Quotes about head
page 28

Thomas Fuller (writer) photo

“2155. He that hath a Head of Wax, must not walk in the Sun.”

Thomas Fuller (writer) (1654–1734) British physician, preacher, and intellectual

Compare Poor Richard's Almanack (1749) : If your head is wax, don't walk in the sun.
Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727), Gnomologia (1732)

Miguel de Unamuno photo
Christopher Hitchens photo
Ben Stein photo
Cormac McCarthy photo
Brian W. Aldiss photo
T. E. Lawrence photo
Lewis Pugh photo
Cormac McCarthy photo
Bion of Borysthenes photo
Edgar Degas photo

“I really have some luggage in my head. If only there were insurance companies for that as there are for so many things here, there's a bale I should insure at once.”

Edgar Degas (1834–1917) French artist

J'ai vraiment, un vrai bagage dans la tête. S'il y avait pour cela, comme il y a partout ici, des compagnies d'assurance, voilà un ballot je ferais assurer de suite.
Quote from a letter to James Tissot, (New Orleans, 1873), as cited in Marilyn Brown, Degas and the Business of Art: A Cotton Office in New Orleans (Penn State Press, 1994)
1855 - 1875

Neil Diamond photo
Emma Watson photo

“It was unbelievable seeing me as an action figure! In a few months, toddlers all around the country will be biting my head off!”

Emma Watson (1990) British actress and model

Profile on BBC website http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A1996879

Wilhelm Liebknecht photo
Lyndon B. Johnson photo

“A fourth enduring strand of policy has been to help improve the life of man. From the Marshall Plan to this very moment tonight, that policy has rested on the claims of compassion, and the certain knowledge that only a people advancing in expectation will build secure and peaceful lands. This year I propose major new directions in our program of foreign assistance to help those countries who will help themselves. We will conduct a worldwide attack on the problems of hunger and disease and ignorance. We will place the matchless skill and the resources of our own great America, in farming and in fertilizers, at the service of those countries committed to develop a modern agriculture. We will aid those who educate the young in other lands, and we will give children in other continents the same head start that we are trying to give our own children. To advance these ends I will propose the International Education Act of 1966. I will also propose the International Health Act of 1966 to strike at disease by a new effort to bring modern skills and knowledge to the uncared—for, those suffering in the world, and by trying to wipe out smallpox and malaria and control yellow fever over most of the world during this next decade; to help countries trying to control population growth, by increasing our research—and we will earmark funds to help their efforts. In the next year, from our foreign aid sources, we propose to dedicate $1 billion to these efforts, and we call on all who have the means to join us in this work in the world.”

Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–1973) American politician, 36th president of the United States (in office from 1963 to 1969)

1960s, State of the Union Address (1966)

Gautama Buddha photo
Dennis Kucinich photo

“Almost half of the bankruptcies in the United States are connected to an illness in the family, whether people had health insurance or not. Middle-class Americans, who had the misfortune of either experiencing a medical emergency themselves or watching a family member suffer, were then forced to face the daunting task of pulling themselves out of debt. Bankruptcy law has allowed them to start over. It has given hope. Now this new law will put people on their own. Illness or emergency creates medical bills. We are telling the people that they themselves are to blame. At the same time, we are removing protections that would stay an eviction, that would keep a roof over the head of a working family. We allow the credit industry to trick consumers into using subprime cards, with exorbitant interest rate hikes and fees. Then we hand those same consumers over to an unforgiving prison of debt, to be put on a rack of insolvency and squeezed dry by the credit card industry. We are protecting the profits of the credit card industry instead of protecting the economic future of the American people. Americans are left on their own. That's what this Administration's "Ownership Society" is all about — you're on your own — and your ship is sinking.”

Dennis Kucinich (1946) Ohio politician

Speech on the floor of the House of Representatives, Congressional Record (14 April, 2005) http://frwebgate5.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/waisgate.cgi?WAISdocID=240761331899+3+0+0&WAISaction=retrieve.

Zooey Deschanel photo

“I can feel your heartbeat,
Where I lay my head
‘Cause you’ve got me
Yeah you’ve got me”

Zooey Deschanel (1980) American actress, musician, and singer-songwriter

"Got Me".
She & Him : Volume One (2008)

Denis Diderot photo
Conrad Aiken photo
Denis Healey photo
Theodore Kaczynski photo
Warren Farrell photo
George Fitzhugh photo

“Socialism, with such despotic head, approaches very near to Southern slavery, and gets along very well so long as the depot lives.”

George Fitzhugh (1806–1881) American activist

Source: Cannibals All!, or Slaves Without Masters (1857), p. 334

Mike Tyson photo

“I'm just a sucker even talking to you guys. I should be ready to rip your heads off your necks. But it's just not the right thing to do.”

Mike Tyson (1966) American boxer

http://www.boxing-monthly.co.uk/content/0008/three.htm
On the media

Thomas Cromwell, 1st Earl of Essex photo
Peter Paul Rubens photo

“The light falls so unfavorably on the altar that one can hardly discern the figures or enjoy the beauty of color and the delicacy of the heads and draperies which I executed with great care from nature and completely successfully according to the judgement of all. Therefore, seeing that all the merit in the work is thrown away and since I cannot obtain the honor due my efforts unless the results can be seen, I do not think I will unveil it.”

Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640) Flemish painter

Quote of Rubens, in his letter to Count Annibale Chieppio (minister of the Duke of Mantua), February 2, 1608; as cited in Rembrandts Eyes', by w:Simon Schrama, Alfred A. Knopf, Borzoi Books, New York 1999, p. 130 (LPPR, 42)
Rubens reports in this quote about the overdoses of light, falling upon his recently-made altar-painting 'Virgin and Child Adored by Angels', (Rome, Santa Maria, Vallicella), 1607 which is fading the colors for the viewer.
1605 - 1625

Francis Escudero photo
Sören Kierkegaard photo
Grace Slick photo
Gene Simmons photo

“I think Prince was heads, hands and feet about all the rest of them, I thought he left (Michael) Jackson in the dust. Prince was way beyond that. But how pathetic that he killed himself. Don't kid yourself, that's what he did. Slowly, I'll grant you … but that's what drugs and alcohol is: a slow death.”

Gene Simmons (1949) Israeli-born American rock bass guitarist, singer-songwriter, record producer, entrepreneur, and actor

About Prince's death. http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/gene-simmons-on-prince-how-pathetic-that-he-killed-himself-20160510 (May 10, 2016)

Michael Faraday photo

“Whereas, according to the declaration of that true man of the world Talleyrand, the use of language is to conceal the thoughts; this is to declare in the present instance, when I say I am not able to bear much talking, it means really, and without any mistake, or equivocation, or oblique meaning, or implication, or subterfuge, or omission, that I am not able; being at present rather weak in the head, and able to work no more.”

Michael Faraday (1791–1867) English scientist

Penciled note on a scrap of paper in the early 1840's following a physical and mental breakdown, possibly due to mercury poisoning.
Silvanus Phillips Thompson, Michael Faraday: His Life and Work http://books.google.com/books?id=HZo-AAAAYAAJ (1898)

“And now the high crest sinks, now the head is nodding overpowered and the huge neck has slipped from around the fleece it guarded, like refluent Po or Nile that sprawls in seven streams or Alpheus when his waters enter the Hesperian world.”
Iamque altae cecidere iubae nutatque coactum iam caput atque ingens extra sua vellera cervix ceu refluens Padus aut septem proiectus in amnes Nilus et Hesperium veniens Alpheos in orbem.

Source: Argonautica, Book VIII, Lines 88–91

P.G. Wodehouse photo
Theodor Mommsen photo

“The fall of the patriciate by no means divested the Roman commonwealth of its aristocratic character. We have already indicated that the plebeian party carried within it that character from the first as well as, and in some sense still more decidedly than, the patriciate; for, while in the old body of burgesses an absolute equality of rights prevailed, the new constitution set out from a distinction between the senatorial houses who were privileged in point of burgess rights and of burgess usufructs, and the mass of the other citizens. Immediately, therefore, on the abolition of the patriciate and the formal establishment of civic equality, a new aristocracy and a corresponding opposition were formed; and we have already shown how the former engrafted itself as it were on the fallen patriciate, and how, accordingly, the first movements of the new party of progress were mixed up with the last movements of the old opposition between the orders. The formation of these new parties began in the fifth century, but they assumed their definite shape only in the century which followed. The development of this internal change is, as it were, drowned amidst the noise of the great wars and victories, and not merely so, but the process of formation is in this case more withdrawn from view than any other in Roman history. Like a crust of ice gathering imperceptibly over the surface of a stream and imperceptibly confining it more and more, this new Roman aristocracy silently arose; and not less imperceptibly, like the current concealing itself beneath and slowly extending, there arose in opposition to it the new party of progress. It is very difficult to sum up in a general historical view the several, individually insignificant, traces of these two antagonistic movements, which do not for the present yield their historical product in any distinct actual catastrophe. But the freedom hitherto enjoyed in the commonwealth was undermined, and the foundation for future revolutions was laid, during this epoch; and the delineation of these as well as of the development of Rome in general would remain imperfect, if we should fail to give some idea of the strength of that encrusting ice, of the growth of the current beneath, and of the fearful moaning and cracking that foretold the mighty breaking up which was at hand. The Roman nobility attached itself, in form, to earlier institutions belonging to the times of the patriciate. Persons who once had filled the highest ordinary magistracies of the state not only, as a matter of course, practically enjoyed all along a higher honour, but also had at an early period certain honorary privileges associated with their position. The most ancient of these was doubtless the permission given to the descendants of such magistrates to place the wax images of these illustrious ancestors after their death in the family hall, along the wall where the pedigree was painted, and to have these images carried, on occasion of the death of members of the family, in the funeral procession.. the honouring of images was regarded in the Italo-Hellenic view as unrepublican, and on that account the Roman state-police did not at all tolerate the exhibition of effigies of the living, and strictly superintended that of effigies of the dead. With this privilege were associated various external insignia, reserved by law or custom for such magistrates and their descendants:--the golden finger-ring of the men, the silver-mounted trappings of the youths, the purple border on the toga and the golden amulet-case of the boys--trifling matters, but still important in a community where civic equality even in external appearance was so strictly adhered to, and where, even during the second Punic war, a burgess was arrested and kept for years in prison because he had appeared in public, in a manner not sanctioned by law, with a garland of roses upon his head.(6) These distinctions may perhaps have already existed partially in the time of the patrician government, and, so long as families of higher and humbler rank were distinguished within the patriciate, may have served as external insignia for the former; but they certainly only acquired political importance in consequence of the change of constitution in 387, by which the plebeian families that attained the consulate were placed on a footing of equal privilege with the patrician families, all of whom were now probably entitled to carry images of their ancestors. Moreover, it was now settled that the offices of state to which these hereditary privileges were attached should include neither the lower nor the extraordinary magistracies nor the tribunate of the plebs, but merely the consulship, the praetorship which stood on the same level with it,(7) and the curule aedileship, which bore a part in the administration of public justice and consequently in the exercise of the sovereign powers of the state.(8) Although this plebeian nobility, in the strict sense of the term, could only be formed after the curule offices were opened to plebeians, yet it exhibited in a short time, if not at the very first, a certain compactness of organization--doubtless because such a nobility had long been prefigured in the old senatorial plebeian families. The result of the Licinian laws in reality therefore amounted nearly to what we should now call the creation of a batch of peers. Now that the plebeian families ennobled by their curule ancestors were united into one body with the patrician families and acquired a distinctive position and distinguished power in the commonwealth, the Romans had again arrived at the point whence they had started; there was once more not merely a governing aristocracy and a hereditary nobility--both of which in fact had never disappeared--but there was a governing hereditary nobility, and the feud between the gentes in possession of the government and the commons rising in revolt against the gentes could not but begin afresh. And matters very soon reached that stage. The nobility was not content with its honorary privileges which were matters of comparative indifference, but strove after separate and sole political power, and sought to convert the most important institutions of the state--the senate and the equestrian order--from organs of the commonwealth into organs of the plebeio-patrician aristocracy.”

Theodor Mommsen (1817–1903) German classical scholar, historian, jurist, journalist, politician, archaeologist and writer

The History of Rome - Volume 2

Octavio Paz photo

“no reality is mine, no reality belongs to me (to us), we all live somewhere else, beyond where we are, we are all a reality different from the word I or the word we;
our most intimate reality lies outside ourselves and is not ours, and it is not one but many, plural and transitory, we are this plurality that is continually dissolving, the self is perhaps real, but the self is not I or you or he, the self is neither mine nor yours,
it is a state, a blink of the eye, it is the perception of a sensation that is vanishing, but who or what perceives, who senses?
are the eyes that look at what I write the same eyes that I say are looking at what I write?
we come and go between the word that dies away as it is uttered and the sensation that vanishes in perception—although we do not know who it is that utters the word nor who it is that perceives, although we do know that the self that perceives something that is vanishing also vanishes in this perception: it is only the perception of that self s own extinction,
we come and go: the reality beyond names is not habitable and the reality of names is a perpetual falling to pieces, there is nothing solid in the universe, in the entire dictionary there is not a single word on which to rest our heads, everything is a continual coming and going from things to names to things,
no, I say that I perpetually come and go but I haven’t moved, as the tree has not moved since I began to write,
inexact expressions once again: I began, I write, who is writing what I am reading?, the question is reversible: what am I reading when I write: who is writing what I am reading?”

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

Source: The Monkey Grammarian (1974), Ch. 9

Condoleezza Rice photo
John Heywood photo

“So many heads so many wits.”

John Heywood (1497–1580) English writer known for plays, poems and a collection of proverbs

Part I, chapter 3.
Proverbs (1546)

James Bradley photo
John Battelle photo

“You pulled out of MacWorld and began hosting your own strictly scripted events. … Despite the gorgeous products and services you've created, we worry that you're headed down a road that may lead to your own demise.”

John Battelle (1965) American writer

An Open Letter To Apple Regarding the Company's Approach To Conversation With Its Peers and Its Community http://battellemedia.com/archives/2010/04/_an_open_letter_to_apple_regarding_the_companys_approach_to_conversation_with_its_peers_and_its_community in John Battelle's searchblog (17 April 2010)

John Adams photo

“My friend, there is something very serious in this business. The Holy Ghost carries on the whole Christian system in this earth. Not a baptism, not a marriage, not a sacrament can be administered but by the Holy Ghost, Who is transmitted from age to age by laying the hands of the Bishop on the heads of candidates for the ministry.... There is no authority, civil or religious — there can be no legitimate government — but what is administered by this Holy Ghost. There can be no salvation without it — all without it is rebellion and perdition, or, in more orthodox words, damnation... Your prophecy, my dear friend, has not become history as yet. I have no resentment of animosity against the gentleman [Jefferson] and abhor the idea of blackening his character or transmitting him in odious colors to posterity. But I write with difficulty and am afraid of diffusing myself in too many correspondences. If I should receive a letter from him, however, I should not fail to acknowledge and answer it.”

John Adams (1735–1826) 2nd President of the United States

Adams as misquoted by David Barton, in "The Dream of Dr. Benjamin Rush & God's Hand in Reconciling John Adams and Thomas Jefferson" in WallBuilders (June 2008) http://www.wallbuilders.com/LIBissuesArticles.asp?id=10152; omitting many words, giving a very misleading impression that Adams (who did not believe in the Christian Trinity) is endorsing the viewpoint that a government must be administered by the Holy Ghost to be legitimate. Barton went on to use another version, substituting some of Adams' words with false ones:
Misattributed

John the Evangelist photo
James Burke (science historian) photo
Alvin C. York photo
Khushwant Singh photo
Ned Kelly photo

“They are all damned fools to bother their heads about Parliament at all, for this is our country.”

Ned Kelly (1855–1880) Australian bushranger

On the rural people of Victoria, said during a speech to his hostages at Glenrowan.
Other quotes

Vladimir Putin photo

“We are not for Assad, neither for his opponents, We want to achieve the situation where the violence ends and there won’t be large-scale civil war. How many of peaceful people were killed by so-called militants? Did you count? There are also hundreds of victims. What is happening in Libya, in Iraq? Did they become safer? Where are they heading? Nobody has an answer.”

Vladimir Putin (1952) President of Russia, former Prime Minister

Regarding a statement by Francois Hollande of "the need for Assad to leave". (June 1, 2012) http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-06-01/hollande-clashes-with-putin-over-ouster-of-syria-s-assad
2011 - 2015

Thomas Carlyle photo
Thomas Jefferson photo

“The Christian god can easily be pictured as virtually the same god as the many ancient gods of past civilizations. The Christian god is a three headed monster; cruel, vengeful and capricious. If one wishes to know more of this raging, three headed beast-like god, one only needs to look at the caliber of people who say they serve him. They are always of two classes: fools and hypocrites.”

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

See the Positive Atheism http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/quotes/jeffphony.htm site on the extreme unlikelihood of this quote being authentic. It actually contains some known phrases of Jefferson's, but they are compounded with almost certainly false statements into a highly misrepresentative whole. Jefferson's own opinions on Jesus, God, Christianity and general opinions about them were far more complex than is indicated in this statement.
Misattributed

Corneliu Zelea Codreanu photo
Tim O'Brien photo
Abbie Hoffman photo

“A modern revolutionary group heads for the television station, not the factory. It concentrates its energy on infiltrating and changing the image system.”

Abbie Hoffman (1936–1989) American political and social activist

Source: Soon to be a Major Motion Picture (1980), p. 86

David Brin photo

“Death!
Plop.
The barges down in the river flop.
Flop, plop,
Above, beneath.
From the slimy branches the grey drips drop…
To the oozy waters, that lounge and flop…
And my head shrieks--"Stop"
And my heart shrieks--"Die"…”

Theo Marzials (1850–1920) Anglo-French poet and eccentric

A Tragedy, reported by several critics to be the worst poem published in the English language. http://www.reedleycollege.edu/academic/Departments/CompLitComm/sbowie/Tragedy.htm.

Mickey Spillane photo
Robert E. Howard photo
Kage Baker photo
Ryan Adams photo
Tomas Kalnoky photo
Charlotte Salomon photo
Alastair Reynolds photo
Ehud Olmert photo
Dhani Harrison photo
Jerome K. Jerome photo
Alan Guth photo
Babe Ruth photo

“I did not spring, when I first entered Parliament, on November 15,1960, "fully armed, with a mighty shout" from a breach in Lester B. Pearson's skull. like the Pallas Athena from the head of Zeus.”

Judy LaMarsh (1924–1980) Canadian politician, writer, broadcaster and barrister.

Source: Memoirs Of A Bird In A Gilded Cage (1969), CHAPTER 1, In the beginning, p. 1

John Constable photo

“And however one's mind may be elevated, and kept us to what is excellent, by the works of the Great Masters — still Nature is the fountain's head, the source from whence all originally must spring — and should an artist continue his practice without referring to nature he must soon form a manner, & be reduced to the same deplorable situation as the French painter mentioned by Sir J. Reynolds, who told him that he had long ceased to look at nature for she only put him out.For the last two years I have been running after pictures, and seeking the truth at second hand. I have not endeavoured to represent nature with the same elevation of mind — but have neither endeavoured to make my performances look as if really executed by other men….. There is room enough for a natural painter. The great vice of the present day is bravura, an attempt to do something beyond the truth.I am come to a determination to make no idle visits this summer, nor to give up my time to common-place people. I shall return to Bergholt, where I shall make some laborious studies from nature — and I shall endeavour to get a pure and unaffected manner of representing the scenes that may employ me.”

John Constable (1776–1837) English Romantic painter

3 quotes in Constable's letter to John Dunthorne (29 May 1802), from John Constable's Correspondence, ed. R.B. Beckett (Ipswich, Suffolk Records Society, 1962-1970), part 2, pp. 31-32
1800s - 1810s

Pat Condell photo
Corneliu Zelea Codreanu photo
Samuel Butler photo
Ron White photo

“Wong Shun Leung said that when you punch the head the brain hits the side of the skull. If the brain is against the side of the skull and a second hit follows, then damage and a knockout results because there is no cushioning possible. This is why Wing Chun has its rapid fire punches instead of the pull back approach.”

Wong Shun Leung (1935–1997) martial artist

Wong Shun Leung Comments on the Effect of a Punch
Punching
Source: Comments From Wong Shun Leung and Tsui Shan Ting, by Ray Van Raamsdonk http://www.springtimesong.com/wcqanda.htm

Ron White photo

“She got convinced in her crazy head that I had sex with this girl in Columbus, Ohio…and I did, and I'll tell you why. When you enter into a monogamous relationship with somebody, you usually do it at a point in the relationship when you're having a lot of sex. So you're willing to sign the papers. "I'll only have sex with you, ever-ever-ever…ever." Well, if that person stops having sex altogether… why, you find yourself in quite a pickle. I'm a pretty good dog, but if you don't pet me every once in awhile, it's hard to keep me under the porch. I'm not as flexible as real dog. And I'll tell you what happened, too. I was in Columbus, Ohio, and I haven't been laid in three months. Three months! You can't go three months without having sex with me. I'll go have sex with somebody else. I know, I've seen me do it. I did a show one night. I came offstage, there's gorgeous woman, maybe 35, 40 years old, long black dress, slit up to her waist, GORGEOUS. Gimme a second. Just…And I walk off stage, she goes, "I thought you were hilarious. I wanna buy you a drink." I'm like, "I can't do that, I'm married." And she says, "I didn't ask if you wanna have sex, big boy. I asked if you wanna have a drink at my place."…Alright. Now, you know of that little guy that sits on your shoulder and reminds you of your prior commitments and your moral fortitude? I didn't hear a peep out of that guy. He hadn't been laid in 3 months either. He was speechless for like 20 minutes then he was like, "Suck her titty!"…"I was gonna!" I was having a 3-way with my conscience. Soon as the whole thing's over, he's back at his post, saying, "That was wrong, mister!" "Hey! 15 minutes ago, you were beating off on my shoulder, monkey boy!"”

Ron White (1956) American comedian

I hate him. He smokes pot. He burned a hole in my other jacket.
They Call Me Tater Salad

“Blonde bombshell is always in. Don’t ever let anybody tell you it isn’t… I don’t think I’m gonna cut my hair. I’ve already shaved my head twice in my life. At 47, it’s not really an option. This is who I am.”

Erika Jayne (1969) American singer, actress and television personality

Erika Jayne interview to Entertainment Tonight https://www.etonline.com/erika-jayne-is-balancing-housewives-drama-with-headlining-her-first-tour-and-its-a-lot-exclusive (2018)

Peter Gabriel photo

“All of the buildings, all of those cars
Were once just a dream
In somebody's head.”

Peter Gabriel (1950) English singer-songwriter, record producer and humanitarian

Mercy Street
Song lyrics, So (1986)

Mehdi Akhavan-Sales photo
John Lewis (civil rights leader) photo
Dejan Stojanovic photo

“Your head is a lit chamber.”

Dejan Stojanovic (1959) poet, writer, and businessman

“Head,” p. 107
The Sun Watches the Sun (1999), Sequence: “Is It Possible to Write a Poem”

Donald J. Trump photo
Margaret Thatcher photo

“I might have preferred iron, but bronze will do. It won't rust. And, this time I hope, the head will stay on.”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

" Statue of Margaret Thatcher unveiled at British Parliament http://legacy.utsandiego.com/news/world/20070221-1456-britain-thatcher-statue.html", Associated Press, 21 February 2007.
On the unveiling of a statue of her in the Members' Lobby of the House of Commons. Baroness Thatcher referred to a previous marble statue which was decapitated http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/2091200.stm in 2002.
Post-Prime Ministerial

Halldór Laxness photo
Natalie Merchant photo
George Long photo
G. K. Chesterton photo

“His head was always most valuable when he had lost it. In such moments he put two and two together and made four million.”

The Innocence of Father Brown (1911) The Queer Feet
The Father Brown Mystery Series (1910 - 1927)

Ignatius of Loyola photo
Ken Ham photo
John Erskine photo
Marwan Kenzari photo