Quotes about hearing
page 2

“When I hear the term Right wing I think of Hitler and Satan and Civil war.”

Source: Journals (2002), p. 259

“I made a change from a common thief, to up-close and personal with Robin Leach, and I'm far from cheap. I smoke skunk with my peeps all day, spread love it's the Brooklyn way. The moet and alize keeps me pissy. Girls used to diss me, now they write letters cuz they miss me. I never thought it could happen this rapping stuff. I was too used to packing gats and stuff. Now honeys play me close like butter played toast, from the Mississippi down to the East Coast. Condos in queens, indoor for weeks. sold out seats to hear Biggy Smalls speak. Living life without fear, putting 5 carats in my baby girls ears. Lunchies, brunchies. Interviews by the pool, considered a fool 'cause I dropped out of high school. Stereotypes of a black male misunderstood and it's still all good.”

The Notorious B.I.G. (1972–1997) American rapper

Song lyrics, Ready to Die (1994), "Juicy"

Love, Life, Fear, School

“"It is not a dirty word, "feminism." I just think that women belong in the human population with the same rights as everybody else. … The problem is, "A feminist looks like this, or is like that." We are taught not to like ourselves as women, we are taught what we're supposed to look like, what our measurements are supposed to be. I never hear what measurements men are supposed to be. Just women."”

Cyndi Lauper (1953) American singer, songwriter, actress and activist

Interview with Matthew Rettenmund in his book "Totally Awesome 80's" (1996), p. 149-150

Women, Men, Problem, Thinking

“Hearing music is like viewing scenery and… when we hear good music our minds react in very much the same way they do when we see things.”

Marvin Minsky (1927–2016) American cognitive scientist

Music, Mind, and Meaning (1981)

Music, Way

“Upon the earth are animals and men, some in a middle region, others dwelling about the air as we dwell about the sea; others in islands which the air flows round, near the continent; and in a word, the air is used by them as the water and the sea are by us, and the ether is to them as the air is to us. Moreover, the temperament of their seasons is such that they have no disease, and live much longer than we do, and have sight and hearing and smell, and all the other senses, in far greater perfection, in the same degree that air is purer than water or the ether than air. Also they have temples and sacred places in which the gods really dwell, and they hear their voices and receive their answers and are conscious of them and hold converse with them, and they see the sun, moon, and stars as they really are, and their other blessedness is of a piece with this.”

Socrates (-470–-399 BC) classical Greek Athenian philosopher

Plato, Phaedo

Men, God, Disease, Star

“At the dinner table when I was very little, I would hear people bickering – the father saying something, the mother choosing to defend herself. To escape the bickering, I started modelling the soft bread with my fingers. With the dough of the French bread – sometimes it was still warm – I would make little figures. And I would line them up on the table and this was really my first sculpture.”

Louise Bourgeois (1911–2010) American and French sculptor

Louise Bourgeois: a web of emotions, 2010

People

“l'd been getting bored with the stereotyped changes that were being used all the time at the time, and I kept thinking there's bound to be something else. I could hear it sometimes but I couldn't play it. … I found that by using the higher intervals of a chord as a melody line and backing them with appropriately related changes I could play the thing I'd been hearing. I came alive.”

Charlie Parker (1920–1955) American jazz saxophonist and composer

On his personal stylistic breakthrough, quoted in Hear Me Talkin' to Ya (1955) edited by Nat Hentoff and Nat Shapiro, . p 354

Thinking, Change, Time

“I wake up from dreams and go, 'Wow, put this down on paper.' The whole thing is strange. You hear the words, everything is right there in front of your face. And you say to yourself, 'I'm sorry, I just didn't write this. It's there already.' That's why I hate to take credit for the songs I've written. I feel that somewhere, someplace, it's been done and I'm just a courier bringing it into the world. I really believe that. I love what I do. I'm happy at what I do. It's escapism.”

Michael Jackson (1958–2009) American singer, songwriter and dancer

"Michael Jackson - Life in the magical kingdom" - Rolling Stone (February 17, 1983) http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/michael-jackson-life-in-the-magical-kingdom-19830217 "Michael Jackson - Life in the Magical Kingdom" Rolling Stone 1983

Love, Hate, Happiness, World

“When I hear the word culture, I reach for my Browning!”

Hermann Göring (1893–1946) German politician and military leader

"When I hear the word culture, I reach for my revolver" was also is used in the 1981 Cannes Film Festival Award winner Mephisto spoken by a character known as "The General" in the English dubbed version.
Misattributed
Variant: "When I hear the word culture, I reach for my revolver." Often attributed to Göring, who might have used such lines, these statements are derived from those in the play Schlageter by Hanns Johst: "Wenn ich Kultur höre … entsichere ich meinen Browning!" [Whenever I hear of culture... I release the safety-catch of my Browning!] (Act 1, Scene 1) The play was first performed in April 1933 for Hitler's birthday. Reported as a misattribution in Paul F. Boller, Jr., and John George, They Never Said It: A Book of Fake Quotes, Misquotes, & Misleading Attributions (1989), p. 36.

“Grandfather, Great Spirit, once more behold me on earth and lean to hear my feeble voice. You lived first, and you are older than all need, older than all prayer. All things belong to you — the two-leggeds, the four-leggeds, the wings of the air and all green things that live. You have set the powers of the four quarters to cross each other. The good road and the road of difficulties you have made to cross; and where they cross, the place is holy. Day in and day out, forever, you are the life of things.
Therefore, I am sending a voice, Great Spirit, my Grandfather, forgetting nothing you have made, the stars of the universe and the grasses of the earth.”

Black Elk (1863–1950) Oglala Lakota leader

Black Elk Speaks (1961)

Life, Star, Grass, Universe

“It was now the hour that turns back the longing of seafarers and melts their heart the day they have bidden dear friends farewell and pierces the new traveller with love if he hears in the distance the bell that seems to mourn the dying day.”

Dante Alighieri book Purgatorio

Canto VIII, lines 1–6 (tr. Sinclair).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Purgatorio

Love, Travel, Heart

“I keep hearing about muthafucking Harry Potter. Who is this muthafucker?”

Snoop Dogg (1971) American rapper, singer-songwriter, record producer, and actor

“My favorite thing is being able to travel around the world and perform for my fans. I think I’ve lost 80 percent of my hearing. I definitely have very loud fans.”

Justin Bieber (1994) Canadian singer-songwriter, record producer, and actor

Vibe "Justin Bieber on Photo Shoots, Puberty, 2Pac & Drake" http://www.vibe.com/article/justin-bieber-photo-shoots-puberty-2pac-drake, 22 July 2010

World, Travel, Thinking

“I had a bad PCP [angel dust] experience when I was 14 and I got panic disorder. And of course, I wasn’t telling anyone the truth. It’s not like you go to your dad or your doctor and say, “Yeah, I smoked PCP and I’m having a bad time.” So I became more or less agoraphobic because I’d have flashbacks. From 14 to 16, I didn’t have any friends. I stayed home most of the time. Up till then life was pretty great. The world was big and I felt I could do anything I wanted. Suddenly, I felt like I couldn’t do anything. But in the isolation, my imagination really had time to run. I never did any drugs until my late 20s. Unfortunately, being a child of two alcoholics, I started drinking a lot, and that’s what eventually got me back into drugs. You often hear that pot leads to harder drugs. But I think alcohol is what leads you to everything, because it takes away the fear. The worst drug experimentation I ever did was because I was drunk and didn’t care.”

Chris Cornell (1964–2017) American singer-songwriter, musician

Talking about drugs, quoted in **
Audioslave Era

Life, Alcohol, Truth, World

“Is your voice “silence”?
When you are not singing a song then I hear your song’s melody clearly!
Your voice is silence. Is your face “darkness”?
When I shut my eyes then I see your face clearly!
Your face is darkness.Is your shadow “light”?
Your shadow is cast on the dark window after the moon has gone down!
Your shadow is light.”

Han Yong-un (1879–1944) Korean writer

"Inverse Proportion", translated by Sammy Solberg

Light, Silence, Singing

“President Donald Trump's remarks which described the U. S. option through straightforward expression of his will have convinced me, rather than frightening or stopping me, that the path I chose is correct and that it is the one I have to follow to the last. […] Action is the best option in treating the dotard who, hard of hearing, is uttering only what he wants to say. […] I am now thinking hard about what response he could have expected when he allowed such eccentric words to trip off his tongue. Whatever Trump might have expected, he will face results beyond his expectation. I will surely and definitely tame the mentally deranged U. S. dotard with fire.”

Kim Jong-un (1984) 3rd Supreme Leader of North Korea

Official statement from September 22, 2017, as quoted in Washington Post https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/09/21/north-korean-leader-to-trump-i-will-surely-and-definitely-tame-the-mentally-deranged-u-s-dotard-with-fire/

Thinking

“When I hear the word Culture I take out my checkbook”

Barbara Kruger (1945) American artist

Words on an untitled artwork (1985)
A takeoff on the quote "Whenever I hear the word 'Culture,' I reach for my revolver," from Hans Johst, Schlageter (1933), act I, scene I (actual quote: Wenn ich Kultur höre … entsichere ich meinen Browning! [Whenever I hear of culture... I release the safety-catch of my Browning!])
Paraphrased from The Monkey Wrench Gang by Edward Abbey, '"When I heard the word 'culture,'" said Dr. Sarvis "I reach for my checkbook."' pg. 109

“My men don't surrender. I don't want to hear of any soldier under my command being captured unless he has been hit. Even if you are hit, you can still fight back.”

George S. Patton (1885–1945) United States Army general

Speech to the Third Army (1944)

Men, Fight

“However, the most cruel mistake occurred with the failure to understand the Vietnam war. Some people sincerely wanted all wars to stop just as soon as possible; others believed that there should be room for national, or communist, self-determination in Vietnam, or in Cambodia, as we see today with particular clarity. But members of the U. S. anti-war movement wound up being involved in the betrayal of Far Eastern nations, in a genocide and in the suffering today imposed on 30 million people there. Do those convinced pacifists hear the moans coming from there? Do they understand their responsibility today? Or do they prefer not to hear?”

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918–2008) Russian writer

Harvard University address (1978)

War, People, Failure, Understanding

“Someone will say: Yes, Socrates, but cannot you hold your tongue, and then you may go into a foreign city, and no one will interfere with you? Now I have great difficulty in making you understand my answer to this. For if I tell you that this would be a disobedience to a divine command, and therefore that I cannot hold my tongue, you will not believe that I am serious; and if I say that the greatest good of a man is daily to converse about virtue, and all that concerning which you hear me examining myself and others, and that the life which is unexamined is not worth living — that you are still less likely to believe.”

Socrates (-470–-399 BC) classical Greek Athenian philosopher

37e–38a
Plato, Apology

Life, Understanding

“Wherever we are, what we hear is mostly noise. When we ignore it, it disturbs us. When we listen to it, we find it fascinating. The sound of a truck at fifty miles per hour. Static between the stations. Rain. We want to capture and control these sounds, to use them not as sound effects but as musical instruments. Every film studio has a library of "sound effects" recorded on film. With a film phonograph it is now possible to control the amplitude and frequency of any one of these sounds and to give to it rhythms within or beyond the reach of the imagination. Given four film phonographs, we can compose and perform a quartet for explosive motor, wind, heartbeat, and landslide.”

John Cage (1912–1992) American avant-garde composer

Quote of John Cage, in: 'The Future of Music: Credo' (1937); in: 'Silence: lectures and writings by Cage, John', Publisher Middletown, Conn. Wesleyan University Press, June 1961, V.
1930s

Music, Imagination

“The healthy eye ought to see all visible things and not to say, I wish for green things; for this is the condition of the diseased eye. And the healthy hearing and smelling ought to be ready to perceive all that can be heard and smelled. And the healthy stomach ought to be”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

X, 35
Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book X
Context: The healthy eye ought to see all visible things and not to say, I wish for green things; for this is the condition of the diseased eye. And the healthy hearing and smelling ought to be ready to perceive all that can be heard and smelled. And the healthy stomach ought to be with respect to all food just as the mill with respect to all things which it is formed to grind. And accordingly the healthy understanding ought to be prepared for everything which happens; but that which says, Let my dear children live, and let all men praise whatever I may do, is an eye which seeks for green things, or teeth which seek for soft things.

Disease

“I mean that almost nobody seems to feel that an opponent deserves a fair hearing or that the objective truth matters as long as you can score a neat debating point.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

"As I Please," Tribune (8 December 1944) http://alexpeak.com/twr/tdoaom/ "As I Please" (1943–1947) Context: The thing that strikes me more and more—and it strikes a lot of other people, too—is the extraordinary viciousness and dishonesty of political controversy in our time. I don't mean merely that controversies are acrimonious. They ought to be that when they are on serious subjects. I mean that almost nobody seems to feel that an opponent deserves a fair hearing or that the objective truth matters as long as you can score a neat debating point.

Truth, Feeling

“As for me, the silence and emptiness is so great that I look and do not see, listen and do not hear. The tongue moves but does not speak.”

Matka Tereza (1910–1997) Roman Catholic saint of Albanian origin

Letter to Michael van der Peet (September 1979), quoted in "Mother Teresa Did Not Feel Christ's Presence for Last Half of Her Life, Letters Reveal", Fox News (24 August 2007) http://www.foxnews.com/story/2007/08/24/mother-teresa-did-not-feel-christ-presence-for-last-half-her-life-letters/ 1970s Context: Jesus has a very special love for you. As for me, the silence and emptiness is so great that I look and do not see, listen and do not hear. The tongue moves but does not speak.

Silence

“When I am dead, bury me
In my beloved Ukraine,
My tomb upon a grave mound high
Amid the spreading plain,
So that the fields, the boundless steppes,
The Dnieper's plunging shore
My eyes could see, my ears could hear
The mighty river roar.

When from Ukraine the Dnieper bears
Into the deep blue sea
The blood of foes… then will I leave
These hills and fertile fields --
I'll leave them all and fly away
To the abode of God,
And then I'll pray…. But until that day
I know nothing of God.

Oh bury me, then rise ye up
And break your heavy chains
And water with the tyrants' blood
The freedom you have gained.
And in the great new family,
The family of the free,
With softly spoken, kindly word
Remember also me.”

Taras Shevchenko Testamento

Taras Shevchenko Zapovit, 1845 (Shevchenko's "Testament"), Translated by John Weir, Toronto, 1961; Online at

God, Family, Freedom, Water

“OH! hear a pensive captive's prayer,
For liberty that sighs;
And never let thine heart be shut
Against the prisoner's cries.”

Anna Laetitia Barbauld The Mouse's Petition

The Mouse's Petition (1773)

Heart

“Anyone who challenges the prevailing orthodoxy finds himself silenced with surprising effectiveness. A genuinely unfashionable opinion is almost never given a fair hearing, either in the popular press or in the highbrow periodicals.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

"The Freedom of the Press", unused preface to Animal Farm (1945), published in Times Literary Supplement (15 September 1972)
Context: At any given moment there is an orthodoxy, a body of ideas which it is assumed that all right-thinking people will accept without question. It is not exactly forbidden to say this, that or the other, but it is 'not done' to say it, just as in mid-Victorian times it was 'not done' to mention trousers in the presence of a lady. Anyone who challenges the prevailing orthodoxy finds himself silenced with surprising effectiveness. A genuinely unfashionable opinion is almost never given a fair hearing, either in the popular press or in the highbrow periodicals.

Silence

“We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals. Remote from universal nature, and living by complicated artifice, man in civilization surveys the creature through the glass of his knowledge and sees thereby a feather magnified and the whole image in distortion. We patronize them for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate of having taken form so far below ourselves. And therein we err, and greatly err. For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours they moved finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth.”

Henry Beston book The Outermost House

Source: The Outermost House, 1928, p. 25: Ch 2

Life, Fate, World, Nature

“It is difficult to get a hearing from busy men for even a great new truth.”

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

[408247, October 1927, Listerian Oration: 1927 (delivered at the annual meeting of the Canadian Medical Association, Toronto, June 18, 1927), Canadian Medical Association Journal, 17, 10 Pt 2, 1255–1263, 20316567, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC408247/] quote from p. 1261; This oration sponsored by the Lister Club of the Canadian Medical Association should not be confused with the Lister Oration sponsored by the Royal College of Surgeons of England.

Men, Truth, Business

“Trust intuition and feel, not what you hear.”

Gandolfo – (RJ Intindola)

1983

Feeling

“When you look deeply into yourself you may be able to see that there is, in this moment, a quality of aliveness that is animating you that is not philosophical and is not abstract. It's independent of what you think about it, what you believe about it and what you feel about it. It's always there! it is animating your breath, It is coursing the spirit, it is what makes it possible for you to think and speak and see and hear.”

Alexis Karpouzos (1967)

Source: The self-criticism of science

“And once, in spite of the men who gripped him by each shoulder, he stepped slightly aside to avoid a puddle on the path. It is curious, but till that moment I had never realised what it means to destroy a healthy, conscious man. When I saw the prisoner step aside to avoid the puddle, I saw the mystery, the unspeakable wrongness, of cutting a life short when it is in full tide. This man was not dying, he was alive just as we were alive. All the organs of his body were working – bowels digesting food, skin renewing itself, nails growing, tissues forming – all toiling away in solemn foolery. His nails would still be growing when he stood on the drop, when he was falling through the air with a tenth of a second to live. His eyes saw the yellow gravel and the grey walls, and his brain still remembered, foresaw, reasoned – reasoned even about puddles. He and we were a party of men walking together, seeing, hearing, feeling, understanding the same world; and in two minutes, with a sudden snap, one of us would be gone – one mind less, one world less.”

George Orwell book A Hanging

Source: "A Hanging", in The Adelphi (August 1931)

Life, Men, World, Food

“I have lost a bit of my sight, much of my hearing. At conferences, I can't see the presentations and can't hear well. But I think more now than when I when I was twenty. The body can do whatever it likes. I am not the body: I am the mind.”

Rita Levi-Montalcini (1909–2012) Italian neurologist

Source: In an interview with Paolo Giordano, 100 anni di futuro, Wired, n. 1, marzo 2009. Source: Cited by Elisabetta Intini, Addio alla signora della scienza, le sue frasi più belle http://www.focus.it/scienza/addio-alla-signora-della-scienza-le-sue-frasi-piu-belle, Focus.it, 31 dicembre 2012. Source: Cited in Addio Rita Levi Montalcini, le frasi più belle di un genio gentile http://www.vanityfair.it/news/italia/12/12/30/rita-levi-montalcini-morta-frasi, VanityFair.it, 30 dicembre 2012.

Thinking

“There are certain songs that can really cause you to re-experience an overwhelming melancholy which leads to tears when you hear them. But it's actually not the song that makes you cry, it is the people behind the memories.”

Stephie Pahlavi Zan

People, Tear, Memory, Cry