Quotes about head
page 16

Philo photo
Robert A. Heinlein photo

“Mercifully, we stay our hand. Earth’s cities will not be bombed. The free citizens of Venus Republic have no wish to slaughter their cousins still on Terra. Our only purpose is to establish our own independence, to manage our own affairs, to throw off the crushing yoke of absentee ownership and taxation without representation which has bleed us poor.
In doing so, in so taking our stand as free men, we call on all oppressed and impoverished nations everywhere to follow our lead, accept our help. Look up into the sky! Swimming there above you is the very station from which I now address you. The fat and stupid rulers of the Federation have made of Circum-Terra an overseer’s whip. The threat of this military base in the sky has protected their empire from the just wrath of their victims for more then five score years.
We now crush it.
In a matter of minutes this scandal in the clean skies, this pistol pointed at the heads of men everywhere on your planet, will cease to exist. Step out of doors, watch the sky. Watch a new sun blaze briefly, and know that its light is the light of Liberty inviting all of Earth to free itself.
Subject peoples of Earth, we free men of the free Republic of Venus salute you with that sign!”

Source: Between Planets (1951), Chapter 6, “The Sign in the Sky” (p. 74) - Speech given before the destruction of the nuclear-armed satellite Circum-Terra.

John Fletcher photo

“Fountain heads and pathless groves,
Places which pale passion loves.”

John Fletcher (1579–1625) English Jacobean playwright

The Nice Valour (c. 1615–25; publsihed 1647), Act iii, scene 3.

Guru Arjan photo
Johnny Cash photo

“When, I was just a baby,
My mama told me, son
Always be a good boy,
Don't ever play with guns.
But I shot a man in Reno
Just to watch him die.
When I hear that whistle blowin'
I hang my head and cry.”

Johnny Cash (1932–2003) American singer-songwriter

Folsom Prison Blues
Song lyrics, Johnny Cash with His Hot and Blue Guitar (1957)

James Taylor photo

“If I had stopped to listen once or twice
If I had closed my mouth and opened my eyes
If I had cooled my head and warmed my heart
I'd not be on this road tonight.”

James Taylor (1948) American singer-songwriter and guitarist

"That Lonesome Road", written with Don Grolnick
Song lyrics, Dad Love His Work (1981)

Wesley Willis photo
Van Morrison photo
Frank Bainimarama photo

“As long as this bill hangs over our heads there is no credibility in what people in leadership do.”

Frank Bainimarama (1954) Prime Minister of Fiji

2000, Reaction to calls from Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer for the Military to stay out of politics (30 September 2005)

Lama Ole Nydahl photo
Indro Montanelli photo
Elizabeth Bisland Whetmore photo
George William Curtis photo
Max Beckmann photo
A.A. Milne photo
Clive Staples Lewis photo

“Their own strength has betrayed them. They have…pulled down Deep Heaven on their heads.”

Source: That Hideous Strength (1945), Ch. 13 : They Have Pulled Down Deep Heaven on Their Heads

Maria Mitchell photo

“I know I shall be called heterodox, and that unseen lightning flashes and unheard thunderbolts will be playing around my head, when I say that women will never be profound students in any other department except music while they give four hours a day to the practice of music. I should by all means encourage every woman who is born with musical gifts to study music; but study it as a science and an art, and not as an accomplishment; and to every woman who is not musical, I should say, 'Don't study it at all;' you cannot afford four hours a day, out of some years of your life, just to be agreeable in company upon possible occasions. If for four hours a day you studied, year after year, the science of language, for instance, do you suppose you would not be a linguist? Do you put the mere pleasing of some social party, and the reception of a few compliments, against the mental development of four hours a day of study of something for which you were born? When I see that girls who are required by their parents to go through with the irksome practising really become respectable performers, I wonder what four hours a day at something which they loved, and for which God designed them, would do for them. I should think that to a real scientist in music there would be something mortifying in this rush of all women into music; as there would be to me if I saw every girl learning the constellations, and then thinking she was an astronomer!”

Maria Mitchell (1818–1889) American astronomer

Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters and Journals (illustrated) by Maria Mitchell, 1896, p. 189.

Lou Reed photo

“"Just watch," said Sheila, touching her finger to her head.”

Lou Reed (1942–2013) American musician

The Gift (written by Lou Reed, narrated by John Cale)
Lyrics

Natasha Lyonne photo
Amir Khusrow photo
Larry Wall photo

“So please don't think I have a 'down' on the MVS people. I'm just pulling off their arms to beat other people over the head with.”

Larry Wall (1954) American computer programmer and author, creator of Perl

[199808050415.VAA24026@wall.org, 1998]
Usenet postings, 1998

El Lissitsky photo
Edward Bulwer-Lytton photo

“A good heart is better than all the heads in the world.”

Edward Bulwer-Lytton (1803–1873) English novelist, poet, playwright, and politician

The Disowned (1828), Chapter xxxiii.

Karl Kraus photo

“In one ear and out the other: this would still make the head a transit station. What I hear has to go out the same ear.”

Karl Kraus (1874–1936) Czech playwright and publicist

Half-Truths and One-And-A-Half Truths (1976)

William Wordsworth photo
Albrecht Thaer photo

“In the second year of my residence in Gottingen, I entered my name for a course of lectures on practical physics, against the advice of all my friends, but I have never regretted so doing, as there never has been, and probably never will be, a greater man at the university than Doctor Schroder, physician to the king, who gave, at that period, his celebrated lectures on practical physics. Schroder himself was astonished at the step I had taken; but when he perceived that I fully understood him, I became one of his favourite pupils; nor had I the advantage alone of receiving private lessons gratis, but he took me with him in most of his professional visits, where I had all the advantages of his great practice. Thus I caught a putrid fever which was then very prevalent; Schroeder attended me day and night, and giving up all hopes of my recovery, he observed to one of his friends, not thinking that I understood what he said, "The expansion of the sinews increases." "Then," answered I, in a quiet manner, "I shall die in four days, according to such and such a rule of Hippocrates: pray, prepare my father to receive the news of my death." However, immediately after, a sudden turn in the disorder taking place, I soon recovered; not so my memory, which I lost for a time, so that I had forgotten the names of my best friends; my nerves were so completely shaken, that I had no wish to recover. After my recovery, Professor Schroeder being himself attacked with the same fever, requested of his wife that no other physician than myself should attend him; but when he became light-headed, she called in all the physicians of Gottingen, and these gentlemen not agreeing in opinion respecting the treatment of the patient, this great and learned man fell a victim to ignorance and jealousy, April 21, 1772. I cannot think of this celebrated and good man without shedding tears of regret and gratitude.”

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

My Life and Confessions, for Philippine, 1786

Fred Astaire photo
Lewis Mumford photo

“A certain amount of opposition is a great help to a man. Kites rise against, not with, the wind. Even a head wind is better than none. No man ever worked his passage anywhere in a dead calm.”

Lewis Mumford (1895–1990) American historian, sociologist, philosopher of technology, and literary critic

John Neal, as quoted in The Journal of Education for Upper Canada Vol. III (1850)
Misattributed

Joseph Smith, Jr. photo
Pierre Charron photo

“Despair is like forward children, who, when you take away one of their playthings, throw the rest into the fire for madness. It grows angry with itself, turns its own executioner, and revenges its misfortunes on its own head.”

Pierre Charron (1541–1603) French theologian and philosopher

As quoted in Treasury of Thought : Forming an encyclopædia of quotation from ancient and modern authors (1894) edited by Maturin Murray Ballou, p. 123

Jim Butcher photo
H. G. Wells photo
Ralph Steadman photo
Jack Benny photo

“Jack: [poking his head through the stage curtains] Bob, will you please give me my pants back?”

Jack Benny (1894–1974) comedian, vaudeville performer, and radio, television, and film actor

The Jack Benny Program (Radio: 1932-1955), The Jack Benny Program (Television: 1950-1965)
Variant: Don Wilson: [Poking his head through the curtains] Bob, Bob, quick, give me Jack's pants!

Nat Turner photo
Ray Bradbury photo
Henry Moore photo

“The idea for [his sculpture] 'The Warrior' came to me at the end of 1952 or very early in 1953. It was evolved from a pebble I found on the seashore in the summer of 1952, and which reminded me of the stump of a leg, amputated at the hip. Just as Leonardo says somewhere in his notebooks that a painter can find a battle scene in the lichen marks on a wall, so this gave me the start of The Warrior idea. First I added the body, leg and one arm and it became a wounded warrior, but at first the figure was reclining. A day or two later I added a shield and altered its position and arrangement into a seated figure and so it changed from an inactive pose into a figure which, though wounded, is still defiant... The head has a blunted and bull-like power but also a sort of dumb animal acceptance and forbearance of pain... The figure may be emotionally connected (as one critic has suggested) with one’s feelings and thoughts about England during the crucial and early part of the last war. The position of the shield and its angle gives protection from above. The distance of the shield from the body and the rectangular shape of the space enclosed between the inside surface of the shield and the concave front of the body is important... This sculpture is the first single and separate male figure that I have done in sculpture and carrying it out in its final large scale was almost like the discovery of a new subject matter; the bony, edgy, tense forms were a great excitement to make... Like the bronze 'Draped Reclining Figure' of 1952-3 I think 'The Warrior' has some Greek influence, not consciously wished…”

Henry Moore (1898–1986) English artist

Quote from Moore's letter, (15 Jan. 1955); as cited in Henry Moore on Sculpture: a Collection of the Sculptor's Writings and Spoken Words, ed. Philip James, MacDonald, London 1966, p. 250
1940 - 1955

Arthur Schopenhauer photo
James A. Garfield photo

“Comrades of the 'Boys in Blue' and fellow-citizens of New York. I cannot look upon this great assemblage and these old veterans that have marched past us, and listen to the words of welcome from our comrade who has just spoken, without remembering how great a thing it is to live in this Union and be a part of it. [Applause. ] This is New York; and yonder, toward the Battery, more than a hundred years ago, a young student of Columbia College was arguing the ideas of the American Revolution and American union against the un-American loyalty to monarchy, of his college president and professors. By and by, he went into the patriot army, was placed on the staff of Washington, [cheers] to fight the battles of his country, [cheers] and while in camp, before he was twenty-one years old, upon a drum-head he wrote a letter which contained every germ of the Constitution of the United States. [Applause. ] That student, soldier, statesman, and great leader of thought, Alexander Hamilton, of New York, made this Republic glorious by his thinking, and left his lasting impress upon this the foremost State of the Union. [Applause. ] And here on this island, the scene of his early triumphs, we gather tonight, soldiers of the new war, representing the same ideas of union, having added strength and glory to the monument reared by the heroes of the Revolution.”

James A. Garfield (1831–1881) American politician, 20th President of the United States (in office in 1881)

1880s, Speech to the 'Boys in Blue' (1880)

Ben Croshaw photo

“Religion should be something you keep within the confines of your own head, and we should all recognize how pointless it is to try and make other people see the fairies that live in your brain.”

Ben Croshaw (1983) English video game journalist

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/columns/extra-punctuation/7473-Extra-Punctuation-Videogames-as-Art.2
Other Articles

Robert Graves photo
Max Weber photo

“No sociologist, for instance, should think himself too good, even in his old age, to make tens of thousands of quite trivial computations in his head and perhaps for months at a time”

Max Weber (1864–1920) German sociologist, philosopher, and political economist

Source: From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology (1946), p. 135 (in 2009 edition)

Rosa Luxemburg photo
Will Cuppy photo
Jonathan Edwards photo
William Saroyan photo

“This is what drives a young writer out of his head, this feeling that nothing is being said.”

William Saroyan (1908–1981) American writer

Seventy Thousand Assyrians (1934)

Michael Bloomberg photo

“I believe we can turn around our country’s current, wrong-headed course, if we start basing our actions on ideas, shared values, and a commitment to solve problems without regard for party.”

Michael Bloomberg (1942) American businessman and politician, former mayor of New York City

http://mikebloomberg.com/en/issues/public_health/mayor_bloomberg_delivers_opening_address_at_ceasefire_bridging_the_political_divide_conference
Partisanship

Henryk Sienkiewicz photo

“Vetulani is a rebellious artist: when we admire beautiful faces, forms, wide-framed Dutch landscapes, he says "and now for something you haven’t expected." The spectator is awakened from a reverie and confronted with an object of mysterious ugliness, like silicone heads of the pope.”

Tomasz Vetulani (1965) Polish artist

Agnieszka Gołębiewska, Curatorial text accompanying exhibition There is no threat. Weapons and colour http://www.olympiagaleria.pl/en.tomasz_vetulani.html, 2017

Bruno Schulz photo
Joe Bob Briggs photo

“Speaking of things that'll make your head explode, "Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story" finally made it to the drive-in”

Joe Bob Briggs (1953) American film critic, writer, and actor; alter ego of John Bloom

Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story review http://www.joebobbriggs.com/drivein/1993/dragonthebruceleestory.htm

Nelson Mandela photo

“We bow our heads in worship on this day and give thanks to the Almighty for the bounty He has bestowed upon us over the past year. We raise our voices in holy gladness to celebrate the victory of the risen Christ over the terrible forces of death. Easter is a joyful festival! It is a celebration because it is indeed a festival of hope! Easter marks the renewal of life! The triumph of the light of truth over the darkness of falsehood! Easter is a festival of human solidarity, because it celebrates the fulfilment of the Good News! The Good News borne by our risen Messiah who chose not one race, who chose not one country, who chose not one language, who chose not one tribe, who chose all of humankind! Each Easter marks the rebirth of our faith. It marks the victory of our risen Saviour over the torture of the cross and the grave. Our Messiah, who came to us in the form of a mortal man, but who by his suffering and crucifixion attained immortality. Our Messiah, born like an outcast in a stable, and executed like criminal on the cross. Our Messiah, whose life bears testimony to the truth that there is no shame in poverty: Those who should be ashamed are they who impoverish others. Whose life testifies to the truth that there is no shame in being persecuted: Those who should be ashamed are they who persecute others. Whose life proclaims the truth that there is no shame in being conquered: Those who should be ashamed are they who conquer others. Whose life testifies to the truth that there is no shame in being dispossessed: Those who should be ashamed are they who dispossess others. Whose life testifies to the truth that there is no shame in being oppressed: Those who should be ashamed are they who oppress others.”

Nelson Mandela (1918–2013) President of South Africa, anti-apartheid activist

At his speech in Moria, on 3 April 1994
1990s, Speech at the Zionist Christian Church Easter Conference (1994)

Tim Cook photo

“The countries that embrace openness do exceptional and the countries that don’t, don’t. It’s not a matter of carving things up between sides. I’m going to encourage that calm heads prevail.”

Tim Cook (1960) American business executive

Bloomberg: Apple's Cook to Meet With Trump Amid China Trade Tensions https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-25/apple-s-cook-to-meet-with-trump-amid-u-s-china-trade-tensions (25 April 2018)

Will Eisner photo
Fred Astaire photo
Neelam Sanjiva Reddy photo

“The President of India is the constitutional head, who has no policy and programme of his own. It is the Government of the day which chooses the policy and programme to be pursued within the framework of the constitution…[would] protect and defend the Constitution.”

Neelam Sanjiva Reddy (1913–1996) sixth President of India

Source: Dr.Janak Raj Jai Presidents of India, 1950-2003 http://books.google.co.in/books?id=r2C2InxI0xAC&pg=PA126, Daya Books, 1 January 2003, P.133

Charles Dickens photo
Yohji Yamamoto photo

“I want to achieve anti-fashion through fashion. That's why I'm always heading in my own direction, in parallel to fashion.”

Yohji Yamamoto (1943) Japanese fashion designer

Yohji Yamamoto. May I Help You? in Talking to Myself (2002), Ch. 9: Creation.

Karl Pilkington photo

“I'd kick it, and I'd say 'You knob-head'. - Karl tells Ricky his response to being poisoned by an octopus.”

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

Podcast Series 2 Episode 6
On Nature

Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford photo
Sören Kierkegaard photo
Peter Jackson photo

“Kong bites his head off in a PG13 kinda way”

Peter Jackson (1961) New Zealand film director, producer, actor, and screenwriter

A note in the 1996 script for 'King Kong quoted in USA Today http://www.angelfire.com/ri/KingKong33/mar05.html

Lee Iacocca photo
Jeet Thayil photo

“it came pretty late In a sense it is good. It won’t get over my head.”

Jeet Thayil (1959) Indian writer

After winning the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature-2013
Mohammed Iqbal, in: Jeet Thayil wins DSC Prize for South Asian Literature http://www.thehindu.com/books/jeet-thayil-wins-dsc-prize-for-south-asian-literature/article4348766.ece, The Hindu, 27 January 2013

Sue Monk Kidd photo
Jeffrey Montgomery photo

“But the cards are stacked against us. Scurrilous and abusive rhetoric is spewed by politicians and so-called religious leaders, who cloak themselves by turning the Constitution on its head and claim protection and permission to demonize and denigrate us. Hiding behind the perversion of the concepts of religious freedom and political speech, those people have carved out a special right to impose their bigotry and hatred for us.”

Jeffrey Montgomery (1953–2016) American LGBT rights activist and public relations executive

America...You Kill Me
Variant: We want to be able to move freely and safely in our daily lives, free from the threat of random hate violence. themselves by turning the Constitution on its head and claim protection and permission to demonize and denigrate us. Hiding behind the perversion of the concepts of religious freedom and political speech, those people have carved out a special right to impose their bigotry and hatred for us.

Karl Pilkington photo

“I don't cry. Water doesn't leave my head. I've got loads of gob. That's how water leaves me, it's not out of my eyes.”

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

The Moaning of Life, General Quotes

Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain photo

“The momentous meaning of this occasion impressed me deeply. I resolved to mark it by some token of recognition, which could be no other than a salute of arms. Well aware of the responsibility assumed, and of the criticisms that would follow, as the sequel proved, nothing of that kind could move me in the least. The act could be defended, if needful, by the suggestion that such a salute was not to the cause for which the flag of the Confederacy stood, but to its going down before the flag of the Union. My main reason, however, was one for which I sought no authority nor asked forgiveness. Before us in proud humiliation stood the embodiment of manhood: men whom neither toils and sufferings, nor the fact of death, nor disaster, nor hopelessness could bend from their resolve; standing before us now, thin, worn, and famished, but erect, and with eyes looking level into ours, waking memories that bound us together as no other bond;—was not such manhood to be welcomed back into a Union so tested and assured? Instructions had been given; and when the head of each division column comes opposite our group, our bugle sounds the signal and instantly our whole line from right to left, regiment by regiment in succession, gives the soldier's salutation, from the "order arms" to the old "carry"—the marching salute. Gordon at the head of the column, riding with heavy spirit and downcast face, catches the sound of shifting arms, looks up, and, taking the meaning, wheels superbly, making with himself and his horse one uplifted figure, with profound salutation as he drops the point of his sword to the boot toe; then facing to his own command, gives word for his successive brigades to pass us with the same position of the manual, honor answering honor. On our part not a sound of trumpet more, nor roll of drum; not a cheer, nor word nor whisper of vain-glorying, nor motion of man standing again at the order, but an awed stillness rather, and breath-holding, as if it were the passing of the dead!”

Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain (1828–1914) Union Army general and Medal of Honor recipient

The Passing of the Armies: An account of the Army of the Potomac, based upon personal reminiscences of the Fifth Army Corps (1915), p. 260

Charlie Munger photo

“You have to learn all the big ideas in the key disciplines in a way that they're in a mental latticework in your head and you automatically use them for the rest of your life. If you do that, I solemnly promise you that one day you'll be walking down the street and you'll look to your right and left and you’ll think "my heavenly days, I'm now one of the few competent people in my whole age cohort."”

Charlie Munger (1924) American business magnate, lawyer, investor, and philanthropist

If you don't do it, many of the brightest of you will live in the middle ranks or in the shallows.
USC Law School Commencement Speech http://genius.com/Charlie-munger-usc-law-commencement-speech-annotated (2007-05-13)

Cory Doctorow photo
Bob Seger photo
John Fante photo
Donald J. Trump photo

“I said please don't be too nice. Like when you guys put somebody in the car, and you're protecting their head, you know, the way you put the hand over, like, don't hit their head, and they've just killed somebody, don't hit their head? I said, you can take the hand away, OK.”

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

Speaking to police officers https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFgjNPiq9Cw at Suffolk County Community College, Long Island (28 July 2017)
2010s, 2017, July

Charles P. Mattocks photo
Dylan Moran photo
David Allen photo

“How can you justify keeping a calendar & still keep most of your other commitments w/yourself in your head?”

David Allen (1945) American productivity consultant and author

10 July 2011 https://twitter.com/gtdguy/status/89936622044450816
Official Twitter profile (@gtdguy) https://twitter.com/gtdguy

L. Frank Baum photo
Stokely Carmichael photo
Mark Skousen photo
Jahangir photo
Neamat Imam photo
David Allen photo

“A commitment kept only in your head will be given too much or too little attention.”

David Allen (1945) American productivity consultant and author

23 June 2010 https://twitter.com/gtdguy/status/16821970790
Official Twitter profile (@gtdguy) https://twitter.com/gtdguy

Jack Buck photo
Ta-Nehisi Coates photo
Nick Cave photo
Anatole France photo

“A people under the menace of war and of invasion is very easy to govern. It does not claim social reforms, it does not cavil over armaments or military equipment. It pays without haggling, it ruins itself at it, and that is excellent for the syndicates, the financiers, and the heads of industry to whom patriotic terrors open an abundant source of gain.”

Anatole France (1844–1924) French writer

[1914-01-22, Anatole France on Education. Speech at the Inauguration of the Education Part of the Socialist "Maison de Peuple," at Brussels, Translated for "The New Age" by Leonard J. Simons, The New Age (Volume 14, Number 12), 363, http://www.modjourn.org/render.php?id=1165338028234375&view=mjp_object, Modernist Journals Project, 2017-01-04]

Michel Foucault photo
Theresa May photo
Prince photo

“The internet's completely over. […] The internet's like MTV. At one time MTV was hip and suddenly it became outdated. Anyway, all these computers and digital gadgets are no good. They just fill your head with numbers and that can't be good for you.”

Prince (1958–2016) American pop, songwriter, musician and actor

Daily Mirror: Prince - world exclusive interview: Peter Willis goes inside the star's secret world http://www.mirror.co.uk/celebs/news/2010/07/05/prince-world-exclusive-interview-peter-willis-goes-inside-the-star-s-secret-world-115875-22382552/ (5 July 2010)

H.V. Sheshadri photo
Joyce Carol Oates photo
Alex Jones photo
Jack McDevitt photo
Lewis Mumford photo