Quotes about head
page 35

Dennis Skinner photo

“Royal Mail for sale, Queen's head privatised.”

Dennis Skinner (1932) British politician

Watch Dennis Skinner heckle cause laughter among MPs at State Opening of Parliament http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/watch-dennis-skinner-heckle-cause-1877167 Daily Mirror, 8 May 2013
2010s

Jean Metzinger photo
Neil Gaiman photo
Joseph Smith, Jr. photo
Frederick Douglass photo

“The old question as to what shall be done with the negro will have to give place to the greater question “What shall be done with the Mongolian,” and perhaps we shall see raised one still greater, namely, “What will the Mongolian do with both the negro and the white?” Already has the matter taken shape in California and on the Pacific coast generally. Already has California assumed a bitterly unfriendly attitude toward the Chinaman. Already has she driven them from her altars of justice. Already has she stamped them as outcasts and handed them over to popular contempts and vulgar jest. Already are they the constant victims of cruel harshness and brutal violence. Already have our Celtic brothers, never slow to execute the behests of popular prejudice against the weak and defenseless, recognized in the heads of these people, fit targets for their shilalahs. Already, too, are their associations formed in avowed hostility to the Chinese. In all this there is, of course, nothing strange. Repugnance to the presence and influence of foreigners is an ancient feeling among men. It is peculiar to no particular race or nation. It is met with, not only in the conduct of one nation towards another, but in the conduct of the inhabitants of the different parts of the same country, some times of the same city, and even of the same village. 'Lands intersected by a narrow frith abhor each other. Mountains interposed, make enemies of nations'. To the Greek, every man not speaking Greek is a barbarian. To the Jew, everyone not circumcised is a gentile. To the Mohametan, every one not believing in the Prophet is a kaffer.”

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

1860s, Our Composite Nationality (1869)

Justina Robson photo
Graham Greene photo
Tom Wolfe photo
Bill Bryson photo
Colin Wilson photo
Oliver Wendell Holmes photo
Charlie Brooker photo

“This museum is a torpedo moving through time, its head the ever-advancing present, its tail the ever-receding past of 50 to 100 years ago.”

Alfred Barr (1902–1981) American art historian

On the Museum of Modern Art, Newsweek (June 1, 1964).

William Grey Walter photo
Antonio Negri photo
William S. Burroughs photo
Edgar Degas photo
Nikolai Gogol photo
Victor Davis Hanson photo
Clay Shirky photo

“Gutenberg’s press flooded the market. In the early 1500s John Tetzel, the head pardoner for German territories, would sweep into a town with a collection of already printed indulgences, hawking them with a phrase usually translated as “When a coin a coffer rings / A soul for heaven springs.” The nakedly commercial aspects of indulgences, among other things, enraged Martin Luther, who in 1517 launched an attack on the Church in the form of his famous Ninety-five Theses. He first nailed the theses to a church door in Wittenberg, but copies were soon printed up and disseminated widely. Luther’s critique, along with the spread of Bibles translated into local languages, drove the Protestant Reformation, plunging the Church (and Europe) into crisis. The tool that looked like it would strengthen the social structure of the age instead upended it. From the vantage point of 1450, the new technology seemed to do nothing more than offer the existing society a faster and cheaper way to do what it was already doing. By 1550 it had become apparent that the volume of indulgences had debauched their value, creating “indulgence inflation”—further evidence that abundance can be harder for a society to deal with than scarcity. Similarly, the spread of Bibles wasn’t a case of more of the same, but rather of more is different—the number of Bibles produced increased the range of Bibles produced, with cheap Bibles translated into local languages undermining the interpretative monopoly of the clergy, since churchgoers could now hear what the Bible said in their own language, and literate citizens could read it for themselves, with no priest anywhere near. By the middle of the century, Luther’s Protestant Reformation had taken hold, and the Church’s role as the pan-European economic, cultural, intellectual, and religious force was ending.”

Clay Shirky (1964) American technology writer

Cognitive Surplus : Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age (2010)

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg photo

“When a book and a head collide and a hollow sound is heard, must it always have come from the book?”

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–1799) German scientist, satirist

D 66
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook D (1773-1775)

Jimmy Carter photo
Vera Farmiga photo

“As an actor, you're sort of the court-appointed lawyer for the character. And that's what used to draw me to scripts – something in a woman that I wanted to defend, something that I recognized or wanted to understand, something that turned my head.”

Vera Farmiga (1973) American actress

As quoted in " Vera Farmiga interview: Chats 'Up in the Air' and her craft http://www.nj.com/entertainment/movies/index.ssf/2009/12/vera_farmiga_interview_chats_up_in_the_air_and_her_craft.html" by Stephen Whitty at NewJersey.com (December 7, 2009)

Joe Trohman photo
Alberto Giacometti photo
Vladimir Mayakovsky photo

“Tramp squares with rebellious treading!
Up heads! As proud peaks be seen!
In the second flood we are spreading
Every city on earth will be clean.”

Vladimir Mayakovsky (1893–1930) Russian and Soviet poet, playwright, artist and stage and film actor

"Our March" (1917); translation from C. M. Bowra (ed.) A Book of Russian Verse (London: Macmillan, 1943) p. 125

Guillaume de Salluste Du Bartas photo

“Not unlike the bear which bringeth forth
In the end of thirty dayes a shapeless birth;
But after licking, it in shape she drawes,
And by degrees she fashions out the pawes,
The head, and neck, and finally doth bring
To a perfect beast that first deformed thing.”

Guillaume de Salluste Du Bartas (1544–1590) French writer

First Week, First Day. Compare: "I had not time to lick it into form, as a bear doth her young ones", Robert Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy. Democritus to the Reader.
La Semaine; ou, Création du monde (1578)

Kurt Waldheim photo

“Of course, there is no such thing as collective guilt, but I want to apologise as head of state of the Republic of Austria for those crimes committed by Austrians under the banner of National Socialism.”

Kurt Waldheim (1918–2007) 4th Secretary-General of the United Nations, President of Austria

Selbstverständlich gibt es keine Kollektivschuld, trotzdem möchte ich mich als Staatsoberhaupt der Republik Österreich für jene Verbrechen entschuldigen, die von Österreichern im Zeichen des Nationalsozialismus begangen wurden.
Rede des Bundespräsidenten Dr. Kurt Waldheim am Vorabend des 50. Jahrestages des „Anschlusses“ Österreichs an Hitlerdeutschland im Österreichischen Fernsehen http://www.uibk.ac.at/zeitgeschichte/zis/library/gehler.html#dok3
Often quoted as simply "There is no such thing as collective guilt".

Elizabeth May photo

“We Canadians think that Canada is a modern, well informed democracy. We look down our noses at the dumbed down content on Fox News and CNN, without noticing that we are rapidly heading in the same direction.”

Elizabeth May (1954) Canadian politician

Source: Losing Confidence - Power, politics, And The Crisis In Canadian Democracy (2009), Chapter 4, Democracy and the Media, p. 123

Mark Latham photo
Ramakrishna photo
Miklós Horthy photo

“The environment is located in the mind of the actor and is imposed by him on experience in order to make that experience more meaningful. It is seldom dawns on organizational theorists to look for environments inside of heads rather than outside of them.”

Karl E. Weick (1936) Organisational psychologist

Karl. E. Weick (1977, p. 273), as cited in: James R. Taylor, Elizabeth J. Van Ever. The Emergent Organization: Communication As Its Site and Surface. (1999), p. 285
1970s

Luis Miguel photo

“If you can measure your height from head to heaven, he is taller than you.”

Luis Miguel (1970) Puerto Rican singer; music producer

About the short height of Armando Manzanero.
Interview in Chile, 1997

Carl I. Hagen photo

“He is not greedy, he is thick in the head.”

Carl I. Hagen (1944) Norwegian politician

Talking about property tax at the Progress Party national convention of 2010, published in Verdens Gang (25 April 2010) http://www.vg.no/nyheter/innenriks/norsk-politikk/artikkel.php?artid=10004220

Charles Bukowski photo
Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo
Robert Lowell photo
Umberto Boccioni photo
Robert Louis Stevenson photo
Van Morrison photo
Al Gore photo
Mickey Spillane photo
Miley Cyrus photo
Mohammad Reyshahri photo

“The new idols of the world are headed by America, the great Satan, which is the source of all the depravity in today's world…. Imam [Khomeini] said: "There is only one option…which can completely destroy this depravity. What is [the solution]? It is the unity of the Muslims."…The Muslims and the oppressed in the world should be united, in order to destroy the new idols of the world.”

Mohammad Reyshahri (1946) Iranian cleric and politician

Iranian Leader's Representative for Hajj Affairs Mohammad Rayshahri: Muslims Should Unite and Destroy Idols of the World, Led by America, MEMRI, November 16, 2007 http://www.memritv.org/clip_transcript/en/1614.htm,

Clive Barker photo
Calvin Coolidge photo

“In dealing with our military problems there is one principle that is exceedingly important. Our institutions are founded not on military power but on civil authority. We are irrevocably committed to the theory of a government by the people. We have our constitutions and our laws, our executives, our legislatures, and our courts, but ultimately we are governed by public opinion. Our forefathers had seen so much of militarism, and suffered so much from it, that they desired to banish it forever. They believed and declared in at least one of their State constitutions that the military power should be subordinate to and governed by the civil authority. It is for this reason that any organization of men in the military service bent on inflaming the public mind for the purpose of forcing Government action through the pressure of public opinion is an exceedingly dangerous undertaking and precedent. This is so whatever form it might take, whether it be for the purpose of influencing the Executive, the legislature, or the heads of departments. It is for the civil authority to determine what appropriations shall be granted, what appointments shall be made, and what rules shall be adopted for the conduct of its armed forces. Whenever the military power starts dictating to the civil authority, by whatsoever means adopted, the liberties of the country are beginning to end. National defense should at all times be supported, but any form of militarism should be resisted.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, Toleration and Liberalism (1925)

Ernst Gombrich photo
Jean Cocteau photo

“The instinct of nearly all societies is to lock up anybody who is truly free. First, society begins by trying to beat you up. If this fails, they try to poison you. If this fails too, they finish by loading honors on your head.”

Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, boxing manager and filmmaker

As quoted in Moments of Clarity (2002) by Thomas L. Jackson, p. 88

Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo
Robin Sloan photo

“When a coin is tossed, it does not necessarily fall heads or tails; it can roll away or stand on its edge.”

William Feller (1906–1970) Croatian-American mathematician

Source: An Introduction To Probability Theory And Its Applications (Third Edition), Chapter I, The Sample Space, p. 7

“Total actions are a further development of the happening and combine the elements of all art forms, painting music, literature, film, theatre, which have been so infected by the progressive process of cretinisation in our society that any examination of reality has become impossible using these means alone. Total actions are the unprejudiced examination of all the materials that make up reality. Total actions take place in a consciously delineated area of reality with deliberately selected materials. They are partial, dynamic occurrences in which the most varied materials and elements of reality are linked, swapped over, turn on their heads and destroyed. This procedure creates the occurrence. The actual nature of the occurrence depends on the composition of the material and actors′ unconscious tendencies. Anything may constitute the material: people, animals, plants, food, space, movement, noise, smells, light, fire, coldness, warmth, wind, dust, steam, gas, events, sport, all art forms and all art products. All the possibilities of the material are ruthlessly exhausted. As a result of the incalculable possibilities for choices that the material presents to the actor, he plunges into a concentrated whirl of action finds himself suddenly in a reality without barriers, performs actions resembling those of a madman, and avails himself of a fool′s privileges, which is probably not without significance for sensible people. Old art forms seek to reconstruct reality, total actions unfold within reality itself. Total actions are direct occurrences(direct art), not the repetition of an occurrence, a direct encounter between unconscious elements and reality(material). The actor performs and himself becomes material: stuttering, stammering, burbling, groaning, choking, shouting, screeching, laughing, spitting, biting, creeping, rolling about in the material.”

Günter Brus (1938) Austrian artist

Source: Nervous Stillness on the Horizon (2006), P. 166 (1966/1972)

Grover Norquist photo

“Our goal is to inflict pain. It is not good enough to win; it has to be a painful and devastating defeat. We're sending a message here. It is like when the king would take his opponent's head and spike it on a pole for everyone to see.”

Grover Norquist (1956) Conservative Lobbyist

from the <i>National Review</i>, quoted in <i>The Republican Noise Machine</i> by David Brock, Crown Publishers 2004, pg. 50
2004

Fiona Apple photo
Joseph Goebbels photo

“My God is a God of strength. HE does not like the smell of frankincense and the dishonoring crawl of the crowd. I stand before HIM proudly, with the head held high, as HE created me, and I profess gladly and freely before HIM. The true German seeks God for all of his life.”

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

Mein Gott ist ein Gott der Stärke. Er mag nicht den Weihrauchdampf und das entehrende Kriechen der Menge. Ich stehe vor ihm stolz erhobenen Hauptes, wie er mich erschaffen hat, und bekenne mich freudig und frei vor ihm. Der wahre Deutsche bleibt Zeit seines Lebens ein Gottsucher.
Michael: a German fate in diary notes (1926)

Albert Einstein photo

“How it happened that I in particular discovered the relativity theory, it seemed to lie in the following circumstance. The normal adult never bothers his head about space-time problems. Everything there is to be thought about it, in his opinion, has already been done in early childhood. I, on the contrary, developed so slowly that I only began to wonder about space and time when I was already grown up. In consequence I probed deeper into the problem than an ordinary child would have done.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

In Carl Seelig's Albert Einstein: A Documentary Biography (1956), Seelig reports that Einstein said this to James Franck, p. 71 http://books.google.com/books?id=VCbPAAAAMAAJ&q=%22how+it+happened%22#search_anchor.
I sometimes ask myself how did it come that I was the one to develop the theory of relativity. The reason, I think, is that a normal adult never stops to think about problems of space and time. But my intellectual development was retarded, as a result of which I began to wonder about space and time only when I had already grown up. Naturally, I could go deeper into the problem than a child with normal abilities.
Variant translation which appears in Einstein: The Life and Times by Ronald W. Clark (1971), p. 27 http://books.google.com/books?id=6IKVA0lY6MAC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA27#v=onepage&q&f=false
Attributed in posthumous publications

William Morris photo
Henryk Sienkiewicz photo
Joseph Strutt photo
Robert Lynn Asprin photo
Aron Ra photo

“I would say that, whenever religion has rule over law, that madness will reign, with automatic violations of human rights, but maybe I'm being alarmist. What do they say? How can we know what sort of society they envision?.. We know that they are nearly all republicans, and that that party has been virtually assimilated by them, and we know they will speak more freely when they feel the safety of numbers. So let's look at the Republican Party platform of one of the red states, a very red state… Of course, they want to make pornography illegal (no surprises there), they also want to be able to filibuster the US senate again… Regarding the environment, they strongly support the immediate repeal and abolishment of the Endangered Species Act. Remember that these people don't believe in evolution, so they don't understand the importance of biodiversity and they don't care about the rights of animals either. They want to dominate and subdue the earth, just like their abominable doctrine demands, so they strongly oppose all efforts of environmental groups that stymie business interests, especially those of the oil and gas industry… Texas republicans not only want marriage to be restricted to one man and one woman (despite what the Bible says), but they insist it must be a natural man and a natural woman… So transgender people would be completely ostracized under the law should they get their way. There's no civil union options for gay couples either, because the platform also opposes the creation, recognition or benefits of partnerships outside marriage that are provided by some political subdivisions. As if that weren't enough, they also want to define the word "family" such that it excludes homosexual couples. They say they deplore sensitivity training (think about that for a moment), and they state very clearly that they want homosexuality condemned as unacceptable. They mean that very strongly too, so strongly in fact that they oppose any criminal or civil penalties against those who oppose homosexuality as a reaction of religious faith. In fact, they go so far as to urge the immediate repeal of the hate crimes law specifically where that relates to sexual orientation… If you're uncertain whether that includes acts of violence, there at least two members of the current State Board of Education who implied that it should, and we know of a few Tea Partiers who insist that homosexuals should be executed, murdered by the state. I am alarmed at how popular this abominable sentiment is… Under the heading "supporting motherhood", they strongly support women who "choose" to devote their lives to their families and raising their children, but they implicitly object to women choosing other options such as college, careers, or not having children at all. A woman's ambition beyond the confines of the kitchen and obeisance to her husband is decried by conservatives as a deplorable assault on the family which, of course, they blame on liberals. Regarding the right to life, they say that all innocent human life must be respected and safeguarded from fertilization to natural death. Notice a few subtle caveats here: the qualifier of protecting only innocent life is how Texas republicans justify having executed more prisoners than any other state in the union, nearly five times as many as the next deadliest state in fact. Says something about Christian forgiveness, doesn't it!”

Aron Ra (1962) Aron Ra is an atheist activist and the host of the Ra-Men Podcast

Youtube, Other, Republican Theocracy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSjNg7nQvB0 (November 4, 2012)

Cyrano de Bergerac photo
Luís de Camões photo

“The moon, full orbed, forsakes her watery cave,
And lifts her lovely head above the wave…”

Luís de Camões (1524–1580) Portuguese poet

Da Lua os claros raios rutilavam...
Stanza 58 line 1 (as translated by William Julius Mickle). Compare:
As when the moon, refulgent lamp of night,
Over heaven's clear azure spreads her sacred light...
Homer, The Iliad, VIII. 551–555 (tr. Alexander Pope)
Epic poetry, Os Lusíadas (1572), Canto I

Ludovico Ariosto photo

“His eyes were almost sunken in his head;
His face was thin and fleshless as a bone.
His tangled, bristling hair, inspiring dread,
And shaggy beard were wild to look upon.”

Quasi ascosi avea gli occhi ne la testa,
La faccia macra, e come un osso asciutta,
La chioma rabuffata, orrida e mesta,
La barba folta, spaventosa e brutta.
Canto XXIX, stanza 60 (tr. B. Reynolds)
Orlando Furioso (1532)

Luís de Camões photo

“Proud over the rest, with splendid wealth arrayed,
As crown to this wide empire, Europe's head,
Fair Lusitania smiles, the western bound,
Whose verdant breast the rolling waves surround.”

Luís de Camões (1524–1580) Portuguese poet

Eis aqui, quase cume da cabeça
De Europa toda, o Reino Lusitano,
Onde a terra se acaba e o mar começa.
Stanza 20, lines 1–3 (tr. William Julius Mickle)
Epic poetry, Os Lusíadas (1572), Canto III

Glenn Beck photo

“You can try to put the lid on this group of people, but you will never silence us. You will never — you can shoot me in the head, you can shoot the next guy in the head, but there will be 10 others that line up. And it may not happen today, it may not happen next week, but freedom will be restored in this land. Period. And no matter what you want to call it, it is a totalitarian state that you're headed towards.”

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

The Glenn Beck Program
Premiere Radio Networks
2009-09-08
Beck repeats call for prayers, claims, "You can shoot me in the head … but there will be 10 others that line up"
Media Matters for America
2009-09-08
http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/200909080013
2000s, 2009

Lucy Stone photo
Martin Lomasney photo

“Don't write when you can talk; don't talk when you can nod your head.”

Martin Lomasney (1859–1933) American politician

Van Nostrand, Albert D. (December 1948). "The Lomasney Legend". The New England Quarterly. 21 (4): 437. JSTOR 361565 https://www.jstor.org/stable/361565

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis photo

“Rowing harder doesn't help if the boat is headed in the wrong direction.”

Kenichi Ohmae (1943) Japanese academic

Kenichi Ohmae, cited in: William J. Brown et al. (2000), AntiPatterns in Project Management. p. 3

Arthur Schopenhauer photo
Gordon B. Hinckley photo

“Cram your heads full of knowledge.”

Gordon B. Hinckley (1910–2008) President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Life's Obligations, Ensign, Feb. 1999, 2.

“Every intelligent modern painter carries the whole culture of modern painting in his head.”

Robert Motherwell (1915–1991) American artist

Abstract Expressionism, David Anfam, Thames and Hudson Ltd London, 1990, p. 22
1950s

Dorothy Wordsworth photo

“We were marching down the street, and we were at the head of the troops. We went on marching, and the troops went off to the left.”

Geoffrey Burbidge (1925–2010) British astronomer

Of his leadership of supporters of the Steady State theory of cosmology Wall Street Journal obituary 30 January 2010 http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703389004575033382092023468.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
We are all made from stardust

Vladimir Putin photo
Christina Rossetti photo
Daniel Tosh photo

“Don't get lost on a hike there. You'll end up on YouTube without a head, and there's no web redemption for that.”

Daniel Tosh (1975) American stand-up comedian

Happy Thoughts (2011)

Hayley Williams photo
P.G. Wodehouse photo
Neil Peart photo
Jack Kerouac photo
Camille Paglia photo
William Wordsworth photo

“Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.”

William Wordsworth (1770–1850) English Romantic poet

Stanza 2.
I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud http://www.bartleby.com/145/ww260.html (1804)

Mickey Spillane photo
Epifanio de los Santos photo

“Among the new bibliographers, Sr. Epifanio de los Santos, a young scholar with great culture, stood at the head; he possessed more than 2,000 titles, some of them were very rare.”

Epifanio de los Santos (1871–1928) Filipino politician

As quoted by Wenceslao Retana in Gregorio F. Zaide's "Epifanio de los Santos, his collection and library" (The Tribune Magazine. p. 4).
BALIW

Garth Nix photo
Ahmad Jannati photo

“May Allah, by the virtue of the Hidden Imam, God will remove the evil of America and Israel from humanity…. I say to those dear people: Oh Iraqi brothers and sisters, America and Israel don't want your heads to remain attached to your bodies.”

Ahmad Jannati (1927) Iranian ayatollah

Friday Sermon In Tehran University By Ayatollah Jannati: America Will Collapse. We Must Be Patient. http://www.memritv.org/clip_transcript/en/142.htm June 2004.
America to collapse

Ernest Flagg photo
Elie Wiesel photo
John Cheever photo

“When I remember my family, I always remember their backs. They were always indignantly leaving places. That’s the way I remember them, heading for an exit.”

John Cheever (1912–1982) American novelist and short story writer

Quoted by Susan Cheever, Home before Dark Houghton Mifflin (1984).

Charlton Heston photo
Paul Gauguin photo

“.. so before I died I wanted to paint a large canvas that I had worked out in my head, and all month long I worked [on Tahiti] day and night at fever pitch... It's all done without a model.”

Paul Gauguin (1848–1903) French Post-Impressionist artist

late quote about the start of his famous large painting 'Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going'
Source: 1890s - 1910s, The Writings of a Savage (1996), pp. 159-160: in a letter from Tahiti to a friend, 1898