Quotes about handful
page 58

Paul Keating photo

“The little desiccated coconut is under pressure and he is attacking anything he can get his hands on… (he is) still there araldited to the seat.”

Paul Keating (1944) Australian politician, 24th Prime Minister of Australia

In reference to Prime Minister John Howard. ABC Radio interview, March 5, 2007.

Kate Bush photo

“Put your hand over the side of the boat
What do you feel?”

Kate Bush (1958) British recording artist; singer, songwriter, musician and record producer

Song lyrics, Aerial (2005), A Sea of Honey (Disc 1)

Gerhard Richter photo
James Wilde, 1st Baron Penzance photo
Eugene J. Martin photo
William Golding photo
Daniel Dennett photo
Cato the Elder photo
K. R. Narayanan photo
Adolphe Quetelet photo
Jane Austen photo
Thomas Hughes photo
Richard Stallman photo
Jacob Maris photo

“On the other hand, I am accused of not finishing my paintings, no matter how much time I spent to my airs. Well, 'finished' in the common sense of the word, they are certainly not! Finishing in that sense would drag the life out of it.”

Jacob Maris (1837–1899) Dutch painter

translation from original Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018
version in original Dutch / citaat van Jacob Maris, in het Nederlands: Daarentegen wordt mij verweten dat mijn schilderijen niet af zijn, hoe ik mijn lucht ook doorwerkt heb. Nu, 'af' in de gewone beteekenis van het woord is mijn werk zeker niet. Door in dien zin het af te maken, zou ik er het leven uithalen.
in Jacob Maris (1837-1899), M. van Heteren and others; as cited in 'Ik denk in mijn materie', in exhibition catalog of Teylers Museum / Museum Jan Cunen), Zwolle 2003, p. 76

W. S. Gilbert photo
Slavoj Žižek photo

“[A] paradox arises at the level of the subject's relationship to the community to which he belongs: the situation of the forced choice consists in the fact that the subject must freely choose the community to which he already belongs, independent of his choice - he must choose what is already given to him… The subject who thinks he can avoid this paradox and really have a free choice is a psychotic subject, one who retains a kind of distance from the symbolic order - who is not really caught in the signifying network. The totalitarian subject is closer to this psychotic position: the proof would be the status of the enemy in totalitarian distance (the Jew in Fascism, the traitor in Stalinism) - precisely the subject supposed to have made a free choice and to have freely chosen the wrong side. This is also the basic paradox of love: not only of one's country, but also of a woman or a man. If I am directly ordered to love a woman, it is clear that this does not work: in a way, love must be free. But on the other hand, if I proceed as if I really have a free choice, if I start to look around and say to myself 'Let's choose which of these women I will fall in love with,' it is clear that this also does not work, that it is not real love. The paradox of love is that it is a free choice, but a choice which never arrives in the present - it is always already made …I can only state retroactively that I've already chosen … [Stated by Kant], 'Wickedness does not simply depend upon circumstances but is an integral part of his eternal nature.”

In other words, wickedness appears to be something which is irreducibly given: the person in question can never change it, outgrow it via his ultimate moral development.
186-187
The Sublime Object of Ideology (1989)

Allen C. Guelzo photo
Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis photo
Henry James photo
Heather Brooke photo

“A lack of government oversight hasn't hindered the internet. Quite the opposite. A hands-off approach is largely responsible for its fantastic growth and success. The tremendous innovation and economic boon produced by the free internet should be proof enough that the dead hand of government isn't needed.”

Heather Brooke (1970) American journalist

The Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/apr/20/we-should-all-be-hactivists "We should all be hacktivists now", Column in the Guardian, 20 April 2012.
Attributed, In the Media

Henning von Tresckow photo
John Ogilby photo
Roberto Mangabeira Unger photo
Mahatma Gandhi photo

“Whatever Hitler may ultimately prove to be, we know what Hitlerism has come to mean, It means naked, ruthless force reduced to an exact science and worked with scientific precision. In its effect it becomes almost irresistible.
Hitlerism will never be defeated by counter-Hitlerism. It can only breed superior Hitlerism raised to nth degree. What is going on before our eyes is the demonstration of the futility of violence as also of Hitlerism.
What will Hitler do with his victory? Can he digest so much power? Personally he will go as empty-handed as his not very remote predecessor Alexander. For the Germans he will have left not the pleasure of owning a mighty empire but the burden of sustaining its crushing weight. For they will not be able to hold all the conquered nations in perpetual subjection. And I doubt if the Germans of future generations will entertain unadulterated pride in the deeds for which Hitlerism will be deemed responsible. They will honour Herr Hitler as genius, as a brave man, a matchless organizer and much more. But I should hope that the Germans of the future will have learnt the art of discrimination even about their heroes. Anyway I think it will be allowed that all the blood that has been spilled by Hitler has added not a millionth part of an inch to the world’s moral stature.”

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

Harijan (22 June 1940), after Nazi victories resulting in the occupation of France.
1940s

Manuel Valls photo
Joni Madraiwiwi photo
Jonah Goldberg photo
Vladimir Putin photo
George Macaulay Trevelyan photo
Salvador Dalí photo
Henry Adams photo
Mickey Mantle photo

“I feel better than I have in years—no leg problems at all. But if I'm to get three more home runs, I'm afraid I'll have to get them right-handed. I don't know what's the matter. I've lost my confidence from that side. I've always been a better right-handed hitter than left, but it wasn't until recently that I really got into a left-handed slump. I just don't seem able to pull the trigger, hitting left-handed. I have no excuse for it. It's not my legs or anything. The ball just gets up to me before I know it.”

Mickey Mantle (1931–1995) Professional baseball player

Speaking after Game 2 of the 1960 World Series, regarding his worsening left-handed batting woes—in particular, as regarded his chances of breaking Babe Ruth's World Series HR mark of 15; as quoted in "Mantle Figures He Can Break Babe's Series HR Mark if the Bucs Throw Southpaws" http://www.mediafire.com/view/6cqvl5q8trgqtg8/%20.png by Associated Press, in The Atlanta Constitution (Friday, October 7, 1960), p. 49.

William Morris photo
William Wordsworth photo

“And when a damp
Fell round the path of Milton, in his hand
The thing became a trumpet; whence he blew
Soul-animating strains,—alas! too few.”

William Wordsworth (1770–1850) English Romantic poet

Scorn not the Sonnet.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

T.S. Eliot photo

“What have we to do but stand with empty hands and palms turned upwards in an age which advances progressively backwards?”

T.S. Eliot (1888–1965) 20th century English author

Choruses from The Rock (1934)

Edgar Degas photo
W. Somerset Maugham photo
Charles Lindbergh photo
James A. Garfield photo
Paul Ryan photo

“Now it's a war on women; tomorrow it's going to be a war on left-handed Irishmen or something like that.”

Paul Ryan (1970) American politician

Naples, Florida fundraiser, , quoted in * 2012-10-19
Bashir: Ryan compares ‘war on women’ to ‘war on left-handed Irishmen’
MSNBC
http://video.msnbc.msn.com/martin-bashir/49482269#49482269
2012-11-07

Neil Gaiman photo
Statius photo

“So does he strive to rescue your shade from the pyre and wages a mighty contest with Death, wearying the efforts of artists and seeking to love you in every material. But beauty created by toil of cunning hand is mortal.”
Sic auferre rogis umbram conatur et ingens certamen cum Morte gerit, curasque fatigat artificum inque omni te quaerit amare metallo. Sed mortalis honos, agilis quem dextra laborat.

i, line 7
Silvae, Book V

Tom Robbins photo
Jessica Lynch photo
Patrick Henry photo

“Are we at last brought to such an humiliating and debasing degradation, that we cannot be trusted with arms for our defense? Where is the difference between having our arms in possession and under our direction, and having them under the management of Congress? If our defense be the real object of having those arms, in whose hands can they be trusted with more propriety or equal safety to us, as in our own hands?”

Patrick Henry (1736–1799) attorney, planter, politician and Founding Father of the United States

Speech on the Federal Constitution, Virginia Ratifying Convention (Monday, 9 June 1788), as contained in The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution: Volume 3, ed. Jonathan Elliot, published by the editor (1836), pp. 168-169
1780s

Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay photo
Anish Kapoor photo
N. Gregory Mankiw photo
Stanley Kubrick photo
Miguel de Cervantes photo

“You are a devil at everything, and there is no kind of thing in the 'versal world but what you can turn your hand to.”

Miguel de Cervantes (1547–1616) Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright

Source: Don Quixote de la Mancha (1605–1615), Part I, Book III, Ch. 11.

Roberto Clemente photo

“Look, here is the way I swing. I swing hard. I don’t punch the ball. I have bat control, and I don’t go for home runs, but I still swing as hard as some fellows who swing for the fences. My back is practically to first base when I finish the swing. I have to turn around before I can start running. Sometimes the ball is in the fielder’s hands before I drop the bat.”

Roberto Clemente (1934–1972) Puerto Rican baseball player

On how being right-handed negatively impacted his chances of batting .400, as quoted in "Aches, Pains... and Base Hits" https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=W6lWAAAAIBAJ&sjid=xecDAAAAIBAJ&pg=7036%2C4509721 by Jim Murray, in The Los Angeles Times (August 10, 1971). Also see the above comment (August 11, 1964) re "stepping in the bucket."
Baseball-related, <big><big>1970s</big></big>, <big>1971</big>

Robert T. Bakker photo

“Alexander Gardner who later became the Colonel of Artillery in the service of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, had travelled extensively in Central Asia from 1819 to 1823 C. E. He saw a lot of slave-catching in Kafiristan, a province of Afghanistan, which was largely inhabited by infields at that time. He found that the area had been reduced to “the lowest state of poverty and wretchedness” as a result of raids by the Muslim king of Kunduz for securing slaves and supplying them to the slave markets in Balkh and Bukhara. He writes:
“All this misery was caused by the oppression of the Kunduz chief, who not content with plundering his wretched subjects, made an annual raid into the country south of Oxus, and by chappaos (night attacks) carried off all the inhabitants on whom his troops could lay their hands. These, after the best had been selected by the chief and his courtiers, were publicly sold in the bazaars of Turkestan. The principal providers of this species of merchandise were the Khan of Khiva, the king of Bokhara (the great hero of the Mohammedan faith), and the robber beg of Kunduz.
“In the regular slave markets, or in transactions between dealers, it is the custom to pay for slaves in money; the usual medium being either Bokharan gold tillahs (in value about 5 or 51/2 Company rupees each), or in gold bars or gold grain. In Yarkand, or on the Chinese frontier, the medium is the silver khurup with the Chinese stamp, the value of which varies from 150 to 200 rupees each. The price of a male slave varies according to circumstances from 5 to 500 rupees. The price of the females also necessarily varies much, 2 tillahs to 10,000 rupees. Even the double the latter sum has been known to have been given.
“However, a vast deal of business is also done by barter, of which we had proof at the holy shrine of Pir-i-Nimcha, where we exchanged two slaves for a few lambs’ skins! Sanctity and slave dealing may be considered somewhat akin in the Turkestan region, and the more holy the person the more extensive are generally his transactions in flesh and blood.””

Alexander Gardner subsequently found a Muslim fruit merchant at Multan “who was proved by his own ledger to have exchanged a female slave girl for three ponies and seven long-haired, red-eyed cats, all of which he disposed of, no doubt to advantage, to the English gentlemen at this station.”
Memoirs of Alexander Gardner, edited by Major Hugh Pearce, first published in 1898, reprint published from Patiala in 1970, quoted from Lal, K. S. (1994). Muslim slave system in medieval India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 1

Peter F. Drucker photo
Samuel Hahnemann photo
Amitabh Bachchan photo

“He never gave us a script and we never asked - we were safe in his hands.”

Amitabh Bachchan (1942) Indian actor

On Hrishikesh Mukherjee, reported in Encyclopaedia of Hindi cinema‎ (2003), p. 492.

John Maynard Keynes photo

“Perhaps it is historically true that no order of society ever perishes save by its own hand.”

Source: The Economic Consequences of the Peace (1919), Chapter VI, p. 238

Glen Cook photo

“I picked up my five cards from the next deal. “This ain’t a hand, it’s a foot.””

Source: Water Sleeps (1999), Chapter 10 (p. 48)

Mickey Spillane photo
Craig Ferguson photo

“I'm TV's Craig Ferguson, please sit down relax and: "take off your pants"; "dip your hand into a bowl of warm water and fall fast asleep"; etc.”

Craig Ferguson (1962) Scottish-born American television host, stand-up comedian, writer, actor, director, author, producer and voice a…

The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson (2005–2014)

Democritus photo

“Fortune is lavish with her favors, but not to be depended on. Nature on the other hand is self-sufficing, and therefore with her feebler but trustworthy [resources] she wins the greater [meed] of hope.”

Democritus Ancient Greek philosopher, pupil of Leucippus, founder of the atomic theory

Source Book in Ancient Philosophy (1907), The Golden Sayings of Democritus

Richard K. Morgan photo
Terence Rattigan photo
Rāmabhadrācārya photo

“I have not even touched paper, nor have I even taken a pen in hand. In the Bhṛṅgadūta, only the Lord of mother Sītā has spoken.”

Rāmabhadrācārya (1950) Hindu religious leader

citation needed
Masi kāgada chūyo nahīṃ kalama gahī nahiṃ hātha ।
bhṛṃgadūta mahaँ saba kahyo eka jānakīnātha ॥

Jim Yong Kim photo

“We’re interested in the peace but we understand that peace, justice and development go hand in hand. And I think we sent that message very strongly.”

Jim Yong Kim (1959) Korean-American physician and anthropologist, 12th President of the World Bank

UN News Centre, Interview with Jim Yong Kim, 7 October 13

Allan Kaprow photo
Jonah Goldberg photo
Charlton Heston photo
Tony Blair photo

“A day like today is not a day for, sort of, soundbites, really - we can leave those at home - but I feel the hand of history upon our shoulders, I really do.”

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

Julia Langdon, "The gloves are off in the Speaker's corner", Herald (Glasgow), 9 April 1998, p. 21.
Statement to the press on arriving at Hillsborough Castle for the Northern Ireland talks, 7 April 1998.
1990s

Alfred Binet photo
Billy Joel photo
Titian photo
Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo
Joseph Strutt photo
Theodore L. Cuyler photo
Vladimir Lenin photo

“If I love you—
I never behave like a climbing trumpet vine
Using your high branches to show myself off;
If I love you—
I never mimic infatuated little birds
Repeating monotonous songs into the shadows,
Nor do I look at all like a wellspring
Sending out its cooling consolation all year round,
Or just another perilous crag
Augmenting your height, setting off your prestige.
Nor like the sunlight
Or even spring rain.
No, these are not enough.
I would be a kapok tree by your side
Standing with you—
both of us shaped like trees.
Our roots hold hands underground,
Our leaves touch in the clouds.
As a gust of wind passes by
We salute each other
And not a soul
Understands our language.
You have your bronze boughs and iron trunk
Like knives and swords,
Also like halberds;
I have my red flowers
Like heavy sighs,
Also like heroic torches.
We share cold waves, storms and thunderbolts;
Together we savor fog, haze and rainbows.
We seem to always live apart,
But actually depend upon each other forever.
This has to be called extraordinary love.
Faith resides in it:
Love—
I love not only your sublime body
But the space you occupy,
The land beneath your feet.”

Shu Ting (1952) Chinese writer

"To the Oak Tree" [ 致橡树 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APZjf9K6KX0, Zhi xiangshu] (27 March 1977), in The Red Azalea: Chinese Poetry Since the Cultural Revolution, ed. Edward Morin, trans. Fang Dai and Dennis Ding (University of Hawaii Press, 1990), ISBN 978-0824813208, pp. 102–103.

Joseph Strutt photo
William Cobbett photo

“…the existence of a 'system' that was ruining the country. The system of upstarts; of low-bred, low-minded sycophants usurping the stations designed by nature, by reason, by the Constitution, and by the interests of the people, to men of high birth, eminent talents, or great national services; the system by which the ancient Aristocracy and the Church have been undermined; by which the ancient gentry of the kingdom have been almost extinguished, their means of support having been transferred, by the hand of the tax gatherer, to contractors, jobbers and Jews; the system by which but too many of the higher orders have been rendered the servile dependents of the minister of the day, and by which the lower, their generous spirit first broken down, have been moulded into a mass of parish fed paupers. Unless it be the intention, the solemn resolution, to change this system, let no one talk to me of a change of ministry; for, until this system be destroyed…until the filthy tribe of jobbers, brokers and peculators shall be swept from the councils of the nation and the society of her statesmen…there is no change of men, that can, for a single hour, retard the mighty mischief that we dread.”

William Cobbett (1763–1835) English pamphleteer, farmer and journalist

Political Register (20 April 1805), quoted in Karl W. Schweizer and John W. Osborne, Cobbett and His Times (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1990), pp. 27-28, 71-72.

Woodrow Wilson photo
Tim Aker photo
Thiruvalluvar photo
George Macartney photo

“The Government, as it stands, is properly the tyranny of a handful of Tatars over more than three hundred millions of Chinese.”

George Macartney (1737–1806) British statesman, colonial administrator and diplomat

Our First Ambassador to China (Biography, 1908)

Miguel de Cervantes photo

“It is not the hand but the understanding of a man that may be said to write.”

Miguel de Cervantes (1547–1616) Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright

Book III, Author's Preface
Don Quixote de la Mancha (1605–1615), Part II (1615), Book III

Hans von Seeckt photo

“Only in firm co-operation with a Great Russia will Germany have the chance of regaining her position as a world power…Britain and France fear the combination of the two land powers and try to prevent it with all their means—hence we have to seek it with all our strength…Whether we like or dislike the new Russia and her internal structure is quite immaterial. Our policy would have had to be the same towards a Tsarist Russia or towards a state under Kolchak or Denikin. Now we have to come to terms with Soviet Russia—we have no alternative…In Poland France seeks to gain the eastern field of attack against Germany and, together with Britain, has driven the stake which we cannot endure into our flesh, quite close to the heart of our existent a a state. Now France trembles for her Poland which a strengthened Russia threatens with destruction, and now Germany is to save her mortal enemy! Her mortal enemy, for we have none worse at this moment. Neva can Prussia-Germany concede that Bromberg, Graudenz, Thorn, (Marienburg), Posen should remain in Polish hands, and now there appears on the horizon, like a divine miracle, help for us in our deep distress. At this moment nobody should ask Germany to lift as much as a finger when disaster engulf Poland.”

Hans von Seeckt (1866–1936) German general

Memorandum (4 February 1920), quoted in F. L. Carsten, The Reichswehr and Politics 1918 to 1933 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966), p. 68.

John Major photo

“Whether you agree with me, disagree with me, like me or loathe me, don't bind my hands when I am negotiating on behalf of the British people.”

John Major (1943) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Michael White, "At war with his party", The Guardian, 17 April 1997, p. 1
Election press conference, 16 April 1997, referring to Conservative MPs who had issued manifestos rejecting British membership of the European single currency.
1990s, 1997

Alfred Brendel photo

“You need three or five hands to play Ligeti.”

Alfred Brendel (1931) Austrian pianist, poet, and author

Alfred Brendel, quoted in: " The Music of Ligeti – May 20, 2006 http://www.aventa.ca/the-music-of-ligeti-may-20-2006/," at aventa.ca, 2006.

Janeane Garofalo photo

“Granted, not really a joke, but how often do you get a mic in your hand? You know? So. I am sorry but don't anybody trip on my soap box on the way out. Don't anybody trip over that. And the chip on my shoulder's a little heavy. I have back problems now.”

Janeane Garofalo (1964) comedian, actress, political activist, writer

self-titled TV comedy special, 1997
said after she suggested a "Buddy System" where pro-lifers are federally assigned orphaned babies
Standup routines

David Mamet photo
William Lloyd Garrison photo
David Attenborough photo
Mortimer Collins photo

“Just take a trifling handful, O philosopher!
Of magic matter: give it a slight toss over
The ambient ether—and I don’t see why
You should n’t make a sky.”

Mortimer Collins (1827–1876) British writer

Sky-Making. (To Professor Tyndall), reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Bill Hybels photo

“You have seen bigger horses than his thirteen and a half, perhaps fourteen hands, his nine hundred pounds. You have seen handsomer profiles than this Roman nose, slightly convex. Burrs cling to his long sweeping tail. His coat is dark and unglossed. Yet look again, while he is still, for he will not be still long. Sense the vitality in those muscles, trembling beneath the skin; see the pride in that high head, hear the haughty command to his voice. For this is a wild horse, my friend. Once he claimed the western range. Then they took his range away from him. But nothing, no one claims him. He feels the wind and the air with his nose, with his ears, with his very soul, and what he feels is good. He tosses his head, once, quickly, and behind him his harem of six mares trot up to join him, and behind them, a yearling colt, a filly and two stork-legged foals. Coats dusty and chewed, tails spiked with bits of the desert, sage and nettle and leftover pine needles from winter climbs down from timberland. The Barb-nosed stallion led his family down to the waterhole. Not Barb from barbed wire, though perhaps the chewed skin was from barbed wire, but Barb from the Spanish horses from which he descended, brought to the New World over four hundred years ago, from the Barbary states of North Africa, Tunisia, Morocco, Algeria, Fez, Tripoli. Indians stole them from the Spaniards; the Barbs stole themselves free from the Indians. Running wild, a few still run free.”

Arnold Hano (1922) American writer

From Running Wild (1973) by Hano, p. 10
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