge of their temple and demolished it. This is outrageous. The temple could not belong to the converted Hindus, and it could not belong to the Christian missionary. But this friend goes and gets it demolished at the hands of the very men who, only a little while ago, believed that God was there.”

Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948) pre-eminent leader of Indian nationalism during British-ruled India

‘Harijan’, English weekly (founded by M.K. Gandhi), Poona, May 11, 1935
1930s

Men, Money, God

“Why be afraid if I'm not alone? Though life is never easy, the rest is unknown. Up to now, for me, it's been hands aginst stone. Spent each and ev'ry moment, Searching for what to believe. Coming out of the dark, I finally see the light now. And it's shining on me. Coming out of the dark, I know the love that saved me, You're sharing with me. Starting again is part of the plan. And I'll be so much stronger holding your hand. Step by step I'll make it through; I know I can. It may not make it easier, But I have felt you near all the way... Forever and ever, I stand on the rock of your love. Love is all it takes, no matter what we face.”

Gloria Estefan (1957) Cuban-American singer-songwriter, actress and divorciada

Coming Out of the Dark
2007, 2008

Love, Life, Way, Search

“Adam Smith is, of course, justly lauded for his advocacy of free markets and limited government. Particularly famous is his idea that each person’s pursuit of self-interest leads, as if by an invisible hand, to socially efficient outcomes.”

Robert Barro (1944) American classical macroeconomist

Nothing Is Sacred (2002)

Idea, Personality

“Let us have a dagger between our teeth, a bomb in our hands and an infinite scorn in our hearts.”

Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) Duce and President of the Council of Ministers of Italy. Leader of the National Fascist Party and subsequen…

Speech (1928), as quoted in The Great Quotations (1966) by George Seldes, p. 349
1920s

Heart

“Communism means barbarism, but Socialism means, or wishes to mean, cooperation and community of interests, sympathy, the giving to the hands not so large a share as to the brains, but a larger share than hitherto in the wealth they must combine to produce - means, in short, the practical application of Christianity to life, and has in it the secret of an orderly and benign reconstruction.”

James Russell Lowell (1819–1891) American poet, critic, editor, and diplomat

On Democracy (6 October 1884)

Life, Secret, Communication, Wealth

“But, children, you should never let
Such angry passions rise;
Your little hands were never made
To tear each other's eyes.”

Isaac Watts (1674–1748) English hymnwriter, theologian and logician

Song 16: "Against Quarrelling and Fighting".
1710s, Divine Songs Attempted in the Easy Language of Children (1715)

Children, Tear, Passion

“Arms, hands [of the two van Gogh brothers, Vincent and Theo], like rifles, thrust out like non-stop ideas thoughts. Enormous thick veins like the ropes of a ship through which flow thoughts and inspirational excitement. They join the two brothers like nerve connections that pass from one body to the other, channeling the waves and opening up both in a magnetic ring of work and passion.”

Ossip Zadkine (1890–1967) French sculptor

quote, c. 1955; as quoted in: Zadkine and Van Gogh, ed. Garance Schabert and Ron Dirven (transl. Anne Porcelijn), Vincent van Goghhuis, Zundert & Scriptum Art, Schiedam 2008, p. 64
1940 - 1960

Idea, Passion

“Imagine a monarch, holding personal command of his army, disbanding his regiments, sacred with a hundred years of history—and handing his towns over to Anarchists and Democracy.”

Wilhelm II, German Emperor (1859–1941) German Emperor and King of Prussia

Reaction to the Tsar's invitation (August 1898) to the Hague Conference of 1899, quoted in Robert K. Massie, Dreadnought: Britain, Germany and the Coming of the Great War (London: Pimlico, 2004), pp. 429-430
1890s

Democracy, Imagination, History, Personality

“He moved with some uncertainty, as if he didn't know
Just what he was there for, or where he ought to go
Once he reached for something golden hanging from a tree
And his hand come down empty…”

Carole King (1942) Nasa

Tapestry
Song lyrics, Tapestry (1971)

Tree

“I was still proud of that moment
back then
when Jed handed me
that pint
and
I drained
a third of it
with all the disciples
watching.
damn, there was no way
it seemed
we could ever
lose
but we did.

and it took me
3 or 4 decades to
move on just a
little.
and Jed,
if you are still here
tonight,
(I forgot to tell you
then)
here's a thanks
for that drink.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

"two toughs"
The Last Night of the Earth Poems (1992)

Way, Drink

“Hillary Clinton did what she did for the sake of her agenda of personal ambition, carefully planned and worked out over months in which she was using and abusing the state of New York — because she looked at several other states--as a platform for her personal ambition. I, on the other hand, have responded to the call of the people of Illinois who have asked me to come and help them with a crisis situation. It doesn't violate my principal understanding of federalism, because federalism has two parts: state sovereignty and national unity.”

Alan Keyes (1950) American politician

Alan Keyes on CNN's American Morning, August 11, 2004. http://www.renewamerica.us/archives/media/interviews/04_08_11cnn.htm. 2004 Illinois U.S. Senate race

People, Understanding, Help, Parting

“After 1930, political theorists had begun to realize that every democracy—being a government of public opinion—is largely in the hands of those who make public opinion—that is to say, the newspaper-owners. In every country the big business men, the great financiers, were being compelled to purchase the influential newspapers and had little by little succeeded in doing so. They had been very clever in respecting the the external forms of democracy. The people continued to elect their deputies, who continued to to go through the forms of choosing ministers and presidents; but the ministers, presidents, and deputies could hold on to their positions only so long as they did what the Masters of Public Opinion told them to do; and, being well aware of this fact, they were duly submissive.”

André Maurois (1885–1967) French writer

The Next Chapter: The War Against the Moon (1928)

Men, People, Democracy, Business

“That raven on yon left-hand oak
(Curse on his ill-betiding croak!)
Bodes me no good.”

John Gay (1685–1732) English poet and playwright

Fable, The Farmer's Wife and the Raven. Comparable to: "It wasn't for nothing that the raven was just now croaking on my left hand", Plautus, Aulularia, act iv. sc. 3
Fables (1727)

“It would be pleasant to be drunk:
faithless to my tongue and hands,
giving up the boundaries
for the heroic gin.
Dead drunk is the term I think of,
insensible,
neither cool nor warm,
without a head or foot.
To be drunk is to be intimate with a fool.
I will try it shortly.”

Anne Sexton (1928–1974) poet from the United States

"Letter Written During a January Northeaster"
All My Pretty Ones (1962)

Fools, Thinking, Dead

“I had never met a poet in my life before winning the Pulitzer in 1945. Well, that’s not strictly true; when I went to Johns Hopkins in 1939, W. H. Auden gave a private reading to a group of special literature students, and I was one. I shook hands with him. As it happened, at that time he was my idol, above all others as a modern poet, and that experience was a very sustaining one. But I could hardly say I “knew” him.”

Karl Shapiro (1913–2000) Poet, essayist

Paris Review interview (1986)

Life, Literature, Time, Reading

“In response to nearly a thousand queries, the Scientology delegation handed over forty-eight binders of supporting material, stretching nearly seven linear feet.”

Lawrence Wright (1947) American writer

[Wright, Lawrence, February 14, 2011, The Apostate, Paul Haggis vs. the Church of Scientology, The New Yorker, http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/02/14/110214fa_fact_wright?currentPage=all]

Support

“"Oh my god!" Hillary is standing in the doorway of the bathroom of the bathroom which on one had is surprising but there's the other hand, too.”

Daniel Handler book Adverbs

Adverbs (2006), Often

God

“I have just two hands
and the feeling of the world,
but I'm teeming with slaves,
my memories are streaming
and my body yields
at the crossroads of love.”

Carlos Drummond de Andrade book Sentimento do mundo

Tenho apenas duas mãos
e o sentimento do mundo,
mas estou cheio de escravos,
minhas lembranças escorrem
e o corpo transige
na confluência do amor.
"Sentimento do mundo" ["Feeling of the World"]
Sentimento do mundo [Feeling of the World] (1940)

Love, World, Feeling, Memory

“Economic man and the Calvinist Christian sing to each other like voices in a fugue. The Calvinist stands alone before an almost merciless God; no human agency can help him; his church is a means to political and social organization rather than a bridge to deity, for no priest can have greater knowledge of the divine way than he himself; no friend can console him — in fact, he should distrust all men; in the same fashion, Economic Man faces a merciless world alone and unaided, his hand against every other's.”

Lionel Trilling (1905–1975) American academic

Source: Matthew Arnold (1939), Ch. 8: The Failure of the Middle Class

Men, God, World, Way

“You will keep America out of the hands of communists by what you do here, you will keep it by making it seem unnecessary to the disadvantaged. It has been the New Deal, it has been democratic socialism which has been a major force from keeping the world from communism.”

Norman Thomas (1884–1968) American Presbyterian minister and socialist

Debate with Barry Goldwater, University of Arizona campus, Tucson, Arizona, November 1961

World, Communication

“Lavoisier was right in the deepest, almost holy, way. His passion harnessed feeling to the service of reason; another kind of passion was the price. Reason cannot save us and can even persecute us in the wrong hands; but we have no hope of salvation without reason. The world is too complex, too intransigent; we cannot bend it to our simple will.”

Stephen Jay Gould (1941–2002) American evolutionary biologist

"The Passion of Antoine Lavoisier", p. 366
Bully for Brontosaurus (1991)

World, Hope, Way, Feeling

“I don't know what this so-called pure gospel is. Was the preaching of John the Baptist pure? He did not say only, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!" (Matthew 3:2). He also "rebuked [Herod]… for all the evils which Herod had done" (Luke 3:19). He was beheaded because he didn't confine himself to abstract teaching. Jesus did not preach only the "pure" Sermon on the Mount, but also what some actual church leaders would have called a negative sermon: "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!… Serpents, brood of vipers!" (Matthew 23:27,33). It is for such "impure" preaching that He was crucified. The Pharisees would not have bothered about the Sermon on the Mount.”

Richard Wurmbrand (1909–2001) Romanian Christian minister of Jewish descent

Source: Tortured For Christ (1967), p. 75.

Evil

“As long as man has not ascended to the rank of existence where he leaves behind him the domain of the universal and enters into his own personal domain—no longer dependent upon the principles operative in the realm of the universal—he is still subject to the rule of the species and the universal form. However, as soon as he liberates himself from the burden of the species, he becomes a free man. Complete freedom belongs only to the prophet, the man of God. The man who is a mere random example of the species, on the other hand, is wholly under the rule of the scientific lawfulness of existence. Between this species man and the man of God, between necessity and freedom, is the middle range in which most people find themselves.”

Joseph B. Soloveitchik (1903–1993) American theologian

Source: Halakhic Man (1983), p. 135

God, People, Law, Freedom

“I dread the day when the means of threatening the heart of the British Empire should pass into the hands of the present rulers of Germany. I think we should be in a position which would be odious to every man who values freedom of action and independence, and also in a position of the utmost peril for our crowded, peaceful population, engaged in their daily toil. I dread that day, but it is not, perhaps, far distant. It is, perhaps, only a year, or perhaps 18 months, distant…There is still time for us to take the necessary measures, but what we want are the measures. We do not want this paragraph in this White Paper, we want the measures. It is no good writing that first paragraph and then producing £130,000. We want the measures to achieve parity.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1934/mar/08/air-estimates-1934#column_2072 in the House of Commons (8 March 1934) The 1930s

Peace, Thinking, Freedom, Distant

“Victorious Carthage measures the downfall of Rome by all the heap of gold that was torn from the left hands of the slain.”
Congesto laevae quodcumque avellitur auro metitur Latias victrix Carthago ruinas.

Silius Italicus Punica

Book VIII, lines 675–676
This refers to the mass of rings Hannibal plundered from the Roman knights slain in the Battle of Cannae.
Punica

Victory

“I find it nearly impossible free ice to write about jeep axle my work. The concept I plantatarium struggle to deal with ketchup is opposed to the logical continuity lift tab inherent in language horses and communication. My fascination with images open 24 Hrs. is based on the complex interlocking of disparate visual facts heated pool that have no respect for grammar. The form then Denver 39 is second hand to nothing. The work then has a chance to electric service become its own cliche. Luggage. This is the inevitable fate fair ground of any inanimate object Freight-ways by this, I mean anything that does not have inconsistency as a possibility built-in..”

Robert Rauschenberg (1925–2008) American artist

Quote from 'Note on Painting', Robert Rauschenberg, in Pop Art Redefined, October/November 1963, J. Rusell and Suzi Gablik, Praeger Publishers, New York, 1969
1960's

Fate, Way, Communication, Chance

“Karma is simply the wholeness of a cause, or first action, and its effect, or fruition, which then becomes another cause. In fact, one karmic cause can have many fruitions, all of which can cause thousands more creations. Just as a handful of seed can ripen into a full field of grain, a small amount of karma can generate limitless effects.”

Khandro Rinpoche (1967) Buddhist lama

This Precious Life (2003), p. 95

“Thine eye was on the censer,
And not the hand that bore it.”

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

Lines by a Clerk; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

“It was Plato who determined once and for all the cultural meaning of imitation, but this meaning is truncated, torn from the essential dimension of acquisitive behavior, which is also the dimension of conflict. If the behavior of certain higher animals, particularly the apes, seems to foreshadow human behavior, it does so almost exclusively, perhaps, because the role of acquisitive mimesis is so important in their behavior, although it is not as central as it is for the human being. If one ape observes another reach for an object, it is immediately tempted to imitate the gesture. It also happens that the animal visibly resists the temptation, and if the imitative gesture amuses us by reminding us of human beings, the failure to complete it, that is to say the repression of what already can be nearly defined as a desire, amuses us even more. It makes the animal a sort of brother to us by showing it subject to the same fundamental rule as humanity—that of preventing conflict, which the convergence of two or several avid hands toward one and the same object cannot help but provoke.”

René Girard book Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World

Source: Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World (1978), p. 4.

Behavior, Failure, Help, Animals

“Happily for the country, happily for you and for me, the judgment of James Buchanan, the patrician, was not the judgment of Abraham Lincoln, the plebeian. He brought his strong common sense, sharpened in the school of adversity, to bear upon the question. He did not hesitate, he did not doubt, he did not falter; but at once resolved that at whatever peril, at whatever cost, the union of the States should be preserved. A patriot himself, his faith was strong and unwavering in the patriotism of his countrymen. Timid men said before Mister Lincoln’s inauguration, that we have seen the last president of the United States. A voice in influential quarters said, 'Let the Union slide'. Some said that a Union maintained by the sword was worthless. Others said a rebellion of eight million cannot be suppressed; but in the midst of all this tumult and timidity, and against all this, Abraham Lincoln was clear in his duty, and had an oath in heaven. He calmly and bravely heard the voice of doubt and fear all around him; but he had an oath in heaven, and there was not power enough on earth to make this honest boatman, backwoodsman, and broad-handed splitter of rails evade or violate that sacred oath. He had not been schooled in the ethics of slavery; his plain life had favored his love of truth. He had not been taught that treason and perjury were the proof of honor and honesty. His moral training was against his saying one thing when he meant another. The trust that Abraham Lincoln had in himself and in the people was surprising and grand, but it was also enlightened and well founded.”

Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman

He knew the American people better than they knew themselves, and his truth was based upon this knowledge.
1870s, Oratory in Memory of Abraham Lincoln (1876)

Love, Life, Men, People