Quotes about head
page 6

H.P. Lovecraft photo
The Mother photo

“I started contemplating or doing my Yoga from the age of 4. There was a small chair for me on which I used to sit still, engrossed in my meditation. A very brilliant light would then descend over my head and produce some turmoil inside my brain. Of course I understood nothing, it was not the age for understanding. But gradually I began to feel, "I shall have to do some tremendously great work that nobody yet knows."”

The Mother (1878–1973) spiritual collaborator of Sri Aurobindo

In Birth and Girlhood http://www.searchforlight.org/TheMother_lifeSketch1.htm, during her childhood days in when she was aware of her special purpose of life, her mission on earth, and also in On the Mother Divine by Pasupati Bhattacharya (1968) http://books.google.co.in/books?id=1loqAAAAYAAJ, p. 10

Kurt Vonnegut photo
James Bay photo
Rupert Brooke photo
Gordon B. Hinckley photo
Charles Bukowski photo
Malcolm X photo

“At one or another college or university, usually in the informal gatherings after I had spoken, perhaps a dozen generally white-complexioned people would come up to me, identifying themselves as Arabian, Middle Eastern or North African Muslims who happened to be visiting, studying, or living in the United States. They had said to me that, my white-indicting statements notwithstanding, they felt I was sincere in considering myself a Muslim -- and they felt if I was exposed to what they always called "true Islam," I would "understand it, and embrace it." Automatically, as a follower of Elijah, I had bridled whenever this was said. But in the privacy of my own thoughts after several of these experiences, I did question myself: if one was sincere in professing a religion, why should he balk at broadening his knowledge of that religion?
Those orthodox Muslims whom I had met, one after another, had urged me to meet and talk with a Dr. Mahmoud Youssef Shawarbi…. Then one day Dr. Shawarbi and I were introduced by a newspaperman. He was cordial. He said he had followed me in the press; I said I had been told of him, and we talked for fifteen or twenty minutes. We both had to leave to make appointments we had, when he dropped on me something whose logic never would get out of my head. He said, "No man has believed perfectly until he wishes for his brother what he wishes for himself."”

Malcolm X (1925–1965) American human rights activist

As featured in The Autobiography of Malcolm X http://www.colostate.edu/Orgs/MSA/find_more/m_x.html as told to Alex Haley and cited in Malcolm X: Why I Embraced Islam by Yusuf Siddiqui.
Text of a letter written following his Hajj (1964)

Pablo Picasso photo

“I don't know where he [ Marc Chagall ] gets those images; he must have an angel in his head.”

Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer

As quoted in Marc Chagall, – a Biography, by Sidney Alexander, Cassell, London, 1978, p. 33
Attributed from posthumous publications

Rush Limbaugh photo
Knut Hamsun photo
Abraham Lincoln photo
Peter Ustinov photo

“A diplomat these days is nothing but a head-waiter who's allowed to sit down occasionally.”

Act I
Romanoff and Juliet (1956)
Context: The only one who's always punctual is Death … whatever the time he always strikes his knell at the first streak of dawn … and believe me, he knows what he's doing. How I hate the dawn! It's the hour of the firing squad. The last glass of brandy. The ultimate cigarette. The final wish. All the hideously calculated hypocrisy of men when they commit a murder in the name of justice. Then it's the time of death on a grander scale, the hour of the great offenses … fix your bayonets boys …gentlemen, synchronize your watches … in ten seconds time the barrage starts … a thousand men are destined to die in order to capture a farmhouse no one has lived in for years... And finally dawn is the herald of the day, our twelve hours of unimportance, when we have to cede to the pressures of the powers, smile at people we have every reason but expediency to detest … A diplomat these days is nothing but a head-waiter who's allowed to sit down occasionally.

Henri Barbusse photo

“Tradition reigns, the gospel of the blind adoration of what was and what is — God without a head.”

Henri Barbusse (1873–1935) French novelist

Light (1919), Ch. XX The Cult
Context: Tradition reigns, the gospel of the blind adoration of what was and what is — God without a head. Man's destiny is eternally blockaded by two forms of tradition; in time, by hereditary succession; in space, by frontiers, and thus it is crushed and annihilated in detail. It is the truth. I am certain of it, for I am touching it.

Michael Moore photo

“I will have to face an ugly truth that has been gnawing through my head…”

Michael Moore (1954) American filmmaker, author, social critic, and liberal activist

In response to the September 11 attacks on New York City
2001
Context: I can't even think about this movie. I don't WANT to think about it because if I think about it I will have to face an ugly truth that has been gnawing through my head...
This started out as a documentary on gun violence in America, but the largest mass murder in our history was just committed — without the use of a single gun! Not a single bullet fired! No bomb was set off, no missile was fired, no weapon (i. e., a device that was solely and specifically manufactured to kill humans) was used. A boxcutter! — I can't stop thinking about this. A thousand gun control laws would not have prevented this massacre. What am I doing?

Ray Bradbury photo

“Three things are in your head: First, everything you have experienced from the day of your birth until right now.”

Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) American writer

The Paris Review interview (2010)
Context: Three things are in your head: First, everything you have experienced from the day of your birth until right now. Every single second, every single hour, every single day. Then, how you reacted to those events in the minute of their happening, whether they were disastrous or joyful. Those are two things you have in your mind to give you material. Then, separate from the living experiences are all the art experiences you’ve had, the things you’ve learned from other writers, artists, poets, film directors, and composers. So all of this is in your mind as a fabulous mulch and you have to bring it out. How do you do that? I did it by making lists of nouns and then asking, What does each noun mean? You can go and make up your own list right now and it would be different than mine. The night. The crickets. The train whistle. The basement. The attic. The tennis shoes. The fireworks. All these things are very personal. Then, when you get the list down, you begin to word-associate around it. You ask, Why did I put this word down? What does it mean to me? Why did I put this noun down and not some other word? Do this and you’re on your way to being a good writer. You can’t write for other people. You can’t write for the left or the right, this religion or that religion, or this belief or that belief. You have to write the way you see things.

Margaret Atwood photo

“After a year or two of keeping my head down and trying to pass myself off as a normal person, I made contact with the five other people at my university who were interested in writing”

Margaret Atwood (1939) Canadian writer

On Writing Poetry (1995)
Context: After a year or two of keeping my head down and trying to pass myself off as a normal person, I made contact with the five other people at my university who were interested in writing; and through them, and some of my teachers, I discovered that there was a whole subterranean Wonderland of Canadian writing that was going on just out of general earshot and sight

Voltaire photo

“He advanced toward me without moving his hat, or making the least inclination of his body; but there appeared more real politeness in the open, humane air of his countenance, than in drawing one leg behind the other, and carrying that in the hand which is made to be worn on the head.”

Voltaire (1694–1778) French writer, historian, and philosopher

Voltaire's account of meeting the Quaker Andrew Pit
The History of the Quakers (1762)
Context: He advanced toward me without moving his hat, or making the least inclination of his body; but there appeared more real politeness in the open, humane air of his countenance, than in drawing one leg behind the other, and carrying that in the hand which is made to be worn on the head. "Friend," said he, "I perceive thou art a stranger, if I can do thee any service thou hast only to let me know it." "Sir," I replied, bowing my body, and sliding one leg toward him, as is the custom with us, "I flatter myself that my curiosity, which you will allow to be just, will not give you any offence, and that you will do me the honor to inform me of the particulars of your religion." "The people of thy country," answered the Quaker, "are too full of their bows and their compliments; but I never yet met with one of them who had so much curiosity as thyself. Come in and let us dine first together."

Galileo Galilei photo

“In the long run my observations have convinced me that some men, reasoning preposterously, first establish some conclusion in their minds which, either because of its being their own or because of their having received it from some person who has their entire confidence, impresses them so deeply that one finds it impossible ever to get it out of their heads.”

Source: Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems (1632), p. 322
Context: In the long run my observations have convinced me that some men, reasoning preposterously, first establish some conclusion in their minds which, either because of its being their own or because of their having received it from some person who has their entire confidence, impresses them so deeply that one finds it impossible ever to get it out of their heads. Such arguments in support of their fixed idea as they hit upon themselves or hear set forth by others, no matter how simple and stupid these may be, gain their instant acceptance and applause. On the other hand whatever is brought forward against it, however ingenious and conclusive, they receive with disdain or with hot rage — if indeed it does not make them ill. Beside themselves with passion, some of them would not be backward even about scheming to suppress and silence their adversaries.

Barack Obama photo

“I believe that every person should be equal under the law. Every child deserves the dignity that comes with education, and health care and food on the table and a roof over their heads. I believe citizens should be free to speak their mind without fear to organize, and to criticize their government, and to protest peacefully, and that the rule of law should not include arbitrary detentions of people who exercise those rights. I believe that every person should have the freedom to practice their faith peacefully and publicly. And, yes, I believe voters should be able to choose their governments in free and democratic elections. Not everybody agrees with me on this.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2016, Remarks to the People of Cuba (March 2016)
Context: I believe that every person should be equal under the law. Every child deserves the dignity that comes with education, and health care and food on the table and a roof over their heads. I believe citizens should be free to speak their mind without fear to organize, and to criticize their government, and to protest peacefully, and that the rule of law should not include arbitrary detentions of people who exercise those rights. I believe that every person should have the freedom to practice their faith peacefully and publicly. And, yes, I believe voters should be able to choose their governments in free and democratic elections. Not everybody agrees with me on this. Not everybody agrees with the American people on this. But I believe those human rights are universal. I believe they are the rights of the American people, the Cuban people, and people around the world.

Bill Bailey photo

“I tried to like it. For me, it was like being smacked around the head by a piece of IKEA furniture: it hurts, but you've got to admire the workmanship.”

Bill Bailey (1965) English comedian, musician, actor, TV and radio presenter and author

Remarkable Guide to the Orchestra (2008)

W.B. Yeats photo

“Heaven blazing into the head:
Tragedy wrought to its uttermost.”

W.B. Yeats (1865–1939) Irish poet and playwright

Last Poems (1936-1939)
Context: Heaven blazing into the head:
Tragedy wrought to its uttermost.
Though Hamlet rambles and Lear rages,
And all the drop-scenes drop at once
Upon a hundred thousand stages,
It cannot grow by an inch or an ounce.

Lapis Lazuli, st. 2

Thucydides photo
Mikhail Lermontov photo

“My whole past life I live again in memory, and, involuntarily, I ask myself: 'why have I lived - for what purpose was I born?'… A purpose there must have been, and, surely, mine was an exalted destiny, because I feel that within my soul are powers immeasurable… But I was not able to discover that destiny, I allowed myself to be carried away by the allurements of passions, inane and ignoble. From their crucible I issued hard and cold as iron, but gone for ever was the glow of noble aspirations - the fairest flower of life. And, from that time forth, how often have I not played the part of an axe in the hands of fate! Like an implement of punishment, I have fallen upon the head of doomed victims, often without malice, always without pity… To none has my love brought happiness, because I have never sacrificed anything for the sake of those I have loved: for myself alone I have loved - for my own pleasure. I have only satisfied the strange craving of my heart, greedily draining their feelings, their tenderness, their joys, their sufferings - and I have never been able to sate myself. I am like one who, spent with hunger, falls asleep in exhaustion and sees before him sumptuous viands and sparkling wines; he devours with rapture the aerial gifts of the imagination, and his pains seem somewhat assuaged. Let him but awake: the vision vanishes - twofold hunger and despair remain!
And tomorrow, it may be, I shall die!… And there will not be left on earth one being who has understood me completely. Some will consider me worse, others, better, than I have been in reality… Some will say: 'he was a good fellow'; others: 'a villain.”

And both epithets will be false. After all this, is life worth the trouble? And yet we live - out of curiosity! We expect something new... How absurd, and yet how vexatious!
A Hero of Our Time (1840; rev. 1841)

Aurelius Augustinus photo

“You will suffer just so much as must be added of your sufferings to the complete passion of Christ, who suffered as our Head and who continues to suffer in His members”

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

Source: On the Mystical Body of Christ, pp. 424-425
Context: What does the Scripture mean when it tells us of the body of one man so extended in space that all can kill him? We must understand these words of ourselves, of our Church, or the body of Christ. For Jesus Christ is one man, having a Head and a body. The Saviour of the body and the members of the body are two in one flesh, and in one voice, and in one passion, and, when iniquity shall have passed away, in one repose.
And so the passion of Christ is not in Christ alone; and yet the passion of Christ is in Christ alone. For if in Christ you consider both the Head and the body, the Christ’s passion is in Christ alone; but if by Christ you mean only the Head, then Christ’s passion is not in Christ alone. Hence if you are in the members of Christ, all you who hear me, and even you who hear me not (though you do hear, if you are united with the members of Christ), whatever you suffer at the hands of those who are no among the members of Christ, was lacking to the sufferings of Christ. It is added precisely because it was lacking. You fill up the measure; you do not cause it to overflow. You will suffer just so much as must be added of your sufferings to the complete passion of Christ, who suffered as our Head and who continues to suffer in His members, that is, in us. Into this common treasury each pays what he owes, and according to each one’s ability we all contribute our share of suffering. The full measure of the Passion will not be attained until the end of the world.

Jawaharlal Nehru photo

“India is supposed to be a religious country above everything else, and Hindu and Muslim and Sikh and others take pride in their faiths and testify to their truth by breaking heads.”

Jawaharlal Nehru (1889–1964) Indian lawyer, statesman, and writer, first Prime Minister of India

Autobiography (1936; 1949; 1958)
Context: India is supposed to be a religious country above everything else, and Hindu and Muslim and Sikh and others take pride in their faiths and testify to their truth by breaking heads. The spectacle of what is called religion, or at any rate organised religion, in India and elsewhere has filled me with horror, and I have frequently condemned it and wished to make a clean sweep of it. Almost always it seems to stand for blind belief and reaction, dogma and bigotry, superstition and exploitation, and the preservation of vested interests. And yet I knew well that there was something else in it, something which supplied a deep inner craving of human beings. How else could it have been the tremendous power it has been and brought peace and comfort to innumerable tortured souls? Was that peace merely the shelter of blind belief and absence of questioning, the calm that comes from being safe in harbour, protected from the storms of the open sea, or was it something more? In some cases certainly it was something more.
But organized religion, whatever its past may have been, today is largely an empty form devoid of real content. Mr. G. K. Chesterton has compared it (not his own particular brand of religion, but other!) to a fossil which is the form of an animal or organism from which all its own organic substance has entirely disappeared, but has kept its shape, because it has been filled up by some totally different substance. And, even where something of value still remains, it is enveloped by other and harmful contents. That seems to have happened in our Eastern religions as well as in the Western.<!-- p. 241

Henri Barbusse photo

“I saw the man of light and simplicity bow his head; and I feel his wonderful voice saying:
"I did not deserve the evil they have done unto me."
Robbed reformer, he is a witness of his name's ferocious glory. The greed-impassioned money-changers have long since chased Him from the temple in their turn, and put the priests in his place. He is crucified on every crucifix.”

Henri Barbusse (1873–1935) French novelist

Light (1919), Ch. XVI - De Profundis Clamavi
Context: I had seen Jesus Christ on the margin of the lake. He came like an ordinary man along the path. There is no halo round his head. He is only disclosed by his pallor and his gentleness. Planes of light draw near and mass themselves and fade away around him. He shines in the sky, as he shone on the water. As they have told of him, his beard and hair are the color of wine. He looks upon the immense stain made by Christians on the world, a stain confused and dark, whose edge alone, down on His bare feet, has human shape and crimson color. In the middle of it are anthems and burnt sacrifices, files of hooded cloaks, and of torturers, armed with battle-axes, halberds and bayonets; and among long clouds and thickets of armies, the opposing clash of two crosses which have not quite the same shape. Close to him, too, on a canvas wall, again I see the cross that bleeds. There are populations, too, tearing themselves in twain that they may tear themselves the better; there is the ceremonious alliance, "turning the needy out of the way," of those who wear three crowns and those who wear one; and, whispering in the ear of Kings, there are gray-haired Eminences, and cunning monks, whose hue is of darkness.
I saw the man of light and simplicity bow his head; and I feel his wonderful voice saying:
"I did not deserve the evil they have done unto me."
Robbed reformer, he is a witness of his name's ferocious glory. The greed-impassioned money-changers have long since chased Him from the temple in their turn, and put the priests in his place. He is crucified on every crucifix.

Isaac Newton photo

“In the beginning of the Jewish war in Nero's reign, the Apostles fled out of Judea with their flocks; some beyond Jordan to Pella and other places, some into Egypt, Syria, Mesopotamia, Asia minor, and elsewhere. Peter and John came into Asia, and Peter went thence by Corinth to Rome; but John staying in Asia, was banished by the Romans into Patmos, as the head of a party of the Jews, whose nation was in war with the Romans. By this dispersion of the Christian Jews, the Christian religion, which was already propagated westward as far as Rome, spread fast into all the Roman Empire, and suffered many persecutions under it till the days of Constantine the great and his sons: all which is thus described by Daniel.”

Isaac Newton (1643–1727) British physicist and mathematician and founder of modern classical physics

Vol. I, Ch. 12: Of the Prophecy of the Scripture of Truth
Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel, and the Apocalypse of St. John (1733)
Context: In the beginning of the Jewish war in Nero's reign, the Apostles fled out of Judea with their flocks; some beyond Jordan to Pella and other places, some into Egypt, Syria, Mesopotamia, Asia minor, and elsewhere. Peter and John came into Asia, and Peter went thence by Corinth to Rome; but John staying in Asia, was banished by the Romans into Patmos, as the head of a party of the Jews, whose nation was in war with the Romans. By this dispersion of the Christian Jews, the Christian religion, which was already propagated westward as far as Rome, spread fast into all the Roman Empire, and suffered many persecutions under it till the days of Constantine the great and his sons: all which is thus described by Daniel. And such as do wickedly against the covenant, shall he, who places the abomination, cause to dissemble, and worship the heathen Gods; but the people among them who do know their God, shall be strong and act. And they that understand among the people, shall instruct many: yet they shall fall by the sword, and by flame, and by captivity, and by spoil many days. Now when they shall fall, they shall be holpen with a little help, viz. in the reign of Constantine the great; and at that time by reason of their prosperity, many shall come over to them from among the heathen, and cleave to them with dissimulation. But of those of understanding there shall still fall to try God's people by them and to purge them from the dissemblers, and to make them white even to the time of the end: because it is yet for a time appointed.

Henri Barbusse photo

“All this is within us, and has fallen upon our heads. And God Himself, who is all these kinds of heavens in one, has fallen on our heads like thunder, and His infinity is ours.”

Henri Barbusse (1873–1935) French novelist

The Inferno (1917), Ch. XVI
Context: The heavens have fallen on our heads! What a tremendous idea! It is the loftiest cry that life hurls. That was the cry of deliverance for which I had been groping until then. I had had a foreboding it would come, because a thing of glory like a poet's song always gives something to us poor living shadows, and human thought always reveals the world. But I needed to have it said explicitly so as to bring human misery and human grandeur together. I needed it as a key to the vault of the heavens.
These heavens, that is to say, the azure that our eyes enshrine, purity, plenitude — and the infinite number of suppliants, the sky of truth and religion. All this is within us, and has fallen upon our heads. And God Himself, who is all these kinds of heavens in one, has fallen on our heads like thunder, and His infinity is ours.

Charles Scott Sherrington photo

“The brain is waking and with it the mind is returning. It is as if the Milky Way entered upon some cosmic dance. Swiftly the head mass becomes an enchanted loom where millions of flashing shuttles weave a dissolving pattern, always a meaningful pattern though never an abiding one; a shifting harmony of subpatterns.”

Charles Scott Sherrington (1857–1952) English neurophysiologist and Nobel Prize recipient

Man On His Nature (1942), p. 178
Context: In the great head-end which has been mostly darkness springs up myriads of twinkling stationary lights and myriads of trains of moving lights of many different directions. It is as though activity from one of those local places which continued restless in the darkened main-mass suddenly spread far and wide and invaded all. The great topmost sheet of the mass, that where hardly a light had twinkled or moved, becomes now a sparkling field of rhythmic flashing points with trains of traveling sparks hurrying hither and thither. The brain is waking and with it the mind is returning. It is as if the Milky Way entered upon some cosmic dance. Swiftly the head mass becomes an enchanted loom where millions of flashing shuttles weave a dissolving pattern, always a meaningful pattern though never an abiding one; a shifting harmony of subpatterns. Now as the waking body rouses, subpatterns of this great harmony of activity stretch down into the unlit tracks of the stalk-piece of the scheme. Strings of flashing and travelling sparks engage the lengths of it. This means that the body is up and rises to meet its waking day.

Barack Obama photo

“When we make rash decisions, reacting to the headlines instead of using our heads; when the first response to a challenge is to send in our military -- then we risk getting drawn into unnecessary conflicts, and neglect the broader strategy we need for a safer, more prosperous world. That’s what our enemies want us to do.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2015, State of the Union Address (January 2015)
Context: When we make rash decisions, reacting to the headlines instead of using our heads; when the first response to a challenge is to send in our military -- then we risk getting drawn into unnecessary conflicts, and neglect the broader strategy we need for a safer, more prosperous world. That’s what our enemies want us to do. I believe in a smarter kind of American leadership. We lead best when we combine military power with strong diplomacy; when we leverage our power with coalition building; when we don’t let our fears blind us to the opportunities that this new century presents. That’s exactly what we’re doing right now. And around the globe, it is making a difference. [... ] That’s how America leads -- not with bluster, but with persistent, steady resolve.

Aurelius Augustinus photo

“No greater gift could God bestow on men than to give them as their Head His Word”

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

Source: On the Mystical Body of Christ, p.423
Context: No greater gift could God bestow on men than to give them as their Head His Word, by whom He made all things, and to unite them as members to that Head. Thus the Word became both Son of God and Son of man: one God with the Father, one Man with men. Hence, when we offer our petitions to God, let it not detach itself from its Head. Let it be He, the sole Saviour of His body, our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who prays for us, who prays in us, and who is prayed to by us. He prays for us as our Priest; He prays in us as our Head; He is prayed to by us as our God. Let us therefore hear both our words in Him and His words in us.... We pray to Him in the form of God; He prays in the form of the slave. There He is the Creator; here He is in the creature. He changes not, but takes the creature and transforms it into Himself, making us one man, head and body, with Himself.
We pray therefore to Him, and through Him, and in Him. We pray with Him, and He with us; we recite this prayer of the Psalm in Him, and He recites it in us.

Mikhail Bakunin photo

“FREEDOM, the realization of freedom: who can deny that this is what today heads the agenda of history?”

Mikhail Bakunin (1814–1876) Russian revolutionary, philosopher, and theorist of collectivist anarchism

"The Reaction in Germany" (1842) http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/bakunin/works/1842/reaction-germany.htm, Bakunin's first political writings, under the pseudonym "Jules Elysard"; it was not until 1860 that he began to publicly assert a stance of firm atheism and vigorous rejection of traditional religious institutions.
Context: FREEDOM, the realization of freedom: who can deny that this is what today heads the agenda of history? … Revolutionary propaganda is in its deepest sense the negation of the existing conditions of the State, for, with respect to its innermost nature, it has no other program than the destruction of whatever order prevails at the time.... We must not only act politically, but in our politics act religiously, religiously in the sense of freedom, of which the one true expression is justice and love. Indeed, for us alone, who are called the enemies of the Christian religion, for us alone it is reserved, and even made the highest duty … really to exercise love, this highest commandment of Christ and this only way to true Christianity.

Alan Watts photo

“The problem comes up because we ask the question in the wrong way. We supposed that solids were one thing and space quite another, or just nothing whatever. Then it appeared that space was no mere nothing, because solids couldn't do without it. But the mistake in the beginning was to think of solids and space as two different things, instead of as two aspects of the same thing. The point is that they are different but inseparable, like the front end and the rear end of a cat. Cut them apart, and the cat dies. Take away the crest of the wave, and there is no trough.
Here is someone who has never seen a cat. He is looking through a narrow slit in a fence, and, on the other side, a cat walks by. He sees first the head, then the less distinctly shaped furry trunk, and then the tail. Extraordinary! The cat turns round and walks back, and again he sees the head, and a little later the tail. This sequence begins to look like something regular and reliable. Yet again, the cat turns round, and he witnesses the same regular sequence: first the head, and later the tail. Thereupon he reasons that the event head is the invariable and necessary cause of the event tail, which is the head's effect. This absurd and confusing gobbledygook comes from his failure to see that head and tail go together: they are all one cat.
The cat wasn't born as a head which, sometime later, caused a tail; it was born all of a piece, a head-tailed cat. Our observer's trouble was that he was watching it through a narrow slit, and couldn't see the whole cat at once.”

Alan Watts (1915–1973) British philosopher, writer and speaker

Source: The Book on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are (1966), p. 26-27

Vladimir Nabokov photo

“My desires are modest. Portraits of the head of the government should not exceed a postage stamp in size.”

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

Playboy 1964 interview
Context: The fact that since my youth – I was 19 when I left Russia — my political creed has remained as bleak and changeless as an old gray rock. It is classical to the point of triteness. Freedom of speech, freedom of thought, freedom of art. The social or economic structure of the ideal state is of little concern to me. My desires are modest. Portraits of the head of the government should not exceed a postage stamp in size. No torture and no executions.

Leó Szilárd photo

“That night I knew the world was headed for trouble.”

Leó Szilárd (1898–1964) Physicist and biologist

On the experiment at University of Chicago which indicated a nuclear chain reaction was possible, as quoted in "Some Szilardisms on War, Fame, Peace", LIFE‎ magazine, Vol. 51, no. 9 (1 September 1961), p. 79
Variants:
We turned the switch, we saw the flashes, we watched them for about ten minutes — and then we switched everything off and went home. That night I knew the world was headed for sorrow...
As quoted in the Boston University Graduate Journal (1968)
We turned the switch, saw the flashes, watched for ten minutes, then switched everything off and went home. That night I knew the world was headed for sorrow.
As quoted in The Making Of The Atomic Bomb (1986) by Richard Rhodes
Context: All we had to do was lean back, turn a switch and watch a screen of a television tube. If flashes of light appeared on the screen it would mean that liberation of atomic energy would take place in our lifetime. We turned the switch, saw the flashes — we watched for about five minutes — then switched everything off and went home. That night I knew the world was headed for trouble.

William Shakespeare photo

“Off with his head!”

Richard, Act III, scene iv.
Richard III (1592–3)

Bertrand Russell photo

“Of remoter ancestors I can only discover one who did not live to a great age, and he died of a disease which is now rare, namely, having his head cut off.”

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

Source: 1950s, Portraits from Memory and Other Essays (1956), p. 50
Context: My first advice (on how not to grow old) would be to choose you ancestors carefully. Although both my parents died young, I have done well in this respect as regards my other ancestors. My maternal grandfather, it is true, was cut off in the flower of his youth, at the age of sixty-seven, but my other three grandparents all lived to be over eighty. Of remoter ancestors I can only discover one who did not live to a great age, and he died of a disease which is now rare, namely, having his head cut off.

Theodore Roosevelt photo

“The slightest study of business conditions will satisfy anyone capable of forming a judgment that the personal equation is the most important factor in a business operation; that the business ability of the man at the head of any business concern, big or little, is usually the factor which fixes the gulf between striking success and hopeless failure.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

1900s, First Annual Message to Congress (1901)
Context: The captains of industry who have driven the railway systems across this continent, who have built up our commerce, who have developed our manufactures, have on the whole done great good to our people. Without them the material development of which we are so justly proud could never have taken place. Moreover, we should recognize the immense importance of this material development of leaving as unhampered as is compatible with the public good the strong and forceful men upon whom the success of business operations inevitably rests. The slightest study of business conditions will satisfy anyone capable of forming a judgment that the personal equation is the most important factor in a business operation; that the business ability of the man at the head of any business concern, big or little, is usually the factor which fixes the gulf between striking success and hopeless failure.

Jeff Lynne photo

“Midnight on the water
I saw the ocean's daughter
Walking on a wave's chicane
Staring as she called my name And I can't get it out of my head”

Jeff Lynne (1947) British rock musician

"" ("Walking on a wave's chicane" are the official lyrics, but these are often heard and quoted as "Walking on a wave she came")
Eldorado, A Symphony (1974)
Context: Midnight on the water
I saw the ocean's daughter
Walking on a wave's chicane
Staring as she called my name And I can't get it out of my head
No, I can't get it out of my head
Now my old world is gone for dead
'Cos I can't get it out of my head

Aurelius Augustinus photo

“For sometimes Christ speaks in the name of the Head alone … sometimes in the name of His body”

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

Source: On the Mystical Body of Christ, p. 419
Context: In order to understand the Scriptures, it is absolutely necessary to know the whole, complete Christ, that is, Head and members. For sometimes Christ speaks in the name of the Head alone … sometimes in the name of His body, which is the holy Church spread over the entire earth. And we are in His body … and we hear ourselves speaking in it, for the Apostle tells us: “We are members of His body” (Eph. 5:30). In many places does the Apostle tell us this.

Julius Caesar photo
Benjamin Franklin photo

“If your head is wax, don't walk in the sun. ”

Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) American author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, inventor, civic activist, …
William Shakespeare photo
Edgar Allan Poe photo

“I remained too much inside my head and ended up losing my mind.”

Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849) American author, poet, editor and literary critic
Indíra Gándhí photo
Barack Obama photo
Jonathan Davis photo

“People die from typewriters falling on their heads.”

Jonathan Davis (1971) Heavy metal singer, frontman for Korn

talking about taking chances because you can die at any moment.

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada photo
David Foster Wallace photo

“If, by the virtue of charity or the circumstance of desperation, you ever chance to spend a little time around a Substance-recovery halfway facility like Enfield MA’s state-funded Ennet House, you will acquire many exotic new facts…That certain persons simply will not like you no matter what you do. That sleeping can be a form of emotional escape and can with sustained effort be abused. That purposeful sleep-deprivation can also be an abusable escape. That you do not have to like a person in order to learn from him/her/it. That loneliness is not a function of solitude. That logical validity is not a guarantee of truth. That it takes effort to pay attention to any one stimulus for more than a few seconds. That boring activities become, perversely, much less boring if you concentrate intently on them. That if enough people in a silent room are drinking coffee it is possible to make out the sound of steam coming off the coffee. That sometimes human beings have to just sit in one place and, like, hurt. That you will become way less concerned with what other people think of you when you realize how seldom they do. That there is such a thing as raw, unalloyed, agendaless kindness. That it is possible to fall asleep during an anxiety attack. That concentrating intently on anything is very hard work. That 99% of compulsive thinkers’ thinking is about themselves; that 99% of this self-directed thinking consists of imagining and then getting ready for things that are going to happen to them; and then, weirdly, that if they stop to think about it, that 100% of the things they spend 99% of their time and energy imagining and trying to prepare for all the contingencies and consequences of are never good. In short that 99% of the head’s thinking activity consists of trying to scare the everliving shit out of itself. That it is possible to make rather tasty poached eggs in a microwave oven. That some people’s moms never taught them to cover up or turn away when they sneeze. That the people to be the most frightened of are the people who are the most frightened. That it takes great personal courage to let yourself appear weak. That no single, individual moment is in and of itself unendurable. That other people can often see things about you that you yourself cannot see, even if those people are stupid. That having a lot of money does not immunize people from suffering or fear. That trying to dance sober is a whole different kettle of fish. That different people have radically different ideas of basic personal hygiene. That, perversely, it is often more fun to want something than to have it. That if you do something nice for somebody in secret, anonymously, without letting the person you did it for know it was you or anybody else know what it was you did or in any way or form trying to get credit for it, it’s almost its own form of intoxicating buzz. That anonymous generosity, too, can be abused. That it is permissible to want. That everybody is identical in their unspoken belief that way deep down they are different from everyone else. That this isn’t necessarily perverse. That there might not be angels, but there are people who might as well be angels.”

Infinite Jest (1996)

Leon Trotsky photo
Benjamin Creme photo
Jawaharlal Nehru photo

“The conflict between capitalism and democracy is inherent and continuous; it is often hidden by misleading propaganda and by the outward forms of democracy, such as parliaments, and the sops that the owning classes throw to the other classes to keep them more or less contented. A time comes when there are no more sops left to be thrown, and then the conflict between the two groups comes to a head, for now the struggle is for the real thing, economic power in the State. When that stage comes, all the supporters of capitalism, who had so far played with different parties, band themselves together to face the danger to their vested interests. Liberals and such-like groups disappear, and the forms of democracy are put aside. This stage bas now arrived in Europe and America, and fascism, which is dominant in some form or other in mast countries, represents that stage. Labour is everywhere on the defensive, not strong enough to face this new and powerful consolidation of the forces of capitalism. And yet, strangely enough, the capitalist system itself totters and cannot adjust itself to the new world. It seems certain that even if it succeeds in surviving, it will be but another stage in the long conflict. For modern industry and modern life itself, under any form of capitalism, are battlefields where armies are continually clashing against each other.”

Glimpses of World History (1949)

Jawaharlal Nehru photo
Tipu Sultan photo

“In the whole of the territories of the Balaghat (i. e., in the country below the ghats) most of the Hindu women go about with their breasts and heads uncovered. This is animal-like. No one of these women should hereafter go out without a fuller robe and a veil.”

Tipu Sultan (1750–1799) Ruler of the Sultanate of Mysore

Circular of Tipu Sultan to local administrators, quoted by K.N.V. Sastri, in his essay Moral Laws under Tipu Sultan https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.100038/page/n292, in The Proceedings Of The Indian History Congress 6th Session, 1943
From Tipu Sultan's Decrees

Karl Marx photo

“The Jewish Nigger, Lassalle… It is now quite plain to me — as the shape of his head and the way his hair grows also testify — that he is descended from the negroes who accompanied Moses’ flight from Egypt (unless his mother or paternal grandmother interbred with a nigger).”

Karl Marx (1818–1883) German philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist and revolutionary socialist

Now, this blend of Jewishness and Germanness, on the one hand, and basic negroid stock, on the other, must inevitably give rise to a peculiar product. The fellow’s importunity is also nigger-like.
Marx to Engels in Manchester http://hiaw.org/defcon6/works/1862/letters/62_07_30a.html (30 July 1862), MECW Volume 41, p. 388; first published: abridged in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx, Stuttgart, 1913, and in full in MEGA, Berlin, 1930.

Napoleon I of France photo
Ozzy Osbourne photo
Ozzy Osbourne photo

“…the other day, I went to a chiropractor. He's just a regular chiropractor. Whenever I meet someone who doesn't know me, they say, 'Oh you're the guy who bites the heads off everything.”

Ozzy Osbourne (1948) English heavy metal vocalist and songwriter

I get kind of cheesed off with it, but at least they remember. The thing that pisses me off is that that's not what I'm about. If that's what you think Ozzy Osbourne's about, then you're way off.
Launch.com, October 10, 1998

James I of England photo
Voltaire photo

“William Penn, when only fifteen years of age, chanced to meet a Quaker in Oxford, where he was then following his studies. This Quaker made a proselyte of him; and our young man, being naturally sprightly and eloquent, having a very winning aspect and engaging carriage, soon gained over some of his companions and intimates, and in a short time formed a society of young Quakers, who met at his house; so that at the age of sixteen he found himself at the head of a sect. Having left college, at his return home to the vice-admiral, his father, instead of kneeling to ask his blessing, as is the custom with the English, he went up to him with his hat on, and accosted him thus: "Friend, I am glad to see thee in good health."”

Voltaire (1694–1778) French writer, historian, and philosopher

The viceadmiral thought his son crazy; but soon discovered he was a Quaker. He then employed every method that prudence could suggest to engage him to behave and act like other people. The youth answered his father only with repeated exhortations to turn Quaker also. After much altercation, his father confined himself to this single request, that he would wait on the king and the duke of York with his hat under his arm, and that he would not "thee" and "thou" them. William answered that his conscience would not permit him to do these things. This exasperated his father to such a degree that he turned him out of doors. Young Penn gave God thanks that he permitted him to suffer so early in His cause, and went into the city, where he held forth, and made a great number of converts; and being young, handsome, and of a graceful figure, both court and city ladies flocked very devoutly to hear him. The patriarch Fox, hearing of his great reputation, came to London — notwithstanding the length of the journey — purposely to see and converse with him. They both agreed to go upon missions into foreign countries; and accordingly they embarked for Holland, after having left a sufficient number of laborers to take care of the London vineyard.
The History of the Quakers (1762)

Voltaire photo
Voltaire photo
Benjamin Creme photo
Karl Marx photo

“We are obviously heading for revolution—something I have never once doubted since 1850. The first act will include a by no means gratifying rehash of the stupidities of '48-'49. However, that's how world history runs its course, and one has to take it as one finds it.”

Karl Marx (1818–1883) German philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist and revolutionary socialist

Source: Letter to Ludwig Kugelmann (28 December 1862), quoted in The Collected Works of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels: Volume 41. Letters 1860–64 (2010), p. 437

Karl Marx photo

“As for the commercial business, I can no longer make head or tail of it. At one moment crisis seems imminent and the City prostrated, the next everything is set fair. I know that none of this will have any impact on the catastrophe.”

Karl Marx (1818–1883) German philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist and revolutionary socialist

Letter to Friedrich Engels (4 February 1852), quoted in The Collected Works of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels: Volume 39. Letters 1852–55 (2010), p. 32

Chadwick Boseman photo
Eckhart Tolle photo
Eckhart Tolle photo
David Belle photo
Millie Bobby Brown photo
Marcin Malek photo
Tupac Shakur photo
Isaac Mashman photo

“Competition only exists in your head, not in the marketplace.”

Isaac Mashman (2000) businessman, speaker

Source: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm11882368/bio?ref_=nm_dyk_qt_sm#quotes

Eckhart Tolle photo
Laozi photo

“If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading.”

Laozi (-604) semi-legendary Chinese figure, attributed to the 6th century, regarded as the author of the Tao Te Ching and fou…
Mwanandeke Kindembo photo
Gilbert O'Sullivan photo

“Say it is. Say it isn't.
Say it's someone else instead.
Say it's good when you don't like fishing.
You just knock it on the head.
You just knock it on the head.
Say goodbye. Say good morning.
Say good evening and good noon.
Say "Hello, tell me how you're feeling."”

Gilbert O'Sullivan (1946) Irish singer-songwriter

"Very well thanks and how are you?"
"Say Goodbye" (song)
Song lyrics
Source: Gilbert O'Sullivan, "Say Goodbye" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCLuE28J-WU (song on YouTube)

Kanye West photo

“Chased the good life my whole life long
Look back on my life, and my life gone
Where did I go wrong? And my head keeps spinning
Can't stop having these visions
I gotta get with it.”

Kanye West (1977) American rapper, singer and songwriter

Welcome to Heartbreak
Lyrics, 808s & Heartbreak (2008)

Cassandra Clare photo
Chuck Palahniuk photo
Toni Morrison photo
Anne Sexton photo
Emily Dickinson photo
John Steinbeck photo
Elizabeth Gilbert photo

“Who will ever kiss this encyclopedia of a head?”

Elizabeth Gilbert (1969) American writer

Source: The Signature of All Things

Rick Riordan photo
Ernest Cline photo
Meg Cabot photo
David Foster Wallace photo

“It is extremely difficult to stay alert & attentive instead of getting hypnotized by the constant monolog inside your head.”

David Foster Wallace (1962–2008) American fiction writer and essayist

Source: This Is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Life

Suzanne Collins photo
Haruki Murakami photo
Ernest Hemingway photo
Robert Kirkman photo