Quotes about handful
page 34

Joanna Newsom photo
Anne Lynch Botta photo
Graham Greene photo

“My two fingers on a typewriter have never connected with my brain. My hand on a pen does. A fountain pen, of course. Ball-point pens are only good for filling out forms on a plane.”

Graham Greene (1904–1991) English writer, playwright and literary critic

International Herald Tribune (October 7, 1977)

Harold Pinter photo
Daniel Drake photo
Ken Wilber photo
Andy Warhol photo

“If you want to know all about Andy Warhol, just look at the surface; of my paintings and films and me, and there I am. There's nothing behind it... I see everything that way, the surface of things, a kind of mental Braille. I just pass my hands over the surface of things.”

Andy Warhol (1928–1987) American artist

1973
1968 - 1974, Electric chair quote
Source: Warhol in his own words – Untitled Statements ( 1963 – 1987), selected by Neil Printz; as quoted in Andy Warhol, retrospective, Art and Bullfinch Press / Little Brown, 1989, pp. 457 – 467

Vladimir Lenin photo

“Their fate will be in each other's hands as they decide whether to share or to shaft.”

Robert Kilroy-Silk (1942) British politician

Shafted, 2001
Frequently shown as a running joke on Have I Got News For You

Edmund Spenser photo

“Behold, whiles she before the altar stands,
Hearing the holy priest that to her speakes,
And blesseth her with his two happy hands.”

Edmund Spenser (1552–1599) English poet

Epithalamion, line 223; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Anthony Burgess photo
Oscar Hammerstein II photo

“I hand him a lyric and get out of his way.”

Oscar Hammerstein II (1895–1960) American librettist, theatrical producer, and (usually uncredited) theatre director of musicals

On his partnership with Richard Rodgers, widely quoted, for example in Richard Rodgers & Oscar Hammerstein II, 2007-12-12, 2004 http://c250.columbia.edu/c250_celebrates/remarkable_columbians/rodgers_hammerstein.html,

William Wordsworth photo

“May no rude hand deface it,
And its forlorn Hic jacet!”

Ellen Irwin, or the Braes of Kirtle, st. 7 (1800).
Lyrical Ballads (1798–1800)

Janeane Garofalo photo
Emily Dickinson photo
Ray Bradbury photo

“The controls fell easily to hand, and from there onto the floor.”

Clive James (1939–2019) Australian author, critic, broadcaster, poet, translator and memoirist

On the Trabant. From Clive James' Postcard from Berlin.
Television and radio

David Lloyd George photo
Adam Smith photo
Iltutmish photo
Aurangzeb photo
Phillis Wheatley photo
Joel Mokyr photo
Sinclair Lewis photo
H.L. Mencken photo
Davy Crockett photo

“Fame is like a shaved pig with a greased tail, and it is only after it has slipped through the hands of some thousands, that some fellow, by mere chance, holds on to it!”

Davy Crockett (1786–1836) American politician

This is from Pickings from the Porfolio of the Reporter of the New Orleans "Picayune" (1846) by Dennis Corcoran; it seems to have become attributed to Crockett in The Dictionary of Biographical Quotation of British and American Subjects (1978) by Richard Kenin and Justin Wintle, p. 206
Misattributed

L. Frank Baum photo
Eugene Field photo
Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar photo

“It was not enough that India should get Swaraj. It was more important in whose hands the Swaraj would be.”

Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar (1891–1956) Father of republic India, champion of human rights, father of India's Constitution, polymath, revolutionary…

Political Science for Civil Services Main Examination (2010)

Yanis Varoufakis photo
Dexter S. Kimball photo

“Another good reducing exercise consists in placing both hands against the table edge and pushing back.”

Robert Quillen (1887–1948) American journalist

Quoted by Alexander Woollcott in "The Sage of Fountain Inn," http://books.google.com/books?id=_ZxXAAAAMAAJ&q=%22Another+good+reducing+exercise+consists+in+placing+both+hands+against+the+table+edge+and+pushing+back%22&pg=PA100#v=onepage Cosmopolitan magazine (September 1933)

Philip K. Dick photo

“Giving me a new idea is like handing a cretin a loaded gun, but I do thank you anyhow, bang, bang.”

Philip K. Dick (1928–1982) American author

Letter to Patricia Warrick (17 May 1978), published in Selected Letters of Philip K. Dick, 1977-1979 (1993)

Giorgio Vasari photo
Cassandra Clare photo
Robert T. Bakker photo
Alexander Berkman photo
Hunter S. Thompson photo
Pat Condell photo
Carl Friedrich Gauss photo

“In such apparent accidents which finally produce such a decisive influence on one s whole life, one is inclined to recognize the tools of a higher hand. The great enigma of life never becomes clear to us here below.”

Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777–1855) German mathematician and physical scientist

In a letter dated April 25, 1825. As quoted in Carl Friedrich Gauss: Titan of Science (1955) by Guy Waldo Dunnington. p. 361

Jack Johnson (musician) photo
Joseph Goebbels photo

“The night folds her trembling hands over a weary world. Out of a pale blue rises the shining moon. My thoughts are flying to the stars like lonely swans.”

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

Nacht faltet zitternde Hände über der müden Welt. Aus blassem Blau steigt leuchtend der Mond. Meine Gedanken fliegen wie einsame Schwäne in die Sterne.
Michael: a German fate in diary notes (1926)

Roger Ebert photo
Narendra Modi photo

“In 2014, one of the key agendas of the BJP’s election campaign was highlighting the dismal management of the Indian economy, ironically under an ‘economist’ prime minister and a ‘know-it-all’ finance minister. We all knew that the economy was in the doldrums but since we were not in government, we naturally did not have the complete details of the state of the economy. But, what we saw when we formed the government left us shocked! The state of the economy was much worse than expected. Things were terrible. Even the budget figures were suspicious. When all of this came to light, we had two options – to be driven by Rajneeti (political considerations) or be guided by Rashtraneeti (putting the interests of India First)… Rajneeti, or playing politics on the state of the economy in 2014, would have been extremely simple as well as politically advantageous for us. We had just won a historic election, so obviously the frenzy was at a different level. The Congress Party and their allies were in big trouble. Even for the media, it would have made news for months on end. On the other hand, there was Rashtraneeti, where more than politics and one-upmanship, reform was needed. Needless to say, we preferred to think of ‘India First’ instead of putting politics first. We did not want to push the issues under the carpet, but we were more interested in addressing the issue. We focused on reforming, strengthening and transforming the Indian economy. The details about the decay in the Indian economy were unbelievable. It had the potential to cause a crisis all over. In 2014, industry was leaving India. India was in the Fragile Five. Experts believed that the ‘I’ in BRICS would collapse. Public sentiment was that of disappointment and pessimism.”

Narendra Modi (1950) Prime Minister of India

Narendra Modi, Swarajya Interviews Prime Minister Modi, Interview, R Jagannathan- Jul 02, 2018 https://swarajyamag.com/economy/swarajya-interviews-prime-minister-modi-the-state-of-indian-economy
2018

William Cullen Bryant photo

“All that tread,
The globe are but a handful to the tribes
That slumber in its bosom.”

William Cullen Bryant (1794–1878) American romantic poet and journalist

Source: Thanatopsis (1817–1821), l. 48

Sir Alexander Cockburn, 12th Baronet photo
Amitabh Bachchan photo
Alexander Maclaren photo
Bill Hicks photo
Jonathan Swift photo

“Fingers were made before forks, and hands before knives.”

Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) Anglo-Irish satirist, essayist, and poet

Polite Conversation (1738), Dialogue 2

Herbert Giles photo
Charles Lindbergh photo

“Is he alone who has courage on his right hand and faith on his left hand?”

Charles Lindbergh (1902–1974) American aviator, author, inventor, explorer, and social activist

As quoted in 1927 (2000) by Robert P. Fitton

W. H. Auden photo
Cormac McCarthy photo

“Lysenkoism is held up by bourgeois commentators as the supreme demonstration that conscious ideology cannot inform scientific practice and that "ideology has no place in science." On the other hand, some writers are even now maintaining a Lysenkoist position because they believe that the principles of dialectical materialism contradict the claims of genetics. Both of these claims stem from a vulgarisation of Marxist philosophy through deliberate hostility, in the first case, or ignorance, in the second. Nothing in Marx, Lenin or Mao contradicts the particular physical facts and processes of a particular set of natural phenomena in the objective world, because what they wrote about nature was at a high level of abstraction. The error of the Lysenkoist claim arises from attempting to apply a dialectical analysis of physical problems from the wrong end. Dialectical materialism is not, and has never been, a programmatic method for solving particular physical problems. Rather, dialectical analysis provides an overview and a set of warning signs against particular forms of dogmatism and narrowness of thought. It tells us, "Remember that history may leave an important trace. Remember that being and becoming are dual aspects of nature. Remember that conditions change and that the conditions necessary to the initiation of some process may be destroyed by the process itself. Remember to pay attention to real objects in space and time and not lose them utterly in idealized abstractions. Remember that qualitative effects of context and interaction may be lost when phenomena are isolated."”

Richard C. Lewontin (1929) American evolutionary biologist

And above all else, "Remember that all the other caveats are only reminders and warning signs whose application to different circumstances of the real world is contingent."
"The Problem of Lysenkoism" by Richard Lewontin and Richard Levins, in Hilary and Steven Rose (eds.), The Radicalisation of Science, Macmillan, 1976, p. 58.

Nicholas Murray Butler photo

“There is, I venture to think, no ground for the ordinarily accepted statement of the relation of philosophy to theology and religion. It is usually said that while^hilosophy is the creation of an individual mind, theology or religion is, like folk-lore and language, the product of the collective mind of a people or a race. This is to confuse philosophy with philosophies, a conmion and, it must be admitted, a not unnatural confusion. But while a philosophy is the creation of a Plato, an Aristotle, a Spinoza, a Kant, or a Hegel, ^hilosophy itself is, like religion, folk-lore and language, a product of the collective mind of humanity. It is advanced, as these are, by individual additions, interpretations and syntheses, but it is none the less quite istinct from such individual contributions. philosophy is humanity's hold on Totality, and it becomes richer and more helpful as man's intellectual horizon widens, as his intellectual vision grows clearer, and as his insights become more numerous and more sure. Theology is philosophy of a particular type. It is an interpretation of Totality in terms of God and His activities. In the impressive words of Principal Caird, that philosophy which is theology seeks "to bind together objects and events in the links of necessary thought, and to find their last ground and reason in that which comprehends and transcends all— the nature of God Himself." Religion is the apprehension and the adoration of the Grod Whom theology postulates.
If the whole history of philosophy be searched for material with which to instruct the beginner in what philosophy really is and in its relation to theology and religion, the two periods or epochs that stand out above all others as useful for this purpose are Greek thought from Thales to Socrates, and that interpretation of the teachings of Christ by philosophy which gave rise, at the hands of the Church Fathers, to Christian theology. In the first period we see the simple, clear-cut steps by which the mind of Europe was led from explanations that were fairy-tales to a natural, well-analyzed, and increasingly profound interpretation of the observed phenomena of Nature. The process is so orderly and so easily grasped that it is an invaluable introduction to the study of philosophic thinking. In the second period we see philosophy, now enriched by the literally huge contributions of Plato, Aristotle and the Stoics, intertwining itself about the simple Christian tenets and building the great system of creeds and thought which has immortalized the names of Athanasius and Hilary, Basil and Gregory, Jerome and Augustine, and which has given color and form to the intellectual life of Europe for nearly two thousand years. For the student of today both these developments have great practical value, and the astonishing neglect and ignorance of them both are most discreditable.”

Nicholas Murray Butler (1862–1947) American philosopher, diplomat, and educator

" Philosophy" (a lecture delivered at Columbia University in the series on science, philosophy and art, March 4, 1908) https://archive.org/details/philosophyalect00butlgoog"

J.M. Coetzee photo
Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo
Dave Eggers photo
Tomáš Baťa photo
Vincent Van Gogh photo

“What surprising fellows those French painters are. A Millet, Delacroix, Corot, Troyon, Daubigny, Rousseau, and a Daumier.... Something else about Delacroix - he had a discussion with a friend about the question of working absolutely from nature, and said on that occasion that one should take one's 'studies' from nature - but that the 'actual painting' had to be made 'by heart'. This friend was walking along the boulevard when they had this discussion - which was already fairly heated. When they parted the other man was still not entirely persuaded. After they parted, Delacroix let him stroll on for a bit - then (making a trumpet of his two hands) bellowed after him in the middle of the street - to the consternation of the worthy passers-by:
'By heart! By heart!”

Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890) Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890)

(Par coeur! Par coeur!)
I can't tell you how much I enjoyed reading this article and some other things about Delacroix..
In his letter to Anthon van Rappard, from Nuenen, The Netherlands, 8 and c. 15 August 1885 - original manuscript, letter 526, at Van Gogh Museum, location Amsterdam - inv. nos. b8390 V/2006, http://vangoghletters.org/vg/letters/let526/letter.html
See for this anecdote, taken from Charles Blanc, Les artistes de mon temps, letter 496, n. 7.
1880s, 1885

“The great man is the man who can get himself made and who will get himself made out of anything he finds at hand.”

Gerald Stanley Lee (1862–1944) Americna minister

Book II, Chapter XV.
Crowds (1913)

Arthur Schopenhauer photo
Richard Stallman photo

“People with new ideas could distribute programs as freeware, asking for donations from satisfied users, or selling hand-holding services. I have met people who are already working this way successfully.”

Richard Stallman (1953) American software freedom activist, short story writer and computer programmer, founder of the GNU project

1980s, GNU Manifesto (1985)

John Campbell Shairp photo
Phil Brooks photo

“Before you cut me off, Raven, the reason I hate you, the reason in my heart of hearts why I hate you, is I did not know any better when I was a little kid. When my dad came home smelling like beer. I thought it was a hard day’s work he was doing. I did not realize he was out at a bar. I did not realize ‘work’ meant ‘unemployment office.’ I did not think it was strange for someone to come home and take an Old Style up into the shower. I did not think it was strange for somebody to pass out. I thought an Old Style, a pack a day, was the norm. Raven, my father is exactly like you. Since day one of Ring of Honor, where fighting spirit is supposed to be revered, things are not supposed to be this way! I’d shake your hand like a normal man, but the thing is, I don’t respect you! I hate you! I hate you for everything you have pissed away! Everything I have scrapped and clawed for that I haven’t even earned yet! That you got handed to you and you flushed down the toilet! For what? For pills? For booze? For alcohol? For women? I’m born of your poison society. So, on the seventeenth of July, I will become a monster to fight the monsters of the world! Your time in Ring of Honor will be done. That is a promise. This is true! This is real! This is straight edge!”

Phil Brooks (1978) American professional wrestler and mixed martial artist

Ring of Honor: WrestleRave '03. June 28th, 2003.
Promo aimed at Raven after a tag team match with Colt Cabana against Raven and Christopher Daniels
Ring of Honor

Franz Kafka photo
James K. Morrow photo
Henry David Thoreau photo

“We are as much as we see. Faith is sight and knowledge. The hands only serve the eyes.”

Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist

April 9, 1841
Journals (1838-1859)

“Among the superficial, if you are not one of them, one of them has to lead you by the hand.”

Antonio Porchia (1885–1968) Italian Argentinian poet

En lo superficial, si no eres superficial, necesitas que te lleve de la mano alguien superficial.
Voces (1943)

Eugene V. Debs photo
Tony Blair photo

“The Labour Party is a democratic socialist party. It believes that by the strength of our common endeavour we achieve more than we achieve alone, so as to create for each of us the means to realise our true potential and for all of us a community in which power, wealth, and opportunity are in the hands of the many, not the few.”

Tony Blair (1953) former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

As quoted in "Socialism is So Hot Right Now" https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/socialism-hot-right-now/ (17 September 2018), by Jonah Goldberg, Commentary
1990s

“Why, then, are my hands red
with the blood of so many dead?
Is this where I was misled?”

R.S. Thomas (1913–2000) Welsh poet

"Here"
Tares (1961)

Ogden Nash photo

“Fear not the thunder, little one.
It's weather, simply weather;
It's friendly giants full of fun
Clapping their hands together.”

Ogden Nash (1902–1971) American poet

Many Long Years Ago (1945), A Watched Example Never Boils

Allen Ginsberg photo

“You assume we are all sexually stable; while on the other hand, as I have become acquainted with people, I find that they are all perverted sinners, one way or another, that the whole society is corrupt and rotten and repressed and unconscious that it exhibits its repression in various forms of social sadism.”

Allen Ginsberg (1926–1997) American poet

Family Business: Selected Letters Between a Father and Son, Allen and Louis Ginsberg (1944-1976), Michael Schumacher (ed.) (2001), Bloomsbury Publishing NY, ISBN 1582341079, p. 21.
Family Business

Bill Laimbeer photo

“I'm still glad that we didn't shake their hands. They were whiners and criers. Piss on them.”

Bill Laimbeer (1957) American basketball player

Comment made in 2007 about why the Pistons didn't shake hands after the final game of Bulls-Piston 1991 NBA Eastern Conference playoff series.
2007'S Top Piston Stories: Drew Sharo: The best of Pistons-Bulls rivalry Detroit Free Press, December 25, 2007 http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071225/SPORTS03/312250032/1048/rss03

Sören Kierkegaard photo

“He fixed his definition thus: reflection is the possibility of the relation, consciousness is the relation, the first form of which is contradiction. He soon noted that, as a result, the categories of reflection are always dichotomous. For example ideality and reality, soul and body, to recognize – the true, to will – the good, to love – the beautiful, God and the world, and so on, these are categories of reflection. In reflection, these touch each other in such a way that a relation becomes possible. The categories of consciousness, on the other hand, are trichotomous, as language itself indicates, for when I say I am conscious of this, I mention a trinity. Consciousness is mind and spirit, and the remarkable thing is that when in the world of mind or spirit one is divided, it always becomes three and never two. Consciousness, therefore, presupposes reflection. If this were not true it would be impossible to explain doubt. True, language seems to contest this, since in most languages, as far as he knew, the word ‘doubt’ is etymologically related to the word ‘two’. Yet in his opinion this only indicated the presupposition of doubt, especially because it was clear to him that as soon as I, as spirit, become two, I am eo ipso three. If there were nothing but dichotomies, doubt would not exist, for the possibility of doubt lies precisely in that third which places the two in relation to each other. One cannot therefore say that reflection produces doubt, unless one expressed oneself backwards; one must say that doubt presupposes reflection, though not in a temporal sense. Doubt arises through a relation between two, but for this to take place the two must exist, although doubt, as a higher expression, comes before rather than afterwards.”

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

Johannes Climacus (1841) p. 80-81
1840s, Johannes Climacus (1841)

Robert Charles Winthrop photo
Robert E. Howard photo
Carl Sagan photo
Frida Kahlo photo
Bukola Saraki photo

“Since so little is known about the early Macedonians, it is hardly strange that in both ancient and modern times there has been much disagreement on their ethnic identity. The Greeks in general and Demosthenes in particular looked upon them as barbarians, that is, not Greek. Modern scholarship, after many generations of argument, now almost unanimously recognises them as Greeks, a branch of the Dorians and ‘NorthWest Greeks’ who, after long residence in the north Pindus region, migrated eastwards. The Macedonian language has not survived in any written text, but the names of individuals, places, gods, months, and the like suggest strongly that the language was a Greek dialect. Macedonian institutions, both secular and religious, had marked Hellenic characteristics and legends identify or link the people with the Dorians. During their sojourn in the Pindus complex and the long struggle to found a kingdom, however, the Macedonians fought and mingled constantly with Illyrians, Thracians, Paeonians, and probably various Greek tribes. Their language naturally acquired many Illyrian and Thracian loanwords, and some of their customs were surely influenced by their neighbours[…] To the civilised Greek of the fifth and fourth centuries, the Macedonian way of life must have seemed crude and primitive. This backwardness in culture was mainly the result of geographical factors. The Greeks, who had proceeded south in the second millennium, were affected by the many civilising influences of the Mediterranean world, and ultimately they developed that very civilising institution, the polis. The Macedonians, on the other hand, remained in the north and living for centuries in mountainous areas, fighting with Illyrians, Thracians, and amongst themselves as tribe fought tribe, developed a society that may be termed Homeric. The amenities of city-state life were unknown until they began to take root in Lower Macedonia from the end of the fifth century onwards.”

John V.A. Fine (1903–1987) American historian

"The Ancient Greeks: A Critical History", Harvard University Press, 1983, pgs 605-608

Casey Stengel photo
Fidel Castro photo
Albrecht Thaer photo

“I began to reconcile myself to my forlorn condition, but still I was not what I wished to be: the worst of all was, I had no friend; not a human being that understood me. I wrote daily to my friend Leisewitz; he resided in Hanover, and was just as unhappy as myself, except that he had some friends, and plenty of money. In this respect I was differently situated, and although in want of money to buy books, I was determined not to be any expense to my father. Some watches, snuff-boxes, and rings, presents I had received in Gottingen, soon found their way to the hands of Jews at half price. I was even, against my will, driven to the necessity of accepting small fees from mechanics and peasants. This cut me to the heart; but I could not help myself. The following circumstance, however, overcame me more than all: My father was a man of great knowledge and experience, but, like all old men, he remained faithful to the old method of practice. I visited many of his patients, and without telling me exactly what mode of treatment I was to pursue, he only observed, "You will act so and sohowever, I saw the patients had confidence in my father only, and not in me; they wished me to be his tool, and I therefore followed his mode of practice, and thus lost several of his patients, who could have been saved had I followed my own method.”

Albrecht Thaer (1752–1828) German agronomist and an avid supporter of the humus theory for plant nutrition

My Life and Confessions, for Philippine, 1786

Nick Drake photo
Bill Bryson photo
Helen Keller photo
Margaret Sanger photo

“Our laws force women into celibacy on the one hand, or abortion on the other. [npg] Both conditions are declared by eminent medical authorities to be injurious to health.”

Margaret Sanger (1879–1966) American birth control activist, educator and nurse

"Morality and Birth Control", February-March, 1918, pp. 11,14.
Birth Control Review, 1918-32