Quotes about head
page 17

“Unhappiness is simply when the picture in your head doesn’t match the picture in front of you.”

Kanwer Singh (1981) Canadian YouTube Star, Rapper, Author and Spoken-word Artist

Source: Humble the Poet, UnLearn: 101 Simple Truths For A Better Life

“Pitchers—real pitchers— know that their job isn't so much to keep opposing batsmen from hitting as it is to make them hit it at someone. The trouble with most kid pitchers is that they forget there are eight other men on the team to help them. They just blunder ahead, putting everything they have on every pitch and trying to carry the weight of the whole game on their shoulders. The result is that they tire out and go bad along in the middle of the game, and then the wise old heads have to hurry out and rescue them. I've seen a lot of young fellows come up, and they all had the same trouble. Take Lefty Grove over at Philadelphia, for instance. There isn't a pitcher in the league who has more speed or stuff than Lefty. He can do things with a baseball that make you dizzy. But when he first came into the league he seemed to think that he had to strike out every batter as he came up. The result was he'd go along great for five or six innings, and them blow. And he's just now learning to conserve his strength. In other words, he's learning that a little exercise of the noodle will save a lot of wear and tear on his arm.”

Babe Ruth (1895–1948) American baseball player

"Chapter III," Babe Ruth's Own Book of Baseball (1928), pp. 32-33; reprinted as "Babe Ruth's Own Story — Chapter III: Pitching the Keynote of Defense; The Pitcher's Job; Why Young Hurlers Fail," https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=r0sbAAAAIBAJ&sjid=J0sEAAAAIBAJ&pg=6011%2C3899916 in The Pittsburgh Press (December 23, 1928), p. 52

Men, Exercises, Game, Thinking

“This was probably rooted in a belief that had been inculcated to him from the get-go: that there was an objective reality, which all people worth talking to could observe and understand, and that there was no point in arguing about anything that could be so observed and so understood. As long as you made a point of hanging out exclusively with people who had the wit to see and to understand that objective reality, you didn’t have to waste a lot of time talking. When a thunderstorm was headed your way across the prairie, you took the washing down from the line and closed the windows. It wasn’t necessary to have a meeting about it. The sales force didn’t need to get involved.”

Neal Stephenson book Reamde

Day 20
Reamde (2011), Part II: American Falls

People, Way, Understanding, Reality

“And for me Michelangelo's greatest work is one that was in his studio partly finished, partly unfinished when he died 'The Rondanini Pietà'. I don't know of any other single work of art by anyone that is more poignant, more moving. It isn't the most powerful of Michelangelo's works – it's a mixture, in fact, of two styles…. the changing became so drastic that I think he knocked the head off the sculpture… So the figure must originally have been a good deal taller. And if we see also the proportion of the length of the body of Christ compared with the length of the legs, there's no doubt that the whole top of the original sculpture has been cut away. Now this to me is a great question. Why should I and other sculptors I know, my contemporaries – I think that Giacometti feels this, I know Marino Marini feels it – find this work one of the most moving and greatest works we know of when it's a work which has such disunity in it?… But that's so moving, so touching: the position of the heads, the whole tenderness of the top part of the sculpture, is in my opinion more what it is by being in contrast with the rather finished, tough, leathery, typical Michelangelo legs. The top part is Gothic and the lower part is sort of Renaissance.”

Henry Moore (1898–1986) English artist

Quote of Henri Moore in his interview with David Silvester, in 'The Sunday Times Magazine', 16 Febr. 1964, pp. 18, 20-22
1955 - 1970

Art, Feeling, Question, Thinking

“You basically have to trick yourself into incredible intensity to do this stuff, and I do a good job of pretending that I’m racing to save my mom from getting killed or my sister from being raped—some horrible thing that causes me to dig deep, like old-school ‘Braveheart’ s---. If you come into battle with that in your head, you’re gonna be a different person than if you think you’re just going out for a little swordfight. But when you do that for 10 years straight, it wears your a-- out. It’s like crying wolf to yourself a million times. And at some point, you start to say, ‘Why am I doing this?”

Bode Miller (1977) American alpine ski racer

Interview with Newsweek, Nov. 2005, pub. 23 Feb. 2006 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11522274/

School, Moms, Thinking, Sister

“The great majority of politicians and other interested persons tend to…. concentrate on…. measures such as education and training of labour and investment in modern efficient capital equipment…. These reforms are of extreme importance but they are concerned basically with raising the output per head of those who are in employment rather than about the number of heads that will find suitable employment.”

James Meade (1907–1995) British economist

James Meade, Full Employment Regained? An Agathotopian Dream, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, (1995), p. xvii; As cited in: O'higgins, Niall. "The challenge of youth unemployment." International Social Security Review 50.4 (1997): p. 89

Education, Personality, Training

“Tears and fears and feeling proud,
To say "I love you" right out loud,
Dreams and schemes and circus crowds,
I’ve looked at life that way.
But now old friends are acting strange
They shake their heads, they say I’ve changed
Well something’s lost, but something’s gained
In living ev’ry day.”

Joni Mitchell (1943) Canadian musician

"Both Sides Now"
Songs

Love, Life, Fear, Dreams

“I began to think about William Shakespeare, the great literary figure. I would reckon he thought of himself as a dramatist. The thought that he was writing literature couldn't have entered his head. His words were written for the stage. Meant to be spoken not read. When he was writing Hamlet, I'm sure he was thinking about a lot of different things: "Who're the right actors for these roles?" "How should this be staged?" "Do I really want to set this in Denmark?" His creative vision and ambitions were no doubt at the forefront of his mind, but there were also more mundane matters to consider and deal with. "Is the financing in place?" "Are there enough good seats for my patrons?" "Where am I going to get a human skull?"”

Bob Dylan (1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist

I would bet that the farthest thing from Shakespeare's mind was the question "Is this literature?"
Nobel Banquet Speech

Literature, Question, Thinking, Reading

“I am not meet for petty men, slack their spirit:
They know not, they, what day the Chief was made,
what hour of the fine day was born the owner,
what a beast they keep with its silver head.
When we went with Arthur, a sorry strife,
Save for seven none came up from Fort Hoar-side.”

Taliesin (534–599) Welsh bard

Book of Taliesin (c. 1275?), The Spoils of Annwn

Men

“Well, and the 'X-rays' [X-Ray, 1991, black and white photograph]... I was just interested in seeing what it looks like inside my head – and the idea that they could just examine the inside of my head like a globe. And then I photographed the facades in New York. [at the end of the 19-nineties]... I did the books at the end of the nineties, and I did the facades shortly after that.”

Isa Genzken (1948) German sculptor

2001 - 2010, Isa Genzken in conversation with Wolfgang Tillmans' (2003)

Books, Idea

“I'm actually a softie. Tough guys get killed too early… I've got a full head of hair and don't wear eyeglasses.”

Mickey Spillane (1918–2006) American writer

Crime Time interview (2001)

Guy

“How many times can a man turn his head pretending he just doesn't see?”

Bob Dylan (1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist

Song lyrics, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan (1963), Blowin' in the Wind

Time

“Islam is not a religion of peace. Islam is fascist and it's violent and we've had enough! They're chopping our soldiers' heads off. This is Islam. That's what we've seen today. They've cut off one of our army's heads off on the streets of London. Our next generation are being taught through schools that Islam is a religion of peace. It's not. It never has been. What you saw today is Islam. Everyone's had enough. There has to be a reaction, for the government to listen, for the police to listen, to understand how angry this British public are.”

Tommy Robinson (1982) English right-wing activist

"Anti-Muslim reprisals after Woolwich attack", by Ben Quinn and Conal Urquhart, The Guardian (23 May 2013) http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2013/may/23/woolwich-attack-anti-muslim-reprisals 2013

School, Peace, Religion, Understanding

“Americans stick their nose where it doesn't belong more than Cyrano de Bergerac giving head.”

Dennis Miller (1953) American stand-up comedian, television host, and actor

The Rant Zone

“"Come on," says Cato. He thrusts a spear into the hands of the boy from District 3, and they head off in the direction of the fire. The last thing I hear as they enter the woods is Cato saying, "When we find her, I kill her in my own way, and no one interferes."
Somehow I don't think he's talking about Rue. She didn't drop a nest of tracker jackers on him.”

Suzanne Collins (1962) American television writer and novelist

Cato, p. 217
The Hunger Games trilogy, The Hunger Games (2008)

Way, Boy, Thinking

“Serious color studies of nudes and heads. Only as practice and first training. Very strict determination of color values through water color. On top of it, some oils, simply for blending. The results are quite unattractive, little of importance to be hoped for here. This month of February is devoted to color. I painted many nudes from nature and even the portrait of a head, my syster's!”

Paul Klee (1879–1940) German Swiss painter

Quote (1903), # 485, in The Diaries of Paul Klee, translation: Pierre B. Schneider, R. Y. Zachary and Max Knight; publisher, University of California Press, 1964
1903 - 1910

Hope, Color, Nature, Study

“Well I hope he's got his fuel card with him he could buy some more. If I was him I would get out of the car and head straight to the airport I would not want to come back to the pits!(Alesi fails to acknowledge the pit-boards telling him to come in and runs out of fuel)”

Martin Brundle (1959) British racecar driver

Hope, Cars

“Through ignorance, through faith, through intelligence, through trickery and cunning, through illumination, the reader rewrites the text with the same words of the original but under another heading, re-creating it, as it were, in the very act of bringing it into being.”

Alberto Manguel (1948) writer

Reading The Future, p. 211.
A History of Reading (1996)

Faith, Intelligence

“I just don't have the desire no more, I don't have the stomach to do it no more. I don't even kill insects in my house. I just don't kill anything no more. I used to kill pigeons, rip their heads off, 'You dirty rat pigeon!' I don't even have the heart to kill an animal no more. I just changed my whole life in general. That probably could have changed the way I fight.”

Mike Tyson (1966) American boxer

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/print?id=2083509&type=story
On boxing

Life, Way, Change, Heart

“Everything takes place in an infinitely greater field than what is framed by the size of the picture or by what is materially in the picture. This matter [door/window/wall] is but a support inviting the viewer to participate in the much larger game of a thousand and one visions and feelings; it is the talisman lifting or sinking walls into the deepest recesses of our spirit, opening and at times closing windows in the construction of our impotence, our bondage, or our freedom. The 'subject-matter' then may be found in the picture or it may exist solely inside the spectator's head.”

Antoni Tàpies (1923–2012) Catalan painter, sculptor and art theorist

1945 - 1970, A Report on the Wall' 1970

Feeling, Game, Support, Freedom

“Then I found my head one day when I wasn’t even trying
And here I have to say, ‘cause there is no use in lying, lying
Yes the answer lies within, so why not take a look now?
Kick out the devil’s sin, pick up, pick up a good book now.”

Cat Stevens (1948) British singer-songwriter

On The Road To Find Out
Song lyrics, Tea for the Tillerman (1970)

Books, Lying

“When he saw Tiny, he was delighted, and thought her the prettiest little maiden he had ever seen. He took the gold crown from his head, and placed it on hers, and asked her name, and if she would be his wife, and queen over all the flowers. This certainly was a very different sort of husband to the son of a toad, or the mole, with my black velvet and fur; so she said, "Yes," to the handsome prince. Then all the flowers opened, and out of each came a little lady or a tiny lord, all so pretty it was quite a pleasure to look at them. Each of them brought Tiny a present; but the best gift was a pair of beautiful wings, which had belonged to a large white fly and they fastened them to Tiny's shoulders, so that she might fly from flower to flower.”

Hans Christian Andersen Thumbelina

Thumbelina
Fairy Tales (1835)

Pleasure, Beauty, Flowers, Flying

“One thing which they ought to do, in order to hold their own against this enemy, is to give up cultivating what they call 'race pride', a sentiment too much like that which is 'the lion in the way' of our progress… Do we not know that every argument we make, and every pretension we set up in favor of race pride, is giving the enemy a stick to break our own heads? … You will, perhaps, think this criticism uncalled for. My answer is that truth is never uncalled for… In some of our colored public journals I have seen myself charged with a lack of race pride. I am not ashamed of that charge. I have no apology or vindication to offer. If fifty years of uncompromising devotion to the cause of the colored man in this country does not vindicate me, I am content to live without vindication. While I have no more reason to be proud of one race than another, I dare to say, and I fear no contradiction, that there is no other man in the United States prouder than myself of any great achievement, mental or mechanical, of which any colored man or woman is the author. This not because I am a colored man, but because I am a man; and because color is a misfortune, and is treated as a crime by the American people.”

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

Speech http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/the-nations-problem/

People, Truth, Fear, Color

“The political bourgeoisie is about to leave the stage of history. In its place advance the oppressed producers of the head and hand, the forces of Labor (Arbeitertum), to being their historical mission.”

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

“Warum sind wir Sozialisten,” Der Angriff editorial, July 16, 1928, reprinted in Der Angriff, Munich 1935, p. 223. David Schoenbaum, Hitler's Social Revolution: Class and Status in Nazi Germany, 1933-1939, W.W. Norton & Company (1997) p. 25
As quoted in "Erkenntnis und Propaganda," Signale der neuen Zeit. 25 ausgewählte Reden von Dr. Joseph Goebbels (Munich: Zentralverlag der NSDAP., 1934), pp. 28-52
The Pharus Hall was a meeting hall the Nazis often used in Berlin.
1920s

History

“She was getting pally with a scally in the alley
Giving head for gear
She called a spade a spade
Got slit from ear to ear
I showed no decorum
Spilled my heart out on the forum
Like a snapshot of the most tragic day
Carl is kept sedated, for the frontman elevated
While McGee does all he can to ruin my band and keep me out the way
In this industry of fools, musclemen and ghouls
If you're not a puppet or a muppet then you might as well call it a day
The truth gets so distorted
The wall scrapings get snorted
I'm welcome back if I give up crack
But you gave me my first pipe anyway”

Pete Doherty (1979) English musician, writer, actor, poet and artist

"Gang of Gin" (never released owing to threats of legal action by pop mogul Alan McGee)
Lyrics and poetry

Truth, Fools, Way, Heart

“No! You don't wear a hat on your gentles! You wear a hat on your head where you're supposed to wear a hat!”

Mel Brooks (1926) American director, writer, actor, and producer

The 2,000 Year Old Man (and sequels)

“The head tumbles between the legs
like a wooden ball
you fall, dark night
in the eyes,
the door a span away
inaccessible
you are on your knees
…”

Caterina Davinio (1957) Italian writer

The Book of Opium (1975 - 1990), Overdose
Source: Caterina Davinio, Il libro dell'oppio 1975 – 1990] (The Book of Opium 1975 – 1990), Puntoacapo Editrice, Novi Ligure 2012. English translation by Caterina Davinio and David W. Seaman.</ref>

Night

“The inventive genius of great England will not forever sit patient with mere wheels and pinions, bobbins, straps and billy-rollers whirring in the head of it. The inventive genius of England is not a Beaver's, or a Spinner's or Spider's genius: it is a Man's genius, I hope, with a God over him!”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

1840s, Past and Present (1843)

God, Hope

“When one exchanged the rowing-seat for a place in the bottom of the boat, he suffered a bodily depression that caused him to be careless of everything save an obligation to wiggle one finger. There was cold sea-water swashing to and fro in the boat, and he lay in it. His head, pillowed on a thwart, was within an inch of the swirl of a wave crest, and sometimes a particularly obstreperous sea came in-board and drenched him once more. But these matters did not annoy him. It is almost certain that if the boat had capsized he would have tumbled comfortably out upon the ocean as if he felt sure it was a great soft mattress.”

Stephen Crane book The Open Boat

Pt. IV
The Open Boat (1894)

Suffering, Water, Sea

“Once you know about a work of mine you own it. There's no way I can climb inside somebody's head and remove it.”

Lawrence Weiner (1942) American artist

Lawrence Weiner, cited in: Nika Knight. " Slowly Adapting Art: Moving with the Times: Re-installing Originals http://www.oberlin.edu/stupub/ocreview/2007/04/27/arts/Slowly_Adapting_Art_Moving.html," in: The Oberlin Review, April 27, 2007.

Way

“No association, no efficient combination of labor can be effected till men give up their liberty of action and subject themselves to a common despotic head or ruler. This is slavery, and towards this socialism is moving.”

George Fitzhugh (1806–1881) American activist

Source: Sociology For The South: Or The Failure Of A Free Society (1854), p. 61

Men

“If nothing is done to counter present trends, the major fault line in American politics will no longer be between Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives. It will be between the 'establishment'—political insiders, power brokers, the heads of American business, Wall Street, and the mainstream media—and an increasingly mad-as-hell populace determined to 'take back America' from them.”

Robert B. Reich (1946) American political economist

Aftershock https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/0307594521: The Next Economy and America's Future, Reich, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group (2010), p. 145

Hell, Business, Madness

“There was no one in the world quite like Plante. I learned more from him in two years with the Leafs than I did in all my other hockey days. He taught me a great deal about playing goal both on the ice and in my head off the ice. He taught me to be aggressive around the goal and take an active part in play instead of waiting for things to happen. He showed me how I kept putting myself off-balance by placing my weight on my left leg instead of on my stick side. He taught me how to steer shots off into the corner instead of letting them rebound in front of me. That old guy made a good goalie out of me.”

Bernie Parent (1945) Canadian ice hockey player

Quoted in Kevin Shea, "One on One with Bernie Parent," http://www.legendsofhockey.net/html/spot_oneononep198403.htm Legends of Hockey.net (2005-11-07)

World, Guy, Learning, Waiting

“This implication of the Mathematical Universe Hypothesis is pretty radical, so please pause your reading for a moment to take it in and think about it. What you’re aware of right at this moment feels not like a photo but like a movie clip. This movie isn’t reality—it exists only in your head, as part of your brain’s reality model. It contains lots of information about the actual external physical reality—as long as you aren’t dreaming or hallucinating—but still constitutes only a very heavily edited version of reality, akin to the evening news on TV, mainly featuring certain highlights of patterns nearby in space and time that your brain thinks are useful for you to be aware of.”

Max Tegmark book Our Mathematical Universe

Our Mathematical Universe: My Quest for the Ultimate Nature of Reality (2014)

Dreams, Feeling, Photo, Mathematics

“And someone will head south 'til this whole thing cools off.”

Tom Waits (1949) American singer-songwriter and actor

"Small Change", Small Change (1976).

“I hoped I might become a debonair, hard-drinking, poetic Irishman like him. I'd be a New York character. I'd set the table on a roar and dominate the bars of Greenwich Village with song and story. At the Lion’s Head Bar I drank whiskey after whiskey to give myself the courage to be colorful. Bartenders suggested I slow down. Friends said they didn't understand a word coming out of my mouth. They lifted me out of the bar and into a taxi, paid the driver and told him to drive nonstop till I reached my door.”

Frank McCourt book Teacher Man

Teacher Man (2005)

Hope, Color, Courage, Drink

“I prefer big Oprah. I know Oprah wants to be skinny Oprah, but her head is too gigantic to fit on a skinny body. She has to accept that, like Kirstie Alley, she was meant to be…ahm…. voluptuous!”

Kathy Griffin (1960) American actress and comedian

Balls of Steel (2009)

“I found out a long time ago that you have to take some chances in this life. Otherwise you are just a vegetable, headed for the soup pot.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Red Planet

Source: Red Planet (1949), Chapter 10, “We’re Boxed In!”, p. 145

Life, Chance, Time

“421. He that hath a head of waxe must not walke in the sunne.”

George Herbert (1593–1633) Welsh-born English poet, orator and Anglican priest

Jacula Prudentum (1651)

“For twenty years I have been a writer and never before have I been in a milieu where every consideration came before literary consideration. And the opinion of anybody — minor actor, money accountant or baggage man — weighed equally or more heavily than that of the author. My disgust is like a cap of fire bearing down on my head. Why would an author with any pride submit to the impertinences of theatre people?”

Robertson Davies (1913–1995) Canadian journalist, playwright, professor, critic, and novelist

Diary, during the production of Love and Libel (1960).

Money, People

“We're thinking about building the wall as a solar wall, so it creates energy, and pays for itself. And this way Mexico will have to pay much less money, and that's good, right, is that good? You're the first group I've told that to, a solar wall, makes sense, let's see, we're working it out, we'll see, solar wall, panels, beautiful. I mean actually think of it, the higher it goes the more valuable it is, it's like… pretty good imagination [points to his own head], right, good? My idea.”

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

President Trump Holds a Rally in Cedar Rapids, Iowa http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/06/21/president-trump-holds-iowa-rally-live-blog.html (21 June 2017) 2010s, 2017, June

Money, Beauty, Way, Imagination

“.. The movement and the rustle of the branches [in the forest, while losing his attention for chasing] delights me. The clouds float past and I lift my head to follow their flight, or think about some madrigal, when a slight sound, which has been going on for a little while, rouses me slowly from my dream.; at least I turn my head and see, to my grief, a little white scut just disappearing into the thicket…”

Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863) French painter

Quote in a letter to Delacroix' friend Achille Peron - 16 September 1819, Paris; as quoted in Eugene Delacroix – selected letters 1813 – 1863, ed. and translation Jean Stewart, art Works MFA publications, Museum of Fine Art Boston, 2001, p. 51
1815 - 1830

Dreams, Thinking, Past

“The brain is encased in the head, the part of the body which in most walking, flying or swimming animals is the leading end of the moving body (with few exceptions: starfish, cuttlefish, humans, penguins when they are not swimming). The obvious risks which this localization entails are apparently compensated by the advantage of direct short connections with the sense organs localized in or on top of the head (olfaction, taste, vision, audition, vestibular sense), which together with the brain could be seen as something like the cockpit of the animal, or the pilot if one prefers.”

Valentino Braitenberg (1926–2011) Italian-Austrian neuroscientist

Valentino Braitenberg (2007) " Brain http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Brain". Scholarpedia, 2(11):2918.

Sense, Animals, Parting, Flying

“And are there no laws of moral health? Can they be outraged and the penalty not paid? Let a man turn out of the bright and bustling Broadway, out of the mad revel of riches and the restless, unripe luxury of ignorant men whom sudden wealth has disordered like exhilarating gas; let him penetrate through sickening stench the lairs of typhus, the dens of small-pox, the coverts of all loathsome disease and unimaginable crimes; let him see the dull, starved, stolid, lowering faces, the human heaps of utter woe, and, like Jefferson in contemplating slavery a hundred years ago in Virginia, he will murmur with bowed head, 'I tremble for this city when I remember that God is just'. Is his justice any surer in a tenement-house than it is in a State? Filth in the city is pestilence. Injustice in the State is civil war. 'Gentlemen', said George Mason, a friend and neighbor of Jefferson's, in the Convention that framed the Constitution, 'by an inscrutable chain of causes and effects Providence punishes national sins by national calamities'. 'Oh no. gentlemen, it is no such thing', replied John Rutledge of South Carolina. 'Religion and humanity have nothing to do with this question. Interest is the governing principle with nations'. The descendants of John Rutledge live in the State which quivers still with the terrible tread of Sherman and his men. Let them answer! Oh seaports and factories, silent and ruined! Oh barns and granaries, heaps of blackened desolation! Oh wasted homes, bleeding hearts, starving mouths! Oh land consumed in the fire your own hands kindled! Was not John Rutledge wrong, was not George Mason right, that prosperity which is only money in the purse, and not justice or fair play, is the most cruel traitor, and will cheat you of your heart's blood in the end?”

George William Curtis (1824–1892) American writer

1860s, The Good Fight (1865)

Men, Money, God, War

“Thought reform is accomplished through the use of psychological and environmental control processes that do not depend on physical coercion. Today's thought reform programs are sophisticated, subtle, and insidious, creating a psychological bond that in many ways is far more powerful than gun-at-the-head methods of influence. The effects generally lose their potency when the control processes are lifted or neutralized in some way. That is why most Korean War POWs gave up the content of their prison camp indoctrination programs when they came home, and why many cultists leave their groups if they spend a substantial amount of time away from the group or have an opportunity to discuss their doubts with an intimate.”

Margaret Singer (1921–2003) clinical psychology

Thought Reform Exists: Organized, Programmatic Influence http://www.csj.org/infoserv_articles/singer_margaret_thoughtreform.htm, Margaret Thaler Singer, Ph.D., The Cult Observer, Vol. 11 No. 6 1994. 1990s

War, Way, Home, Time

“My work should be judged as it enters the ears and heads of listeners, not as it is described to the eyes of readers.”

Arnold Schoenberg (1874–1951) Austrian-American composer

As quoted in an interview with José Rodriguez (c. 1936) in Schoenberg‎ (1971) by Merle Armitage, p. 143
1930s

“The worst thing about this modern world is that people think you get killed on television with zero pain and zero blood. It must enter into kids' heads that it's not very messy to kill somebody, and it doesn't hurt that much. That's a real sickness to me. That's a real sick thing.”

David Lynch (1946) American filmmaker, television director, visual artist, musician and occasional actor

As quoted in "Dark Lens on America" in The New York Times Magazine (14 January 1990) http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CE0D6113FF937A25752C0A966958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all

Pain, People, World, Thinking

“If a piece of burning charcoal be placed on a man’s head, see how he struggles to throw it off. Similar will be the struggle for freedom of those who really understand that they are slaves of nature.”

Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) Indian Hindu monk and phylosopher

Pearls of Wisdom

Understanding, Nature, Freedom

“Before bed, the bright moon was shining.
Now, I think the ground has a frost covering.
I raise my head … to view the bright moon,
Then I lower my head … and I think of home.”

Li Bai Quiet Night Thought

"Thoughts on a Still Night" (静夜思); in Jean Ward's Li T'ai-po: Remembered (2008), p. 99
Variant: Variant translation:
Before my bed the moonlight glitters
Like frost upon the ground.
I look up to the mountain moon,
Look down and think of home.
Source: "Quiet Night Thought", in Classical Chinese Literature: An Anthology of Translations (2000), p. 723

Home, Thinking

“A coroner must be humane, fair and fearless in obtaining the truth. That is why I have put my head above the parapet.”

Montague Levine (1922–2013) British surgeon

Quoted in Daily Telegraph obituary http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/9878394/Sir-Montague-Levine.html

Truth

“I am favoured with your obliging letter, and shall finish your picture in two or three days at farthest, and send to Colchester according to your order, with a frame. I thank you. Sir, for your kind intention of procuring me a few heads to paint when I come over, which I purpose doing as soon as some of those are finished which I have [now] in hand. I should be glad if you'd place your picture as far from the light as possible; observing to let the light fall from the left.”

Thomas Gainsborough (1727–1788) English portrait and landscape painter

Quote in Gainborough's letter, 24 Feb. 1757 from Ipswich, to a correspondent in the neighbouring town of Colchester; as cited in Thomas Gainsborough, by William T, Whitley https://ia800204.us.archive.org/6/items/thomasgainsborou00whitrich/thomasgainsborou00whitrich.pdf; New York, Charles Scribner's Sons – London, Smith, Elder & Co, Sept. 1915, p. 20 1755 - 1769

Light, Painting

“…that worst bump developed that can adorn the head of a bore--viz., long-story-tellativeness.”

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

The Monthly Magazine

“That's one thing about Republican Presidents. They never went in much for plans. They only had one plan. It says "Boys, my head is turned. Just get it while you can."”

Will Rogers (1879–1935) American humorist and entertainer

radio broadcast (21 April 1935)
Other

Boy

“During the summer of 2012, one Ferguson police officer detained a 32-year-old African American man who had just finished playing basketball at a park. The officer approached while the man was sitting in his car and resting. The car’s windows appeared to be more heavily tinted than Ferguson’s code allowed, so the officer did have legitimate grounds to question him. But, with no apparent justification, the officer proceeded to accuse the man of being a pedophile. He prohibited the man from using his cell phone and ordered him out of his car for a pat-down search, even though he had no reason to suspect that the man was armed. And when the man objected – citing his constitutional rights – the police officer drew his service weapon, pointed it at the man’s head, and arrested him on eight different counts. The arrest caused the man to lose his job.”

Eric Holder (1951) 82nd Attorney General of the United States

2010s, Update on Investigations in Ferguson (2015)

Cars, Search, Question, Appearance

“There has been a revolution, then, but a silent one. It has taken place with such stealth, and so gradually, that people have become accustomed to it little by little. I am reminded of the famous Chinese executioner whose ambition it was to be able to cut off a head so that the victim would not realize what had happened. For years he worked on his skill, and one day he cut off a head so perfectly that the victim said: "Well, when are you going to do it?"”

Kenneth Minogue (1930–2013) Australian political theorist

The executioner gave a beatific smile and said: "Just kindly nod."
Introduction, p. viii. ; quoted in The Feminist Crusades: Making Myths and Building Bureaucracies (c. 2007) Zepezauer ISBN 9781425972868
How Civilizations Fall

People, Smile

“Abdulla Khan Uzbeg’s force of 12,000 horse and 20,000 foot destroyed, in the Kalpi-Kanauj area alone, all towns, took all their goods, their wives and children as slaves and beheaded and ‘immortered’ (fixed heads with mortar in walls and pillars) the chiefest of their men. No wonder he once declared that “I made prisoners of five lacs of men and women and sold them. They all became Muhammadans. From their progeny there will be crores by the day of judgement.””

Jahangir (1569–1627) 4th Mughal Emperor

Shah Nawaz Khan, Maasir-ul-Umara, I, 105. quoted from K.S. Lal, Muslim slave system in medieval India, chapter 6
Generals under the command of Jahangir

Women, Men, Children, Horse

“A prostitute was forgiven by Allah, because, passing by a panting dog near a well and seeing that the dog was about to die of thirst, she took off her shoe, and tying it with her head-cover she drew out some water for it. So, Allah forgave her because of that.”

Muhammad (570–632) Arabian religious leader and the founder of Islam

Bukhari 4:538 http://www.sacred-texts.com/isl/bukhari/bh4/bh4_541.htm This is an extraordinary hadith, because following the Sunnah of Muhammad (peace be upon him), prostitutes can be extremely despised figures among most Muslims, yet it expresses the idea that even someone working in one of the most despised of professions, in showing mercy to an animal, can merit the forgiveness of Allah, and the wise. Sunni Hadith

Dogs, Shoe, Water

“Lookie here, your compiler does some absolutely insane things with the spilling, including spilling a *constant*. For chrissake, that compiler shouldn't have been allowed to graduate from kindergarten. We're talking "sloth that was dropped on the head as a baby" level retardation levels here.”

Linus Torvalds (1969) Finnish-American software engineer and hacker

<nowiki>LKML: Linus Torvalds: Re: Random panic in load_balance() with 3.16-rc</nowiki>, Torvalds, Linus, 2014-07-24, 2014-08-10 https://lkml.org/lkml/2014/7/24/584, 2010s, 2014

Baby

“Oh dear, oh dear, how stupid men are when they get an idea into their heads! I tell you he's a good dragon, and a friend of mine, and tells me the most beautiful stories you ever heard, all about old times and when he was little. And he's been so kind to mother, and mother'd do anything for him. And father likes him too, though father doesn't hold with art and poetry much, and always falls asleep when the dragon starts talking about style. But the fact is, nobody can help liking him when once they know him. He's so engaging and so trustful, and as simple as a child!”

Kenneth Grahame book The Reluctant Dragon

The Boy to St. George
Dream Days (1898), The Reluctant Dragon

Men, Stupidity, Beauty, Art

“[P]eople misunderstand Israel, and see it now in colonial, imperialist terms is because it’s a unique event in human history. The British colonization of North America, New Zealand, Australia, the Dutch in South Africa, they came to places that they had never been to. That’s colonialism. You put your people in there. You takeover. You marginalize the natives if you can. You may not succeed. In South Africa, that’s colonialism. So they see the Jews arriving in what’s called Palestine, and that’s the parallel, the only one they understand. They can’t put their heads around the fact that this is a people returning to their home. That they never gave up title to. They never gave up their longing for. It was repeated in their rituals three times a day, it wasn’t like once a year, let’s remember the homeland.”

Charles Krauthammer (1950–2018) American journalist

2010s, 2015, Interview with Bill Kristol (2015)

People, Home, History, Understanding

“Being trans in some ways is very similar to being an atheist, in that some people don’t grasp it. People that come from different backgrounds just [say], “What do you mean you don’t believe in God?” They don’t get you. To them [religion] is just so obvious, and I feel like I keep on having that with gender, also. Some people just have in their mind very firm ideas of gender, and they just can’t get it into their head.”

Abby Stein (1991) Trans activist, speaker, and educator

Source: Interview with Friendly Atheist, December 7, 2015 http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2015/12/07/a-descendant-of-the-founder-of-hasidic-judaism-just-came-out-as-an-atheist-trans-woman/.

God, People, Religion, Way

“So the temple of Somnath was made to bow towards the Holy Mecca; and as the temple lowered its head and jumped into the sea, you may say that the building first said its prayers and then had a bath' It seemed as if the tongue of the Imperial sword explained the meaning of the text: 'So he (Abraham) broke them (the idols) into pieces except the chief of them, that haply they may return to it.' Such a pagan country, the Mecca of the infidels, now became the Medina of Islam. The followers of Abraham now acted as guides in place of the Brahman leaders. The robust-hearted true believers rigorously broke all idols and temples wherever they found them. Owing to the war, 'takbir,' and 'shahadat' was heard on every side; even the idols by their breaking affirmed the existence of God. In this ancient land of infidelity the call to prayers rose so high that it was heard in Baghdad and Madain (Ctesiphon) while the 'Ala' proclamation (Khutba) resounded in the dome of Abraham and over the water of Zamzam' The sword of Islam purified the land as the Sun purifies the earth.”

Alauddin Khalji (1266–1316) Ruler of the Khalji dynasty

Khazainul-Futuh by Amir Khusru, translated by Mohammed Habib, Quoted by Jagdish Narayan Sarkar, The Art of War in Medieval India, New Delhi, 1964, pp. 286-87.
Quotes from the Khazainul-Futuh

God, War, Water, Sun

“I'll say this about nuclear weapons. You know I'm not sitting on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, I'm not in on the planning. I'll take it at face value that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff successfully eliminated nuclear weapons in the first phase of the operation.But keep in mind this. That the Bush Administration has built a new generation of nuclear weapons that we call 'usable nukes.' And they have a nuclear posture now, which permits the pre-emptive use of nuclear weapons in a non-nuclear environment, if the Commander in Chief deems U. S. forces to be in significant risk.If we start bombing Iran, I'm telling you right now, it's not going to work. We're not going to achieve decapitation, regime change, all that. What will happen is the Iranians will respond, and we will feel the pain instantaneously, which will prompt the Bush administration to phase two, which will have to be boots on the ground. And we will put boots on the ground, we will surge a couple of divisions in, probably through Azerbaijan, down the Caspian Sea coast, in an effort to push the regime over. And when they don't push over, we now have 40,000 troops trapped. We have now reached the definition of significant numbers of U. S. troops in harm's way, and there is no reserve to pull them out! There's no more cavalry to come riding to the rescue. And at that point in time, my concern is that we will use nuclear weapons to break the backbone of Iranian resistance, and it may not work.But what it will do is this: it will unleash the nuclear genie. And so for all those Americans out there tonight who say, 'You know what - taking on Iran is a good thing.' I just told you if we take on Iran, we're gonna use nuclear weapons. And if we use nuclear weapons, the genie ain't going back in the bottle, until an American city is taken out by an Islamic weapon in retaliation. So, tell me, you want to go to war with Iran. Pick your city. Pick your city. Tell me which one you want gone. Seattle? L. A.? Boston? New York? Miami. Pick one. Cause at least one's going. And that's something we should all think about before we march down this path of insanity that George Bush has us headed on.</p”

Scott Ritter (1961) American weapons inspector and writer

October 16, 2006
2006

Pain, War, Way, Feeling

“There was another rai in those parts, whose rule extended over sea and land, a Brahmin named Pandya Guru. He had many cities in his possession, and his capital was Fatan, where there was a temple with an idol in it laden with jewels' The rai, when the army of the Sultan arrived at Fatan, fled away, and what can an army do without its leader? The Musalmans in his service sought protection from the king's army, and they were made happy with the kind of reception they met. 500 elephants were taken. They then struck the idol with an iron hatchet, and opened its head. Although it was the very Kibla of the accursed gabrs, it kissed the earth and filled the holy treasury.”

Alauddin Khalji (1266–1316) Ruler of the Khalji dynasty

Elliot and Dowson, Vol. III : Elliot and Dowson, History of India as told by its own Historians, 8 Volumes, Allahabad Reprint, 1964. pp. 550-51
Quotes from The History of India as told by its own Historians

Happiness, Kiss, Parting, Sea

“Only very young soldiers and head-cases object to boredom in war-time.”

George MacDonald Fraser book Quartered Safe Out Here

Source: Quartered Safe Out Here (1992), p. 212.

War, Time

“Of the three primary colors, the three binary ones are formed. If you add to one of these the primary tone that is its opposite, it cancels it out. This means that you produce the required half-tone. Therefore, adding black is not adding a half-tone, it is soiling the tone whose true half-tone resides in this opposite me have just described. Hence the green shadows found in red. The heads of the two little peasants. The yellow one had purple shadows; the redder and more sanguine one had green ones.”

Paul Signac (1863–1935) French painter

Quoted by Maria Buszek, online - note 19 http://mariabuszek.com/mariabuszek/kcai/Expressionism/Readings/SignacDelaNeo.pdf The notebook where this sentence appears was only published, in facsimile, in 1913 by J. Guiffrey. Signac therefore must have consulted it at the Conde Museum, in Chantilly. This Moroccan travel document was bought at the Delacroix sale by the painter Dauzats for the Duc of Aumale. From Delacroix to Neo-Impressionism, 1899

Color

“He was a stout partisan of Islãm and made great endeavours on this score. He got all temples of the infidels demolished, and did not allow even a trace of them to remain. In Mathurã, where the infidels used to get together for bathing, he got constructed caravanserais, markets, mosques and madrasas, and appointed there officers with instructions that they should allow no one to bathe; if any Hindû desired to get his beard or head shaved in the city of Mathurã, no barber was prepared to cut his hair.”

Nizamuddin Ahmad (1551–1594) historian

Sultãn Sikandar Lodî (AD 1489-1517) Mathura (Uttar Pradesh)
Tabqãt-i-Akharî

“I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base…. There was no greeting ceremony and we were basically told to run to our cars. That is what happened.”

Hillary Clinton (1947) American politician, senator, Secretary of State, First Lady

March 17, 2008, allegedly misspeaking about her 1996 trip to Bosnia. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/03/24/eveningnews/main3964921.shtml Presidential campaign (January 20, 2007 – 2008)

Cars

“I will take the liberty of saying that we missed the chance we had in the 1990s. The question was posed: what kind of country should we have? A strong country, or a worthy one where people can live decently? We chose the former – a strong country. Once again we are living in an era of power. Russians are fighting Ukrainians. Their brothers. My father is Belarusian, my mother, Ukrainian. That's the way it is for many people. Russian planes are bombing Syria … A time full of hope has been replaced by a time of fear. The era has turned around and headed back in time. The time we live in now is second-hand … Sometimes I am not sure that I've finished writing the history of the "Red" man.”

Svetlana Alexievich (1948) Belarusian investigative journalist and non-fiction prose writer

Nobel Lecture (2015)

People, Fear, Hope, Way

“If Adam had finished his course of perfect obedience, he would have been justified: and certainly his justification would have implied something more than what is merely negative; he would have been approved of, as having fulfilled the righteousness of the law, and accordingly would have been adjudged to the reward of it. So Christ, our second surety, (in whose justification all whose surety he is, are virtually justified,) was not justified till he had done the work the Father had appointed him, and kept the Father’s commandments through all trials; and then in his resurrection he was justified. When he had been put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the spirit, 1 Pet. iii. 18. then he that was manifest in the flesh was justified in the spirit, 1 Tim. iii. 16.; but God, when he justified him in raising him from the dead, did not only release him from his humiliation for sin, and acquit him from any further suffering or abasement for it, but admitted him to that eternal and immortal life, and to the beginning of that exaltation that was the reward of what he had done. And indeed the justification of a believer is no other than his being admitted to communion in the justification of this head and surety of all believers; for as Christ suffered the punishment of sin, not as a private person, but as our surety; so when after this suffering he was raised from the dead, he was therein justified, not as a private person, but as the surety and representative of all that should believe in him. So that he was raised again not only for his own, but also for our justification, according to the apostle, Rom. iv. 25. “Who was delivered for our offences, and raised again for our justification.””

Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758) Christian preacher, philosopher, and theologian

And therefore it is that the apostle says, as he does in Rom. viii. 34. “Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again.
Justification By Faith Alone (1738)

Life, Death, God, Law

“!-- Setting forth once more, embarking upon the search once again: the narrow path that snakes among livid rocks and desolate, camel-colored hills; white houses hanging suspended from cliffs, looking as though they were about to let go and fall on the wayfarer’s head; the smell of sweating hides and cow dung; the buzz of afternoon; the screams of monkeys leaping about amid the branches of the trees or scampering along the flat rooftops or swinging from the railings of a balcony; overhead, birds circling and the bluish spirals of smoke rising from kitchen fires; the almost pink light on the stones; the taste of salt on parched lips; the sound of loose earth slithering away beneath one’s feet; the dust that clings to one’s sweat-drenched skin, makes one’s eyes red, and chokes one’s lungs; i --> Images, memories, fragmentary shapes and forms — all those sensations, visions, half-thoughts that appear and disappear in the wink of an eye, as one sets forth to meet…. The path also disappears as I think of it, as I say it.”

Octavio Paz (1914–1998) Mexican writer laureated with the 1990 Nobel Prize for Literature

Source: The Monkey Grammarian (1974), Ch. 1

Color, Search, Bird, Thinking

“This nation has placed its destiny in the hands and heads and hearts of its millions of free men and women; and its faith in freedom under the guidance of God. Freedom means the supremacy of human rights everywhere. Our support goes to those who struggle to gain those rights or keep them. Our strength is our unity of purpose.
To that high concept there can be no end save victory.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945) 32nd President of the United States

1940s, State of the Union Address — The Four Freedoms (1941)

Women, Men, God, Faith

“I myself in my work tend to humanize everything, to relate mountains to people, tree trunks to the human body, pebbles to heads & figures, etc… To cut out & make a taboo any organic representational element or human reference & then say the artist has gained freedom, seems as silly as locking yourself up in a small cell & saying 'now I know where I am – this is freedom – freedom from the outside world”

Henry Moore (1898–1986) English artist

critic on the idea of pure Abstract art by Moore
1940 - 1955
Source: 'Unpublished notes' for 'Art and Life', 1941, HMR Archive; as quoted in Henry Moore writings and Conversations, edited by Alan Wilkinson, University of California Press, California 2002, p. 114

People, World, Art, Mountain

“We cannot expect that everyone, to use the phrase of a decade ago, will "talk sense to the American people". But we can hope that fewer people will listen to nonsense. And the notion that this Nation is headed for defeat through deficit, or that strength is but a matter of slogans, is nothing but just plain nonsense.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

1963, Remarks Prepared for Delivery at the Trade Mart in Dallas

People, Hope, Sense

“here was Kenilworth now heading the new department concerned with Personnel [-] one of those blank administrative constructs which offered no openings into the world of policy. A dead end. [-] he would soon develop the negative powers of obstruction which always derive from a sense of failure.”

Lawrence Durrell The Alexandria Quartet

Source: The Alexandria Quartet (1957–1960), Mountolive (1958), IV

World, Failure, Sense, Dead

“He also reported that the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said, "Anyone passing through any of our mosques or markets carrying arrows should hold or grasp them by their heads so that no Muslim will be injured by them."”

Muhammad (570–632) Arabian religious leader and the founder of Islam

Riyadh-as-Saliheen by Imam Al-Nawawi, volume 2, hadith number 223
Sunni Hadith

Peace

“By the way, Mr. Premier: Have you ever noticed that all four of the greatest poets in the world are Muslim? And yet all the Muslims you meet are illiterate or covered head to toe in black burkas or looking for buildings to blow up? It’s a puzzle, isn’t it? If you ever figure these people out, send me an e-mail.”

Aravind Adiga book The White Tiger

The First Night.
The White Tiger (2008)

People, World, Way

“…reasonable men, they went because we were there. There’s something in our world that makes men lose their heads—they couldn’t be fair if they tried.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)

Men, World

“GTD 2.0 = what to do with your head, once it's clear.”

David Allen (1945) American productivity consultant and author

8 January 2011 https://twitter.com/gtdguy/status/23815709830156288 Official Twitter profile (@gtdguy) https://twitter.com/gtdguy

“Knowledge and Wisdom, far from being one,
Have oft-times no connexion, Knowledge dwells
in heads replete with thoughts of other men,
Wisdom in minds attentive to their own.”

William Cowper The Task

Source: The Task (1785), Book VI, Winter Walk at Noon, Line 88.

Wisdom, Men, Knowledge, Time

“If a man divides the whole of his work into two branches and delegates his responsibility, freely and properly, to two experienced heads of branches he will not have enough to do. The occasions when they would have to refer to him would be too few to keep him fully occupied. If he delegates to three heads he will be kept fairly busy whilst six heads of branches will give most bosses a ten hours' day. Those data are the results of centuries of the experiences of soldiers.”

Ian Standish Monteith Hamilton (1853–1947) British Army general

Sir Ian Hamilton, The Soul and Body of an Army https://archive.org/details/soulbodyofarmy00hamiiala, 1921

Business

“Against the wall, near the head of the bunk, was a rack filled with books. I glanced over them, noting with astonishment such names as Shakespeare, Tennyson, Poe, and De Quincey. There were scientific works too, among which were represented men such as Tyndall, Proctor, and Darwin.”

Jack London book The Sea-Wolf

Van Weydon discovers Wolf Larsen's astonishing array of reading matter. Chapter Five
The Sea-Wolf (1904)

Men, Books

“Americans combine to give fêtes, found seminaries, build churches, distribute books, and send missionaries to the antipodes. Hospitals, prisons, and schools take shape in that way. Finally, if they want to proclaim a truth or propagate some feeling by the encouragement of a great example, they form an association. In every case, at the head of any new undertaking, where in France you would find the government or in England some territorial magnate, in the United States you are sure to find an association. I have come across several types of association in America of which, I confess, I had not previously the slightest conception, and I have often admired the extreme skill they show in proposing a common object for the exertions of very many and in inducing them voluntarily to pursue it.”

Alexis De Tocqueville book Democracy in America

Book Two, Chapter V.
Democracy in America, Volume II (1840), Book Two

Truth, Books, School, Way

“You will understand,” said the Weaponeer, “that a pattern for events exists. It is the function of such as myself to shape events so that they will fit the pattern.” He bent, with a graceful sweep of arm, and seized a small jagged pebble. “Just as I can grind this bit of rock to fit a round aperture.”
Kergan Banbeck reached forward, took the pebble, tossed it high over the tumbled boulders. “That bit of rock you shall never shape to fit a round hole.”
The Weaponeer shook his head in mild deprecation. “There is always more rock.”

Jack Vance book The Dragon Masters

“And there are always more holes,” declared Kergan Banbeck.
Section 2
The Dragon Masters (1962)

Understanding

“Five or six hundred [aristocratic] heads lopped off would have assured you repose and happiness; a false humanity has restrained your arm and suspended your blows; it will cost the lives of millions of your brothers.”

Jean-Paul Marat (1743–1793) politician and journalist during the French Revolution

L'Ami du peuple, vol. 2, p. 1121

Happiness, Falseness

“b>One of the loveliest and most magnificent events that can happen in the country is when ponies take fright, particularly in a herd. A meadow-pippit has flown past. The ponies' fear is at first blended with play, even with mockery, amusement touched with a shudder, not unlike the behavior of the mentally ill. They trot as if they were retreating from a slow-moving stream of fire, but with lightning in every action, storm in every nerve; swinging their heads everywhere as if the front of their necks were made of elastic, gracefully flirting their tails. They can even pause for a moment, and start biting and boxing, with those romantic mating cries of theirs. Then all at once it is as if the fire has started flowing right under these strange creatures, they charge away like a storm incarnate over scree and bogs and landslides, dipping the tips of their toes for a fractional moment into the furnace that blazes beneath their hooves, cutting across waterfalls, gullys, and boulders, galloping steeply for a while until they stand trapped at last on some ledge high in the mountaintops, there to die and be eaten by birds.”

Halldór Laxness book The Atom Station

Atómstöðin (The Atom Station) (1948)

Fear, Behavior, Bird, Past

“I have seen a man in London, who I believe is now living, ring twelve bells at one time; two of them were placed upon his head, he held two in each hand, one was affixed to each of his knees, and two upon each foot; all of which he managed with great adroitness, and performed a vast variety of tunes.”

Joseph Strutt (1749–1802) British engraver, artist, antiquary and writer

pg. 293
The Sports and Pastimes of the People of England (1801), Bell ringing

Time

“Dead, cold quiet, until he walked up. He looked at me… he walked past me and then I heard in my head. It said, 'Do it, do it, do it,' over and over again.”

Mark Chapman (1955) American assassin

Mark Chapman on his motive. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/music/2310873.stm

Past, Dead

“Let me tell you this: They shut me down on radio, that's fine, I'll do TV. They shut me down on TV, that's fine, I'll do Internet. They shut me down on the Internet, that's fine, I'll do stage shows. They shut me down on stage shows, that's fine, I'll go door to door. You will have to shoot me in the head. We are not stopping.”

Glenn Beck (1964) U.S. talk radio and television host

The Glenn Beck Program
Premiere Radio Networks
2010-05-18
After attacking Media Matters, Beck says: "You will have to shoot me in the head. We are not stopping"
2010-05-18
Media Matters for America
http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201005180014
2010s, 2010

“As the crash was occurring, I remember that I felt no fear although I was obviously concerned for the people in cars that were headed in my direction. I simply just acknowledged to myself that I've had a good life and I would soon have to say goodbye to all of it in a matter of seconds.”

Jeremy Soule (1975) American composer

Attributed

Life, People, Fear, Cars

“They say state-of-the-art special effects can create the illusion of anything on the screen, and now we have proof: It's possible for the Jim Henson folks and Industrial Light and Magic to put their heads together and come up with the most repulsive single creature in the history of special effects, and I am not forgetting the Chucky doll or the desert intestine from Star wars.”

Roger Ebert (1942–2013) American film critic, author, journalist, and TV presenter

To see the snowman is to dislike the snowman. It doesn't look like a snowman, anyway. Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/jack-frost-1998 of Jack Frost (11 December 1998) Reviews, One-star reviews

War, Art, History, Star

“. You would also be mistaken if you [Theo] thought that I would do well to follow your advice literally, of becoming an engraver of bill-headings and visiting cards, or a bookkeeper or a carpenter's apprentice, - or else to devote myself to the baker's trade, - or many similar things.... that other people advise me.”

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

In his letter to brother Theo, from Wasmes, Belgium, 15 October 1879; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935 https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_1996_300061887.pdf, (letter 132), p. 19 1870s

People

“One of the amazing things about 'Seven Samurai' is that there are a lot of characters. And considering you have so many, and they all have shaved heads, and you've got good guys and bad guys and peasants, you get to understand a lot of them without too much being said.”

George Lucas (1944) American film producer

George Lucas, in Marc Lee Film-makers on film: George Lucas http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/filmmakersonfilm/3642010/Film-makers-on-film-George-Lucas.html, The Telegraph, 14 May 2005 2000s

Guy, Understanding

“When I lifted the first veil and entered the outer court of the Temple of Initiation, I saw in half darkness the figure of a woman sitting on a high throne between two pillars of the temple, one white, and one black. Mystery emanated from her and was about her. Sacred symbols shone on her green dress; on her head was a golden tiara surmounted by a two-horned moon; on her knees she held two crossed keys and an open book. Between the two pillars behind the woman hung another veil all embroidered with green leaves and fruit of pomegranate.
And a voice said:
"To enter the Temple one must lift the second veil and pass between the two pillars. And to pass thus, one must obtain possession of the keys, read the book and understand the symbols. Are you able to do this?"”

P. D. Ouspensky (1878–1947) Russian esotericist

"I would like to be able," I said. Card II : The High Priestess http://www.sacred-texts.com/tarot/sot/sot04.htm The Symbolism of the Tarot (1913)

Books, Understanding, Reading

“Stress: the word comes up often in the study of rage murders. The problem is that even in spite of the awful effects of stress- from mental and physical health ailments to provoking massacres- we, the ones who suffer stress, are ourselves loath to describe our own stressed condition with language that might match the suffering it produces, for fear of sounding melodramatic, whiny- of not being able to tough it out. A little light goes on in most "normal" people's heads warning them not to complain about cracking under stress and risk being marked as a loser.”

Mark Ames (1965) American writer and journalist

Part I: If He'd Just Got the Right People, page 23.
Going Postal: Rage, Murder, and Rebellion, From Reagan's Workplaces to Clinton's Columbine and Beyond (2005)

People, Health, Fear, Problem

“Christ puts Himself at the head of the mystic march of the generations; and. like the mysterious aneel that Joshua saw in the plain by Jericho, makes the lofty claim, "Nay, but as the captain of the Lord's host am I come up."”

Alexander Maclaren (1826–1910) British minister

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 80.

Christ

“It’s important, therefore, to know who the real enemy is, and to know the function, the very serious function of racism, which is distraction. It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining over and over again, your reason for being. Somebody says you have no language and so you spend 20 years proving that you do. Somebody says your head isn’t shaped properly so you have scientists working on the fact that it is. Somebody says that you have no art so you dredge that up. Somebody says that you have no kingdoms and so you dredge that up. None of that is necessary. There will always be one more thing.”

Toni Morrison (1931–2019) American writer

A Humanist View (1975)

Art

“She [Lucrezia] also had bright yellow hair, which she washed once a week with a mixture of saffron, box shavings, wood ash, barley straw, madder, cumin seed, and one thing and another to bring out the hidden glints and restore its natural color. You left it on your head for twenty-four hours and washed it off with lye made from cabbage stalks, the only hazard of which was the second-degree burn. If your hair remained on the scalp, you were a blonde.”

Will Cuppy (1884–1949) American writer

The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (1950), Part III: Strange Bedfellows, Lucrezia Borgia

Color, Nature, Box

“Not to have your house burned over your head for a twelvemonth seems an unwonted piece of domestic quiet.”

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

The Monthly Magazine

Housing

“Granted that any practice causes more pain to animals than it gives pleasure to man; is that practice moral or immoral? And if, exactly in proportion as human beings raise their heads out of the slough of selfishness, they do not with one voice answer 'immoral,' let the morality of the principle of utility be for ever condemned.”

John Stuart Mill (1806–1873) British philosopher and political economist

Dr. Whewell on Moral Philosophy (1852), in Dissertations and Discussions: Political, Philosophical, and Historical, vol. 2, London: John W. Parker and son, 1859, p. 485 https://books.google.it/books?id=w-I3AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA485

Pain, Pleasure, Animals, Selfishness

Quotes about head page 17

Quotes about head
page 17