Quotes about head
page 3

“I buried my head under the darkness of the pillow and pretended it was night. I couldn't see the point of getting up. I had nothing to look forward to.”

Sylvia Plath book The Bell Jar

Source: The Bell Jar

Night

“You may go over the world and you will find that every form of religion which has breathed upon this earth has degraded woman… I have been traveling over the old world during the last few years and have found new food for thought. What power is it that makes the Hindoo woman burn herself upon the funeral pyre of her husband? Her religion. What holds the Turkish woman in the harem? Her religion. By what power do the Mormons perpetuate their system of polygamy? By their religion/ Man, of himself, could not do this; but when he declares, 'Thus saith the Lord,' of course he can do it. So long as ministers stand up and tell us Christ is the head of the church, so is man the head of woman, how are we to break the chains which have held women down through the ages? You Christian women look at the Hindoo, the Turkish, the Mormon women, and wonder how they can be held in such bondage…

Now I ask you if our religion teaches the dignity of woman? It teaches us the abominable idea of the sixth century--Augustine's idea--that motherhood is a curse; that woman is the author of sin, and is most corrupt. Can we ever cultivate any proper sense of self-respect as long as women take such sentiments from the mouths of the priesthood?”

Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902) Suffragist and Women's Rights activist

Women, Age, World, Religion

“There are terrible people who, instead of solving a problem, bungle it and make it more difficult for all who come after. Whoever can't hit the nail on the head should, please, not hit at all.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

People, Problem

“You’re mad, bonkers, completely off your head. But I’ll tell you a secret. All the best people are.”

Lewis Carroll book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Variant: Have I gone mad? I'm afraid so.
You're entirely Bonkers.
But I will tell you a secret,
All the best people are.
Source: Alice in Wonderland

People, Secret, Madness

“Times change so quickly that if you and I don't keep up with the times, we'll find ourselves with an umbrella in our hand, over our head, when the sun is out. Or we'll find ourselves standing in the rain, with the umbrella inside the door.”

Malcolm X (1925–1965) American human rights activist

Change, Time, Sun

“Reading is my passion and my escape since I was 5 years old. Overall, children don't realize the magic that can live inside their own heads. Better even then any movie.”

Eckhart Tolle (1948) German writer

Source: The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

Children, Passion, Reading

“The truth may be out there, but the lies are inside your head.”

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author

Truth

“And all those exclamation marks, you notice? Five? A sure sign of someone who wears his underpants on his head.”

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author

“When you get an idea into your head you find it in everything.”

Victor Hugo book The Hunchback of Notre Dame

Source: The Hunchback of Notre-Dame

Idea

“Comfort me from wherever you are–alone, we are quickly worn out; if I place my head on the road, let it seem softened by you. Could it be that even from afar we offer each other a gentle breath?”

Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926) Austrian poet and writer

“Sometimes
when you are trying
not to think about something
it keeps popping back in your head
you can't help it
you think about it
and
think about it
and
think about it
until your brain
feels like
a squashed pea.”

Sharon Creech Love That Dog

Source: Love That Dog

Feeling, Thinking, Help

“My 'morals' were sound, even a bit puritanic, but when a hidebound old deacon inveighed against dancing I rebelled. By the time of graduation I was still a 'believer' in orthodox religion, but had strong questions which were encouraged at Harvard. In Germany I became a freethinker and when I came to teach at an orthodox Methodist Negro school I was soon regarded with suspicion, especially when I refused to lead the students in public prayer. When I became head of a department at Atlanta, the engagement was held up because again I balked at leading in prayer. I refused to teach Sunday school. When Archdeacon Henry Phillips, my last rector, died, I flatly refused again to join any church or sign any church creed. From my 30th year on I have increasingly regarded the church as an institution which defended such evils as slavery, color caste, exploitation of labor and war..”

W.E.B. Du Bois (1868–1963) American sociologist, historian, activist and writer

Source: The Autobiography of W.E.B. Du Bois: A Soliloquy on Viewing My Life from the Last Decade of Its First Century

War, School, Religion, Color

“for Mercutio's soul
Is but a little way above our heads,
Staying for thine to keep him company:
Either thou, or I, or both, must go with him.”

William Shakespeare book Romeo and Juliet

Source: Romeo and Juliet

Way, Soul

“Who knew hitting my head and passing out would be so much fun?”

P. C. Cast (1960) American writer

“Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.”

William Shakespeare Henry IV, Part 2

King Henry, Act III, scene i.
Source: Henry IV, Part 2 (1597–8)

“I believe the ability to think is blessed. If you can think about a situation, you can deal with it. The big struggle is to keep your head clear enough to think.”

Richard Pryor (1940–2005) American stand-up comedian, actor, social critic, writer, and MC

Thinking

“You can't go around building a better world for people. Only people can build a better world for people. Otherwise it's just a cage. Besides you don't build a better world by choppin' heads off and giving decent girls away to frogs.”

Terry Pratchett book Witches Abroad

Source: Witches Abroad (1991)

People, World, Girl

“His head was an hour-glass; it could stow an idea, but it had to do it a grain at a time, not the whole idea at once.”

Mark Twain book A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

Source: A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

Idea, Time

“The best thing to do was to brazen it out, throw your head back, walk with a swagger…”

Sarah Waters (1966) novelist

“People mistakenly assume that their thinking is done by their head; it is actually done by the heart which first dictates the conclusion, then commands the head to provide the reasoning that will defend it.”

Anthony de Mello (1931–1987) Indian writer

People, Thinking, Heart

“I love New York. You can pop out of the Underworld in Central Park, hail a taxi, head down Fifth Avenue with a giant hellhound loping behind you, and nobody even looks at you funny.”

Rick Riordan (1964) American writer

Love

“That's Third Thoughts for you. When a huge rock is going to land on your head, they're the thoughts that think: Is that an igneous rock, such as granite, or is it sandstone?”

Terry Pratchett book Wintersmith

Source: Wintersmith

Thinking

“The stone that the builder refused shall be the head corner stone.”

Bob Marley (1945–1981) Jamaican singer, songwriter, musician

“Occasionally, in the middle of a conversation her name would be mentioned, and she would run down the steps of a chance sentence, without turning her head.”

Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977) Russian-American novelist, lepidopterist, professor

Chance

“But, Sergeant Osbern, Sir, I like my head.”

Tamora Pierce (1954) American writer of fantasy novels for children

“Some seek the comfort of their therapist's office, other head to the corner pub and dive into a pint, but I chose running as my therapy.”

Dean Karnazes (1962) American distance runner

Source: Ultramarathon Man: Confessions of an All-Night Runner

“Vengeance is in my heart, death in my hand, Blood and revenge are hammering in my head”

William Shakespeare Titus Andronicus

Source: Titus Andronicus

Death, Revenge, Heart

“Can you look without the voice in your head commenting, drawing conclusions, comparing, or trying to figure something out?”

Eckhart Tolle (1948) German writer

Source: A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose

Drawing

“Sometimes you know in your heart you love someone, but you have to go away before your head can figure it out.”

Sharon Creech Walk Two Moons

Source: Walk Two Moons

Love, Heart

“Grover murmured, "Well, Percy, what have we learned today?"
That three-headed dogs prefer red rubber balls over sticks?"
No," Grover told me. "We've learned that your plans really, really bite!”

Rick Riordan book The Lightning Thief

Source: The Lightning Thief

Dogs, Learning

“If you don’t change the direction you are going, then you’re likely to end up where you’re heading…”

John C. Maxwell (1947) American author, speaker and pastor

Change

“If, while at the piano, you attempt to form little melodies, that is very well; but if they come into your mind of themselves, when you are not practising, you may be still more pleased; for the internal organ of music is then roused in you. The fingers must do what the head desires; not the contrary.”

Robert Schumann (1810–1856) German composer, aesthete and influential music critic

Music

“Suddenly for no earthly reason I felt immensely sorry for him and longed to say something real, something with wings and a heart, but the birds I wanted settled on my shoulders and head only later when I was alone and not in need of words.”

Vladimir Nabokov book The Real Life of Sebastian Knight

Source: The Real Life of Sebastian Knight

Bird, Heart

“How long have you been holding those words in your head, hoping to use them?”

John Locke (1632–1704) English philosopher and physician

Source: Lethal People

Hope

“Stefan shook his head., he thought.”

Tamora Pierce book Alanna: The First Adventure

Source: Alanna: The First Adventure

“Never make your home in a place. Make a home for yourself inside your own head. You'll find what you need to furnish it- memory, friends you can trust, love of learning, and other such things. That way it will go with you wherever you journey.”

Tad Williams (1957) novelist

Source: Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, The Dragonbone Chair (1988), Chapter 42, “Beneath the Uduntree” (p. 718).
Context: “Never make your home in a place,” the old man had said, too lazy in the spring warmth to do more than wag a finger. “Make a home for yourself inside your own head. You’ll find what you need to furnish it—memory, friends you can trust, love of learning, and other such things.” Morgenes had grinned. “That way it will go with you wherever you journey. You’ll never lack for a home—unless you lose your head, of course...”

Love, Way, Home, Learning

“You can't keep the birds of sadness from flying over your head, but you can keep them from nesting in your hair.”

Sharon Creech Walk Two Moons

Source: Walk Two Moons

Sadness, Bird, Flying

“The Red Queen shook her head. "You may call it 'nonsense' if you like," she said, "but I've heard nonsense, compared with which that would be as sensible as a dictionary!”

Lewis Carroll book Through the Looking-Glass

Source: Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There

“Tell me where is fancy bred,
Or in the heart, or in the head?”

William Shakespeare The Merchant of Venice

Source: The Merchant of Venice

Heart

“Put down everything that comes into your head and then you're a writer. But an author is one who can judge his own stuff's worth, without pity, and destroy most of it."

(, 1964)”

Colette (1873–1954) 1873-1954 French novelist: wrote Gigi

“The mediator between head and hands must be the heart!”

Thea von Harbou Metropolis

Source: Metropolis

Heart

“I don't see why I should bow my head when I could hold it high, or place it in the hands of my enemies when I can defeat them.”

José Rizal (1861–1896) Filipino writer, ophthalmologist, polyglot and nationalist

“And then there was the headless horseman!" said Tiffany. "He had no head!"
"Well, that is the major job qualification," said the toad.”

Terry Pratchett book The Wee Free Men

Source: The Wee Free Men

“You have a head and a heart? Reveal only one of them, I say; If you reveal both at once, doubly they'll damn you, for both.”

Friedrich Hölderlin (1770–1843) German poet

Heart

“My head is full of fire
and grief and my tongue
runs wild, pierced
with shards of glass.”

Federico García Lorca (1898–1936) Spanish poet, dramatist and theatre director

Source: Three Tragedies: Blood Wedding, Yerma, Bernarda Alba

“How small life is here
and how big nothingness.
The sky, tired of light,
has given everything to the snow.

The two trees bow
their heads to each other.
Clouds cross the world’s
silence in a circle dance”

Robert Walser (1878–1956) Swiss writer

Source: Oppressive Light: Selected Poems by Robert Walser

Life, World, Tree, Light

“Sanguine chuckled. "I like you, boy. You got optimism in these bones. I like you so much that I ain't gonna tell you what I did to poor old Jethro, the first Jethro, may he rest in peace, may they someday find his head.”

Derek Landy (1974) Irish children's writer

Source: The Maleficent Seven: From the World of Skulduggery Pleasant

Peace, Boy, Optimism

“There is only one cause of unhappiness: the false beliefs you have in your head, beliefs so widespread, so commonly held, that it never occurs to you to question them.”

Anthony de Mello (1931–1987) Indian writer

Question, Falseness, Happy, Cute

“Little crimes breed big crimes. You smile at little crimes and then big crimes blow your head off.”

Terry Pratchett book Snuff

Source: Snuff

Smile

“Knowledge is a great gift, and the thirst to seek it even greater. Use what you know… Head and heart… You are not made to give greater weight to one than the other.”

Nora Roberts (1950) American romance writer

Source: Valley of Silence

Knowledge, Heart

“It seemed to me,' said Wonko the Sane, 'that any civilization that had so far lost its head as to need to include a set of detailed instructions for use in a package of toothpicks, was no longer a civilization in which I could live and stay sane.”

Douglas Adams book So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish

Source: So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish

“To my thinking, a great librarian must have a clear head, a strong hand, and, above all, a great heart. And when I look into the future, I am inclined to think that most of the men who achieve this greatness will be women.”

Melvil Dewey (1851–1931) American librarian and educator

Women, Men, Thinking, Strong

“Down a path worn into the woods, past a stream and a hollowed-out log full of pill bugs and termites, was a glass coffin. It rested right on the ground, and in it slept a boy with horns on his head and ears as pointed as knives.”

Holly Black book The Darkest Part of the Forest

Source: The Darkest Part of the Forest

Boy, Past

“Oh, for crap's sake, I can barely look at it," Aphrodite said, turning her head from the archway and averting her eyes. "And I usually love sparkly things.”

P. C. Cast book Burned

Source: Burned

Love

“I closed my eyes, bowed my head and thought, AH, HELL…”

P. C. Cast book Destined

Source: Destined

Hell

“Having no other recourse, Roran resorted to the unexpected: he stuck his head and neck out and shouted, "BAH!" just as he would if he were trying to scare someone in a dark hallway…”

Christopher Paolini (1983) American author

“leave me in peace, let me sleep one night at least without my pillow being wet with tears, my eyes burning and my head throbbing”

Anne Frank (1929–1945) victim of the Holocaust and author of a diary

Source: The Diary of a Young Girl

Peace, Tear, Sleep, Night

“the power of philosophy floats through my head.. light like a feather, heavy as lead.”

Bob Marley (1945–1981) Jamaican singer, songwriter, musician

Light

“Alexander tilted his head and kissed her deeply on the lips. He let go of her hands, and she wrapped her arms around his neck, pressing herself against him. They kissed as if in a fever… they kissed as if the breath were leaving their bodies.”

Paullina Simons book The Bronze Horseman

Source: The Bronze Horseman

Kiss

“Vimes struggled to his feet, shook his head and set off after it. No thought was involved. It is the ancient instinct of terriers and policemen to chase anything that runs away.”

Terry Pratchett book Feet of Clay

Source: Feet of Clay

“Fighting is like champagne. It goes to the heads of cowards as quickly as of heroes. Any fool can be brave on a battlefield when it's be brave or else be killed.”

Margaret Mitchell book Vom Winde verweht (1937 German edition)

Source: Gone with the Wind

Fools, Fight

“Life is a classroom -- only those who are willing to be lifelong learners will move to the head of the class.”

Zig Ziglar (1926–2012) American motivational speaker

Life

“What a liberation to realize that the "voice in my head" is not who I am. Who am I then? The one who sees that.”

Eckhart Tolle (1948) German writer

A New Earth (2005)
Source: A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose

“Off with their heads!”

Lewis Carroll book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Source: Alice in Wonderland

“A billion stars go spinning through the night,
glittering above your head,
But in you is the presence that will be
when all the stars are dead.”

Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926) Austrian poet and writer

Source: The Selected Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke

Star, Night, Dead

“I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)”

Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer

Source: The Collected Poems

Dreams, Kiss, Thinking

“The young student sits with his head bent over his books, and his mind straying in youth's dreamland; where prose is prowling on the desk and poetry hiding in the heart.”

Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) Bengali polymath

Source: Lover's Gift

Books, Youth, Heart

“Having always lived in fear of being surprised by the worst, I have tried in every circumstance to get a head start, flinging myself into misfortune long before it occurred.”

Emil M. Cioran book The Trouble With Being Born

The Trouble With Being Born (1973)
Source: The Trouble with Being Born

Fear

“When red-headed people are above a certain social grade their hair is auburn.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

People

“I can't listen to music too often. It affects your nerves, makes you want to say stupid nice things and stroke the heads of people who could create such beauty while living in this vile hell.”

Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) Russian politician, led the October Revolution

From a personal conversation, quoted from memory by Maxim Gorky in "V.I. Lenin" (1924) http://www.marxists.org/archive/gorky-maxim/1924/01/x01.htm  Attributions Context: I know of nothing better than the Appassionata and could listen to it every day. What astonishing, superhuman music! It always makes me proud, perhaps with a childish naiveté, to think that people can work such miracles! … But I can’t listen to music very often, it affects my nerves. I want to say sweet, silly things, and pat the little heads of people who, living in a filthy hell, can create such beauty. These days, one can’t pat anyone on the head nowadays, they might bite your hand off. Hence, you have to beat people's little heads, beat mercilessly, although ideally we are against doing any violence to people. Hm — what a devillishly difficult job!

People, Stupidity, Beauty, Music

“All of Creation’s a farce.
Man was born as a joke.
In his head his reason is buffeted
Like wind-blown smoke.
Life is a game.
Everyone ridicules everyone else.
But he who has the last laugh
Laughs longest.”

William Shakespeare (1564–1616) English playwright and poet

Life, Game

“Alec looked at her and shook his head. "How do you manage never to get mud on your clothes?"
Isabelle shrugged philosophically. "I'm pure at heart. It repels the dirt.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Ashes

Source: City of Ashes

Heart, Clothes

“Daddy gave me real useful information to protect me in the real world. If anyone hits me, I'm not to hit them back. I wait until their back is turned, then hit them in the head with a brick.”

Fannie Flagg book Daisy Fay and the Miracle Man

Source: Daisy Fay and the Miracle Man

World, Waiting

“The last thing I want to turn into is a fat Hollywood jerk. I was brought up without much money and I was happy. I don't think that I will strive for money or success and end up greedy or big-headed. That only leads to unhappiness. I can still be down-to-earth and do this job as long as I enjoy it.”

Leonardo DiCaprio (1974) American actor and film producer

http://www.popmonk.com/actors/leonardo-dicaprio/quotes-leonardo-dicaprio.htm

Money, Happiness, Jerk, Thinking

“There comes a point when the confused or abused person hears a voice saying in his head, Oh well, might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb, and, depending on the particular situation in which he finds him he either spends his last bit of money on a lottery ticket, or places on the gaming table the watch he inherited from his father and silver cigarette case that was a gift from his mother, or bets everything he has on red even though he knows that red has come up five times in a row”

José Saramago book The Cave

Source: The Cave (2000), p. 14 (Vintage 2003)

Money, Game, Time, Dependency

“Reason, if consulted with, would advise, that their children's time should be spent in acquiring what might be useful to them when they come to be men, rather than to have their heads stuff'd with a deal of trash, a great part whereof they usually never do ('tis certain they never need to) think on again as long as they live: and so much of it as does stick by them they are only the worse for.”

John Locke book Some Thoughts Concerning Education

Sec. 94
Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1693)

Men, Children, Thinking, Time

“We are members of this Head, and this body cannot be decapitated. If the Head is in glory forever, so too are the members in glory forever, that Christ may be undivided forever.”

Aurelius Augustinus (354–430) early Christian theologian and philosopher

Source: On the Mystical Body of Christ, p.433

Christ

“He John Ruskin knows a great deal more about my pictures than I do; he puts things into my head, and points out meanings in them that I never intended.”

J.M.W. Turner (1775–1851) British Romantic landscape painter, water-colourist, and printmaker

Quote of Turner, c. 1840's; as cited by George Walter Thornbury, in The life of J.M.W. Turner, Volume II; Hurst and Blackett Publishers, London, 1862, p. 130
Turner did not appear to be pleased with Mr. Ruskin's superlative eulogies, according to Peter Cunningham
1821 - 1851

“Still I only feel alive when the view is flashing, alarms going off in my head…
I want to grab you and just kiss you; maybe I should sit down. No sense in cashing us now.
Yeah, I only feel alright when the view is flashing, bombs going off in my head…
I want to grab you, want to scream at you, no icing me down. The party's crashing us now. The party's crashing us now.”

Kevin Barnes

"The Party's Crashing Us," from of Montreal's Sunlandic Twins (2005)

Feeling, Kiss, Sense

“It seems to me that, in every culture, I come across a chapter headed Wisdom. And then I know exactly what is going to follow: Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) Austrian-British philosopher

Conversation of 1934
Personal Recollections (1981)

Wisdom

“Maybe baseball has to accept that it is now more like classical music than popular music, with football and basketball — and soccer? — being the Justin Biebers and Lady Gagas of sports. Baseball need not hang its head in shame. A lot of things that are good and worthy are not popular. And baseball is plenty popular, for heaven's sake.”

Jay Nordlinger (1963) American journalist

2010s, Baseball and Its Worriers (2018)

Music, Sport, Football

“Under this roof are the heads of the family of Rothschild a name famous in every capital of Europe and every division of the globe. If you like, we shall divide the United States into two parts, one for you, James, and one for you, Lionel. Napoleon will do exactly and all that I shall advise him to do; and to Bismark will be suggested such an intoxicating programme as to make him our abject slave.”

Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister

Reported as a misattribution in Bernard Glassman, Benjamin Disraeli: The Fabricated Jew in Myth and Memory (2003), p. 185.
Misattributed

Family, Parting

“For mum we're fly. What mum you don't know who am I? I am Józio. And this is my sister Rózia. Now we're fly in sky! There is better than mum. See how heads in ray. Clothes with lucifer light. And on my hand as butterfly airfoil in sky we have all what we want, every day other toy, where we go here is grass, where we touch here is a flower. But we have what we want, torture us boring and trepidation. Oh mum for Your children road to heaven has been closed! On Always!”

Adam Mickiewicz book Dziady

Do mamy lecim do mamy! Cóż to, mamo nie znasz Józia? Ja to Józio ja ten samy. A to moja siostra Rózia. My teraz w raju latamy, Tam nam lepiej niż u mamy. Patrz jakie główki w promieniu, Ubiór z jutrzenki światełka, A na oboim ramieniu Jak u motylków skrzydełka, w raju wszystkiego dostatek, Co dzień to inna zabawka, gdzie stąpim wypływa trawka, gdzie dotkniem rozkwita kwiatek. Lecz choć wszystkiego dostatek dręczy nad nuda i trwoga. Ach mamo dla twoich dziatek zamknięta do nieba droga! Part two. Dziady (Forefathers' Eve) http://www.ap.krakow.pl/nkja/literature/polpoet/mic_fore.htm

Children, Flowers, Sister, Light

“There’s a fire starting in my heart
Reaching a fever pitch,
It’s bringing me out the dark
Finally I can see you crystal clear
Go head and sell me out
And I'll lay your ship bare.

See how I leave with every piece of you[[
Don’t underestimate the things that I will do.”

Adele (singer) (1988) British singer-songwriter

Rolling in the Deep, written by Adele and Paul Epworth
Song lyrics, 21 (2011)

Heart

“A civilization which is dominated by this matter-of-fact insight must prevail against any cultural scheme that lacks this element. This characteristic of western civilization comes to a head in modern science, and finds its highest material expression in the technology of the machine industry.”

Thorstein Veblen (1857–1929) American academic

Source: "The Place of Science in Modern Civilization", 1906, p. 355

Science

“Without a huge shock, the sleepy-head, ignorant Japanese will never wake up.”

Hiroo Onoda (1922–2014) Imperial Japanese Army intelligence officer

Judit Kawaguchi, "Words to Live By: Hiroo Onoda"

“I do not take any credit to my better-balanced head because I never went crazy on Presbyterianism. We go too slow for that. You never see us ranting and shouting and tearing up the ground, You never heard of a Presbyterian going crazy on religion. Notice us, and you will see how we do. We get up of a Sunday morning and put on the best harness we have got and trip cheerfully down town; we subside into solemnity and enter the church; we stand up and duck our heads and bear down on a hymn book propped on the pew in front when the minister prays; we stand up again while our hired choir are singing, and look in the hymn book and check off the verses to see that they don't shirk any of the stanzas; we sit silent and grave while the minister is preaching, and count the waterfalls and bonnets furtively, and catch flies; we grab our hats and bonnets when the benediction is begun; when it is finished, we shove, so to speak. No frenzy, no fanaticism --no skirmishing; everything perfectly serene. You never see any of us Presbyterians getting in a sweat about religion and trying to massacre the neighbors. Let us all be content with the tried and safe old regular religions, and take no chances on wildcat.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

"The New Wildcat Religion"

Books, Religion, Tear, Singing

“When I am dead and opened, you shall find Calais lying in my head.”

Mary I of England (1516–1558) Queen of England and Ireland

Said during her final illness, referring to England's loss of Calais to France.
Raphael Holinshed, The Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland, vol. III, page 1160 (1587).

Lying, Dead

“Exact words were of no consequence. At heart the squabble was as old as humanity itself, fug-headed antiques locking horns with omniscient youth.”

Glen Cook book Soldiers Live

Source: Soldiers Live (2000), Chapter 87, “Glittering Stone: Fortress with No Name” (p. 639)

Youth, Heart

“One who is blind throws away even a garland of flower placed on his head, thinking it is a snake.”

Kālidāsa Abhigyanashakuntalam

Abhijñānaśākuntalam (The Sign of Shakuntala)

Flowers, Thinking

“The merest schoolgirl [school girl, ] when she falls in love, has Shakespeare or Keats to speak her mind for her; but let a sufferer [try to] describe a pain in his head to a doctor and language at once runs dry.”

Virginia Woolf book Mrs Dalloway

Mrs Dalloway (1925)

Love, Pain, School, Girl

“[Christ's] character is twofold: like the head of the body in that he is regarded as God and yet comparable to the feet in that he put on humanity for the sake of our salvation, a man of passions like ours.”

Eusebius of Caesarea book Church History

1.2.
Ecclesiastical History

God, Passion, Christ

“The Word takes to Himself one man, for He takes unity. He does not take schisms to Himself, nor does He take heresies. … So it is one man who is taken, and his Head is Christ. … This is that "blessed man who hath not walked in the council of the ungodly" (Ps. 1:1); this is he that is assumed. He is not outside of us. … Let us be in Him, and we shall be assumed; let us be in Him, and we shall be chosen. … Therefore this one man that is taken to become the temple of God, is at once many and one.”

Aurelius Augustinus (354–430) early Christian theologian and philosopher

Source: On the Mystical Body of Christ, p.430

God, Christ

“There's an angel that's watching right over you
All your trials have not been in vain
Won't you lift your head up to the starry night
Finding strength in the things that remain.”

Van Morrison (1945) Northern Irish singer-songwriter and musician

A New Kind of Man
Song lyrics, A Sense of Wonder (1985)

Angels, Night

“How would the world respond if a European prime minister called for the mass deportation of all Turks? Yet Erdogan's xenophobic demagoguery attracted precisely no condemnation from Washington or Brussels. He probably overestimated the number of "tolerated" economic refugees from neighboring and former Soviet Armenia, but is it not interesting that he keeps a count in his head? And a count of the tiny number of surviving Turkish Armenians as well? The outburst strengthens the already strong case for considering Erdogan to be somewhat personally unhinged.”

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (1954) 12th President of Turkey from 2014

Christopher Hitchens, "Shut Up About Armenians or We'll Hurt Them Again" http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/fighting_words/2010/04/shut_up_about_armenians_or_well_hurt_them_again.html, Slate (April 5, 2010) About

World, Strong, Personality

“In this time, when the games and abuses of secret societies were without end, I wanted to make use of this human weakness for a real and worthy goal, the welfare of mankind.… I wanted what the heads of the ecclesiastical and secular powers should do and want by virtue of their offices.”

Adam Weishaupt (1748–1830) German philosopher and founder of the Order of Illuminati

Die Leuchte des Diogenes (1804) p. 329.

Secret, Game, Time

“My objections to Marx are of two sorts: one, that he was muddle-headed; and the other, that his thinking was almost entirely inspired by hatred. The doctrine of surplus value, which is supposed to demonstrate the exploitation of wage-earners under capitalism, is arrived at: (a) by surreptitiously accepting Malthus's doctrine of population, which Marx and all his disciples explicitly repudiate; (b) by applying Ricardo's theory of value to wages, but not to the prices of manufactured articles. He is entirely satisfied with the result, not because it is in accordance with the facts or because it is logically coherent, but because it is calculated to rouse fury in wage-earners. Marx's doctrine that all historical events have been motivated by class conflicts is a rash and untrue extension to world history of certain features prominent in England and France a hundred years ago. His belief that there is a cosmic force called Dialectical Materialism which governs human history independently of human volitions, is mere mythology. His theoretical errors, however, would not have mattered so much but for the fact that, like Tertullian and Carlyle, his chief desire was to see his enemies punished, and he cared little what happened to his friends in the process.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

Source: 1950s, Portraits from Memory and Other Essays (1956), p. 211

World, Error, History, Motivation

“Hear oh hear, if my prayer be worthy and such as you yourself might whisper to my frenzy. Those I begot (no matter in what bed) did not try to guide me, bereft of sight and sceptre, or sway my grieving with words. Nay behold (ah agony!), in their pride, kings this while by my calamity, they even mock my darkness, impatient of their father's groans. Even to them am I unclean? And does the sire of the gods see it and do naught? Do you at least, my rightful champion, come hither and range all my progeny for punishment. Put on your head this gore-soaked diadem that I tore off with my bloody nails. Spurred by a father's prayers, go against the brothers, go between them, let steel make partnership of blood fly asunder. Queen of Tartarus' pit, grant the wickedness I would fain see.”
Exaudi, si digna precor quaeque ipsa furenti subiceres. orbum visu regnisque carentem non regere aut dictis maerentem flectere adorti, quos genui quocumque toro; quin ecce superbi —pro dolor!—et nostro jamdudum funere reges insultant tenebris gemitusque odere paternos. hisne etiam funestus ego? et videt ista deorum ignavus genitor? tu saltem debita vindex huc ades et totos in poenam ordire nepotes. indue quod madidum tabo diadema cruentis unguibus abripui, votisque instincta paternis i media in fratres, generis consortia ferro dissiliant. da, Tartarei regina barathri, quod cupiam vidisse nefas.

Statius book Thebaid

Source: Thebaid, Book I, Line 73

God, Flying, Partnership

“There is a great directing head of people and things — a Supreme Being who looks after the destinies of the world.
I am convinced that the body is made up of entities that are intelligent and are directed by this Higher Power. When one cuts his finger, I believe it is the intelligence of these entities which heals the wound. When one is sick, it is the intelligence of these entities which brings convalescence. You know that there are living cells in the body so tiny that the microscope cannot find them at all. The entities that give life and soul to the human body are finer still and lie infinitely beyond the reach of our finest scientific instruments. When these entities leave the body, the body is like a ship without a rudder — deserted, motionless and dead.”

Thomas Edison (1847–1931) American inventor and businessman

As quoted in The Romance and Drama of the Rubber Industry (1936) by Harvey Samuel Firestone
1930s

Life, People, Lie, World

“I. The Jews, as a class, violating every regulation of trade established by the Treasury Department, and also Department orders, are hereby expelled from the Department.
II. Within twenty-four hours from the receipt of this order by Post Commanders, they will see that all of this class of people are furnished with passes and required to leave, and any one returning after such notification, will be arrested and held in confinement until an opportunity occurs of sending them out as prisoners unless furnished with permits from these Head Quarters.
III. No permits will be given these people to visit Head Quarters for the purpose of making personal application for trade permits.”

Ulysses S. Grant (1822–1885) 18th President of the United States

General Order Number 11 (17 December 1862); Abraham Lincoln on learning of this order drafted a note to his General-in-Chief of the Army, Henry Wager Halleck instructing him to rescind it. Halleck wrote to Grant:
It may be proper to give you some explanation of the revocation of your order expelling all Jews from your Dept. The President has no objection to your expelling traders & Jew pedlars, which I suppose was the object of your order, but as it in terms prescribed an entire religious class, some of whom are fighting in our ranks, the President deemed it necessary to revoke it.
1860s

People, Personality

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Quotes about head
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