Quotes about hearing
page 26

“Don't worry about that baby. I love babies. I hear that baby crying, I like it. What a baby. What a beautiful baby. Don't worry, don't worry. The mom's running around like—don't worry about it, you know. It's young and beautiful and healthy and that's what we want. […] Actually, I was only kidding, you can get the baby out of here. That's all right. Don't worry. I, I think she really believed me that I love having a baby crying while I'm speaking. That's OK. People don't understand. That's OK.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

At a rally in Ashburn, Virginia. http://www.politico.com/story/2016/08/trump-kicks-out-baby-rally-226566 (August 2, 2016) 2010s, 2016, August

Love, People, Beauty, Moms

“And they — what I hear, you know, talking about our president. When I hear people saying quite unthinkable things about our president, when I see our president defaced, which is defacing our country. He's the leader of our country. He's the leader of the free world. It — my heart is very heavy.”

Jon Voight (1938) American actor

Speaking about criticism of then-President George W. Bush on the April 27, 2007 edition of The O'Reilly Factor http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,268940,00.html

People, World, Heart, Country

“Farewel, thou cruel world! – to morrow
No more thy scorn my heart shall tear: –
The grave will shield the child of sorrow,
And heaven will hear the orphan's prayer.”

Matthew Lewis (writer) (1775–1818) English novelist and dramatist

"The Orphan's Prayer", line 29; cited from Titus Strong (ed.) The Common Reader (Greenfield, Mass.: Denio & Phelps, 1819) p. 174.

World, Tear, Heart

“Many individuals spend a considerable portion of their lifetimes in terror of one imagined catastrophe or another. The classic is that your immortal soul will be consigned to eternal torment in the never-ending subterranean barbecue if you fail to follow the whacky edicts of one particular set of puckered dogwhistles or another. You may recall from the great movie Strange Days that a "dogwhistle" is a guy whose asshole is so tight that when he farts, only dogs can hear him.”

L. Neil Smith (1946) American writer

"The Bad Guys," http://www.bigheadpress.com/lneilsmith/?p=136 28 April 2009.

Dogs, Guy, Soul, Imagination

“Sometimes the beauty is easy.
Sometimes you don't have to try at all.
Sometimes you can hear the wind blow in a handshake.
Sometimes there's poetry written right on the bathroom wall.”

Ani DiFranco (1970) musician and activist

Good, Bad, Ugly
Song lyrics

Beauty

“It's stupidity. It's worse than stupidity: it's a marketing hype campaign. … Somebody is saying this is inevitable – and whenever you hear somebody saying that, it's very likely to be a set of businesses campaigning to make it true.”

Richard Stallman (1953) American software freedom activist, short story writer and computer programmer, founder of the GNU project

"Cloud computing is a trap, warns GNU founder Richard Stallman", in The Guardian (29 September 2008) http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2008/sep/29/cloud.computing.richard.stallman 2000s

Stupidity, Business

“I can't hear a word you're saying
Tell me what are you singing
In the sun”

Kate Bush (1958) British recording artist; singer, songwriter, musician and record producer

Song lyrics, Aerial (2005), A Sky of Honey (Disc 2)

Singing, Sun

“Somebody say once that I like to goof off; that I'm lazy because I don't play winter ball and make a habit of reporting late to spring training. What these fellows don't know is that I have no time for winter ball. When I return home to Puerto Rico after the baseball season, I open my camp right away. It is a camp for boys, where they can come and learn how to play baseball. They come from all ages and get a lot of help. Cepeda spends some time with me. He teaches how to play first base. José Santiago shows them how to pitch. 'Chito' Rios, he comes from Mayagüez and gives base running instruction. Even Frank Lane has been there and talked to my kids. Jim Brown has been there, and Tommy Nobis, to talk football, although most of our kids have little interest in football. But they like to hear these fellows. Bill Russell has been there; so have Oscar Robertson and all the Harlem Globetrotters. The boys love it, and I really believe it has meant a lot in the development of some fine young men for later life.”

Roberto Clemente (1934–1972) Puerto Rican baseball player

As quoted in "All-Star Case of Roberto Clemente"
Baseball-related, <big><big>1970s</big></big>, <big>1970</big>

Love, Life, Men, Age

“I've come up with the three things you never want to hear at your kid's parent/teacher conference. Number one: "You're only responsible for the first $10,000 worth of damage." Number two: "We have medication for this." And number three: "It was more than an ounce and he was less than 100 yards from the school."”

Bill Engvall (1957) American comedian and actor

Cheap Drunk: An Autobiography (2002)

School, Parent, Teachers

“The same piece of music alters at each hearing. But oh, the need to repeat and repeat and repeat unchanged the sexual experience.”

Ned Rorem (1923–2022) American composer

[Who's Who in Contemporary Gay & Lesbian History: From World War II to the Present Day, ISBN 041522974X, 2001, Aldrich, Robert and Wotherspoon, Gary (eds)]

Music

“Five years have passed; five summers, with the length
Of five long winters! and again I hear
These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs
With a sweet inland murmur.—Once again
Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs,
Which on a wild secluded scene impress
Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect
The landscape with the quiet of the sky.”

William Wordsworth book Lyrical Ballads

Stanza 1.
Lyrical Ballads (1798–1800), Lines written a few miles above Tintern Abbey (1798)

Mountain, Spring, Water, Winter

“It is particularly displeasing to hear professional critics using the term "layman" to describe people who are amateurs and patrons of those arts with which they are themselves professionally concerned. The fact that the critic gets money for knowing something, and giving public expression to his opinion, does not entitle him to consider the amateur, who may be as well informed and as sensitive as himself, an outsider.”

Robertson Davies book A Voice from the Attic

A Voice from the Attic (1960)

Money, People, Art

“Jock with his crutches beats the time;
The gunner, with his head close-bound,
Listen with puzzled, patient smile:
(Shell shocked-he cannot hear a sound).
The others join in from their beds,
And send the chorus rolling round.”

Eva Dobell (1876–1963) British poet

Unsourced, In A Soldiers' Hospital II: Gramophone Tunes

Smile, Time

“Time seems cold, each day we grey away. Believe the lines that we’ve been told, 'Lose our way lose yesterday’, they say, but who are they? Who are they anyway? They didn’t hear us play at eight years old.”

Dawud Wharnsby (1972) Canadian musician

"Eight Years Old"
Out Seeing The Fields (2007)

Way, Time

“There are two forms of knowledge, one genuine, one obscure. To the obscure belong all of the following: sight, hearing, smell, taste, feeling. The other form is the genuine, and is quite distinct from this. [And then distinguishing the genuine from the obscure, he continues:] Whenever the obscure [way of knowing] has reached the minimum sensibile of hearing, smell, taste, and touch, and when the investigation must be carried farther into that which is still finer, then arises the genuine way of knowing, which has a finer organ of thought.”

Democritus Ancient Greek philosopher, pupil of Leucippus, founder of the atomic theory

Source Book in Ancient Philosophy (1907), The Fragments

Way, Feeling, Knowledge

“The men of the Niagara Movement coming from the toil of the year's hard work and pausing a moment from the earning of their daily bread turn toward the nation and again ask in the name of ten million the privilege of a hearing. In the last year the work of the Negro hater has flourished in the land. Step by step the defenders of the rights of American citizens have retreated. The work of stealing the black man's ballot has progressed and the fifty and more representatives of stolen votes still sit in the nation's capital. Discrimination in travel and public accommodation has so spread the some of our weaker brethren are actually afraid to thunder against color discrimination as such and are simply whispering for ordinary decencies.”

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

The Niagara Movement, Address to the Country

Men, Color, Travel

“After supper we are sitting close to the church in a quiet spot. As if from a distance we hear prayers and singing. The monks are holding their vesper services. Then it falls silent, wonderfully silent!
The sun has already set. … We are quiet, too. … A door is closed somewhere. A man's, then a woman's voice. Children are praying! My dear Jesus! Then it falls silent again. Wonderfully silent!
The night spreads its wide, black wings over the land.”

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

Nach dem Abendbrot sitzen wir an der Kirche in einem stillen Winkel. Wie von ferne hören wir Gebet und Singen. Die Mönche halten ihre Abendandacht. Und dann wird es still, wunderbar still!
Die Sonne ist schon untergegangen. … Auch wir schweigen. … Irgendwo wird eine Tür geschlossen. Eine Männer-, dann eine Frauenstimme. Kinderbeten! Du lieber Jesus mein! Dann wird es wieder still. Wunderbar still!
Die Nacht legt ihre breiten, schwarzen Flügel auf das Land.
Michael: a German fate in diary notes (1926)

Children, Singing, Sun, Night

“The economy is so bad, two Milwaukee men were arrested this week for trying to join ISIS. Did you hear their excuse, they said, "Hey! Nobody else is hiring!"”

Jay Leno (1950) American comedian, actor, writer, producer, voice actor and television host

THAT'S how bad it is! Guest monologue on The Tonight Show http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/jay-leno-takes-jimmy-fallons-867267, 31 October, 2016 The Tonight Show

Men

“Was never eie did see that face,
Was never eare did heare that tong,
Was never minde did minde his grace,
That ever thought the travell long;
But eies and eares and ev'ry thought
Were with his sweete perfections caught.”

Mathew Roydon (1583–1622) English poet

An Elegie; or Friend's Passion for his Astrophill, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Travel, Perfection

“I see badly, I hear badly, and I feel bad, but everything's fine.”

Jeanne Calment (1875–1934) French supercentenarian who had the longest confirmed human life span in history

Source: Craig R. Whitney, " In France, A Citizen Turns 120 http://www.nytimes.com/1995/02/22/world/in-france-a-citizen-turns-120.html," The New York Times February 22, 1995.

Feeling

“We'll kill the fatted calf tonight, so stick around,
You're gonna hear electric music, solid walls of sound.”

Elton John (1947) English rock singer-songwriter, composer and pianist

Bennie and the Jets
Song lyrics, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road (1973)

Music

“The major religions on the Earth contradict each other left and right. You can’t all be correct. And what if all of you are wrong? It’s a possibility, you know. You must care about the truth, right? Well, the way to winnow through all the differing contentions is to be skeptical. I’m not any more skeptical about your religious beliefs than I am about every new scientific idea I hear about. But in my line of work, they’re called hypotheses, not inspiration and not revelation.”

Carl Sagan book Contact

Source: Contact (1985), Chapter 10 (p. 162)

Truth, Religion, Way, Idea

“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)

Age, Way, Soul, Spring

“The world of antitrust is reminiscent of Alice’s Wonderland: everything seemingly is, yet apparently isn’t, simultaneously. It is a world in which competition is lauded as the basic axiom and guiding principle, yet "too much" competition is condemned as "cutthroat." It is a world in which actions designed to limit competition are branded as criminal when taken by businessmen, yet praised as "enlightened" when initiated by the government. It is a world in which the law is so vague that businessmen have no way of knowing whether specific actions will be declared illegal until they hear the judge’s verdict—after the fact.”

Alan Greenspan (1926) 13th Chairman of the Federal Reserve in the United States

"Antitrust", essay at the National Association of Business Economists (25 September 1961); published in Rand, Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal.
1950–60s

World, Law, Way

“Really I wish I was more acquainted than I am, with the course of criminal jurisdiction—if the question had never been decided, I should have extreme doubts upon it, and those extreme doubts which I should have would lead me in a criminal case to do otherwise than I should do in a civil case—in every civil case [I speak in the hearing of a great many professional gentlemen] wherever I have serious doubts, I follow the doctrine which I have collected to be laid down by Lord Hardwicke; I receive the evidence, giving the jury the best instruction I can upon the effect of it; and I do it in the case of civil proceedings, without running the risk of doing any hurt, because if I receive it improperly, a season will come when the Court can correct my error.”

Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon (1732–1802) British Baron

Stone's Case (1796), 25 How. St. Tr. 1272.

Error, Question, Hurt, Season

“At this point, I wouldn't want to jinx it by meeting him. His arrangements are incredible. I just send him a tape, we talk on the phone, and he sends me the finished orchestra tracks. Hear that? I'm gonna get that chord on the radio!”

Prince (1958–2016) American pop, songwriter, musician and actor

Discussing his then nearly decade-and-a-half-long working relationship with arranger Clare Fischer (whom he'd never met, nor ever would meet, face to face), as quoted in the January 2000 issue of Keyboard Magazine, reprinted in Keyboard Presents Synth Gods https://books.google.com/books?id=BMucfBTXvMgC&pg=PA97&dq=%22I+wouldn't+want+to+jinx+it%22+%22that+chord+on+the+radio%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=w2acVdevKIKYyASn3oCoBg&ved=0CBQQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false (2011), edited by Ernie Rideout, p. 97

“To whom do you award the right to decide which speech is harmful, or who is the harmful speaker? Or to determine in advance what are the harmful consequences going to be, that we know enough about in advance to prevent? To whom would you give this job? To whom are you going to award the task of being the censor? Isn't it a famous old story that the man who has to read all the pornography, in order to decide what's fit to be passed and what isn't, is the man most likely to become debauched? Did you hear any speaker of the opposition to this motion – eloquent as one of them was – to whom you would delegate the task of deciding for you what you could read? To whom you would give the job of deciding for you? Relieve you from the responsibility of hearing what you might have to hear? Do you know anyone? Hands up, do you know anyone to whom you'd give this job? Does anyone have a nominee?”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyoOfRog1EM&feature=youtu.be&t=9m19s
"Be It Resolved: Freedom of Speech Includes the Freedom to Hate", 15/11/2006.
2000s, 2006

Reading

“We lived in places that we never knew.
We could not name the birds perched on our sill,
Or see the trees we cut down for our view.
What we possessed we always chose to kill."We claimed the earth but did not hear her claim,
And when we died, they laid us on her breast,
But she refuses us — until we earn
Forgiveness from the lives we dispossessed.”

Dana Gioia (1950) American writer

"A California Requiem"
Poetry, Interrogations at Noon (2001)

Forgiveness, Bird, Tree

“The greenish sky glows up in misty reds,
The purple shadows turn to brick and stone,
The dreams wear thin, men turn upon their beds,
And hear the milk-cart jangle by alone.”

Sara Teasdale (1884–1933) American writer and poet

"City Vignettes, I: Dawn"
Helen of Troy and Other Poems (1911)

Men, Dreams

“Now comes the objection which you hear in the mouths of Democrats everywhere. Negro equality! Negro equality! The "Black Republicans" are in favor of negro equality!”

Owen Lovejoy (1811–1864) American politician

As quoted in His Brother's Blood: Speeches and Writings, 1838&ndash;64 https://books.google.com/books?id=qMEv8DNXVbIC&pg=PA239 (2004), edited by William Frederick Moore and Jane Ann Moore, p. 239 1860s, Speech (October 1860)

“Oft, on a plat of rising ground,
I hear the far-off curfew sound
Over some wide-watered shore,
Swinging low with sullen roar.”

John Milton (1608–1674) English epic poet

Source: Il Penseroso (1631), Line 73

Water

“I who am blind can give one hint to those who see - one admonition to those who would make full use of the gift of sight: Use your eyes as if tomorrow you would be stricken blind. And the same method can be applied to other senses. Hear the music of voices, the song of a bird, the mighty strains of an orchestra, as if you would be stricken deaf to-morrow. Touch each object you want to touch as if tomorrow your tactile sense would fail. Smell the perfume of flowers, taste with relish each morsel, as if tomorrow you could never smell and taste again. Make the most of every sense; glory in all the facets of pleasure and beauty which the world reveals to you through the several means of contact which Nature provides.”

Helen Keller (1880–1968) American author and political activist

Three Days to See (1933)

Pleasure, World, Beauty, Music

“Is there an intelligent man or woman now in the world who believes in the Garden of Eden story? If you find any man who believes it, strike his forehead and you will hear an echo. Something is for rent.”

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer

Orthodoxy (1884)

World, Intelligence

“I would like to hear more of the consummate melodic master, but I feel that big business and his record company have had a corrupting influence on his material. The rock and pop thing certainly draws a wider audience. It happens more and more these days, that unqualified people with executive positions try to tell musicians what is good and what is bad music. It’s tempting for the musician to prejudice his own views when recording opportunities are so infrequent but I for one am determined to resist the temptation.”

Miles Davis (1926–1991) American jazz musician

Bill Evans, on about Miles Davis's change of style to jazz fusion.
http://jazztimes.com/articles/20128-miles-davis-and-bill-evans-miles-and-bill-in-black-white.
Quotes by others

People, Music, Feeling, Business

“I’m hearing stop the violence but that can’t be. As long as we don’t look at ourselves, as a society”

Marcus Orelias (1993) American actor, rapper, songwriter, author and entrepreneur

Exercise Control
Rebel of the Underground (2013)

“It is by self-reliance, humanly speaking, by the independence which has been the motive and impelling force of our race, that the Scots have thriven in India and in Canada, in Australia and New Zealand, and even in England, where at different times they were banned. As things are we in Scotland do not take much or even ask much from the State, but the State invites us every day to lean upon it. I seem hear the wheedling and alluring whisper, "Sound you may be; we bid you be a cripple. Do you see? Be blind. Do you hear? Be deaf. Do you walk? Be not venturesome; here is a crutch for one arm. When you get accustomed to it you will soon want another, the sooner the better." The strongest man, if encouraged, may soon accustom himself to the methods of an invalid; he may train himself to totter or to be fed with a spoon. The ancient sculptors represent Hercules leaning on his club; our modern Hercules would have his club elongated and duplicated and resting under his arms. (Laughter.) The lesson of our Scottish teaching was "Level up"; the cry of modern civilization is "Level down; let the Government have a finger in every pie," probing, propping, disturbing. ("Hear, hear," and laughter.) Every day the area for initiative is being narrowed, every day the standing ground for self-reliance is being undermined, every day the public infringes, with the best intentions, no doubt, on the individual. The nation is being taken into custody by the State. Perhaps the current cannot now be stemmed; agitation or protest may be alike unavailing; the world rolls on, it may be part of its destiny, a necessary phase in its long evolution, a stage in its blind, toilsome progress to an invisible goal. I neither affirm nor deny. All in the long run is doubtless for the best; but, speaking as a Scotsman to Scotsmen, I plead for our historical character, for the maintenance of those sterling national qualities which have meant so much to Scotland in the past.”

Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery (1847–1929) British politician

Cheers.
Speech to Glasgow University (12 June 1908), reported in The Times (13 June 1908), p. 12.

World, Motivation, Laughter, Time

“The hardest thing about being famous is that people are always nice to you. You're in a conversation and everybody's agreeing with what you're saying—even if you say something totally crazy. You need people who can tell you what you don't want to hear.”

Robert De Niro (1943) American actor, director and producer

What I've Learned

People

“What I compare bike lanes to is swimming with the sharks. Sooner or later you're going to get bitten… Roads are built for buses, cars, and trucks, not for people on bikes. My heart bleeds for them when I hear someone gets killed, but it’s their own fault at the end of the day.”

Rob Ford (1969–2016) Canadian politician, 64th Mayor of Toronto

Remarks on cyclist http://bicycling.com/blogs/thehub/2012/05/03/toronto-mayor-cyclists-are-a-pain-in-the-ass/?cm_mmc=Facebook-_-Bicycling-_-Content-Blog-_-toronto (3 May 2012) 2010s, 2012

People, Cars, Heart

“New methods change the experience, and new experiences change man. Whenever we hear sounds, we are changed, we are no longer the same, and this is more the case when we hear organized sounds; music.”

Karlheinz Stockhausen (1928–2007) German composer

http://www.ubu.com/film/stockhausen_tuning.html Tuning In (1981) BBC documentary on Stockhausen. Attributed

Music, Change

“[his plan to prevent potential boyfriends from taking advantage of his daughter]
I'm going to pull him in tight next to me so only he and I can hear the conversation. And I'm gonna say to him, "Boy, look at me. You see that little girl right there? She's my only little girl, man. She's my life. So if you have any... thoughts... about huggin', or... kissin', you remember these words: 'I've got no problem going back to prison.'"”

Bill Engvall (1957) American comedian and actor

Blue Collar Comedy Tour, Blue Collar Comedy Tour: The Movie (2003)

Life, Girl, Boy, Problem

“A lot of musicians are going to have to retrain. It's nonsense to say that traditional classical music is more complex. Contemporary pieces by Harrison Birtwistle are much harder to play than Mozart or Wagner. I know a lot of people don't want to hear that.”

Joanna MacGregor (1959) British musician

The Mail on Sunday, 06/02/2000
On Classical Music

People, Music

“Lois: Oh, you guys have enough to worry about with your careers and all. You don't need to hear about my problems.
Ginger: Are you kidding? I'd much rather hear about your problems than work on my dissertation.
Lois: Thank you, Ginger. Considering you'd rather fellate Bill Clinton than work on your dissertation, that's very generous.”

Alison Bechdel book Dykes to Watch Out For

#250, "Ph. D. & Sympathy" (1996), collected in Hot, Throbbing DTWOF (1997).
Dykes to Watch Out For

Guy, Problem

“I want to say the first thing that Qaddafi, he thinks that we are six million human beings, nameless. That’s how Qaddafi is looking at us. In our country, when Qaddafi’s regime, there’s no names, can mention except Qaddafi’s names. No heroes, even athletes or singers. We knew after the revolution that there was an office to try to disappear the stars. If there is any names, singers, we have the experience that there were singer idol in Beirut, big event between all Arab countries, and he won and after that when he come back to Libya, and we didn’t hear about him, he disappeared.
So, now I want to tell you that the whole population needs rehabilitation from Qaddafi’s regime. Comprehensive repression for all the people, all the details, chaos, turmoil that he tried to put the country through during the 42 years, so he tried consolidating power in his hands and demands the various state institutions.”

Salwa Bugaighis (1963–2014) Libyan activist

Interview with Salwa Bugaighis, 2012

People, Star, Thinking, Country

“Judy lived in my hotel. She was just seventeen, and what she was doing in Paris was supposedly chaperoning her younger brother, a fully fledged concert pianist of fifteen, who was studying there with one of the leading teachers. In view of their combined and startling innocence, however, this was a rather useless arrangement. Their last name was Galache, and they were the issue with which the highly unlikely union of a Quaker woman from Philadelphia and a dreadfully dashing Spaniard (now, alas, dead) had been blessed. Naturally their upbringing, up to this point, had been strict and very sheltered. … Judy was so different from me that it was really ludicrous. Whereas I was hell-bent for living, she was content, at least for the time being, to leave all that to others. Just as long as she could hear all about it. She really was funny about this. Folded every which way on the floor, looking like Bambi — all eyes and legs and no chin — she would listen for ages and ages with rapt attention to absolutely any drivel that you happened to be talking. It was unbelievable.”

Elaine Dundy (1921–2008) American journalist, actress

Part One, Two
The Dud Avocado (1958)

Age, Way, Hell, Nature

“It was so darn quiet you could hear your hair grow.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Farmer in the Sky

Source: Farmer in the Sky (1950), Chapter 13, “Johnny Appleseed” (p. 131)

“The time has now come for every Latter-day Saint, who calculates to be prepared for the future and to hold his feet strong upon a proper foundation, to do the will of the Lord and to pay his tithing in full. That is the word of the Lord to you, and it will be the word of the Lord to every settlement throughout the land of Zion. After I leave you and you get to thinking about this, you will see yourselves that the time has come when every man should stand up and pay his tithing in full. The Lord has blessed us and has had mercy upon us in the past; but there are times coming when the Lord requires us to stand up and do that which He has commanded and not leave it any longer. What I say to you in this stake of Zion I will say to every stake of Zion that has been organized. There is no man or woman that now hears what I am saying who will feel satisfied if he or she fails to pay a full tithing.”

Lorenzo Snow (1814–1901) President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Tithing (see also: Tithe) [citation needed]

Feeling, Thinking, Strong, Time

“I can feel everything you do
Hear everything you say
Even when you're miles away
Coz I am me, the universe and you.”

KT Tunstall (1975) Scottish singer-songwriter and guitarist

"Universe & U".
Eye to the Telescope (2004)

Feeling, Universe

“[If I had literally heard the voice of Jesus] I'd check myself in to see a psychiatrist. I don't hear voices and anyone who does should really see a psychiatrist and get some help.”

Ray Comfort (1949) New Zealand-born Christian minister and evangelist

AronRa vs Ray Comfort (September 17th, 2012), Radio Paul's Radio Rants

Help

“How oddly situated a man is apt to find himself at the age of thirty-eight! His youth belongs to the distant past. Yet the period of memory beginning with the end of youth and extending to the present has left him not a single vivid impression. And therefore he persists in feeling that nothing more than a fragile barrier separates him from his youth. He is forever hearing with the utmost clarity the sounds of this neighboring domain, but there is no way to penetrate the barrier.”

Yukio Mishima book Runaway Horses

Runaway Horses (1969), as translated by Michael Gallagher (1973).

Youth, Age, Way, Feeling

“Happiness is possible only in a relationship with a partner. Imagine that some fellow who has lived his life as a singer goes to an uninhabited island and sings as loudly as possible. If there is no one there to hear him, he will not be happy. To realize that we exist for the sake of others is the great achievement that changes our lives. When we realize that our life is not ours alone but is meant to be for the sake of the other, we begin to follow a path different from the one we were on. Just as singing to yourself will not make you happy, there is no joy without a partner. Even the smallest and most trivial thing can bring you happiness when you do it for another.”

Sun Myung Moon (1920–2012) Korean religious leader

2009, As a Peace-loving Global Citizen http://www.euro-tongil.org/TFbiography.pdf, Page 139.

Life, Happiness, Imagination, Change

“On the question of the gentlemanliness of the debate, I'm reminded that in the Congress, just before the Civil War, the Senator from New Hampshire, I think, made an anti-slavery speech, and a Senator from Mississippi, not Jefferson Davis, invited him to come down to Mississippi to make that speech, promising to see that he was hanged from the highest tree in the forest. The Senator from New Hampshire invited the Senator from Mississippi to come to New Hampshire where he would be given a respectful hearing in every township in that State.”

Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) American historian and collegiate professor

2000s, The Real Abraham Lincoln: A Debate (2002)

War, Question, Thinking, Tree

“Whenever I hear of culture … I release the safety catch of my Browning!”

Hanns Johst (1890–1978) German general

Wenn ich Kultur höre … entsichere ich meinen Browning!
Schlageter

“To hear never-heard sounds,
To see never-seen colors and shapes,
To try to understand the imperceptible
Power pervading the world;
To fly and find pure ethereal substances
That are not of matter
But of that invisible soul pervading reality.
To hear another soul and to whisper to another soul;
To be a lantern in the darkness
Or an umbrella in a stormy day;
To feel much more than know.
To be the eyes of an eagle, slope of a mountain;
To be a wave understanding the influence of the moon;
To be a tree and read the memory of the leaves;
To be an insignificant pedestrian on the streets
Of crazy cities watching, watching, and watching.
To be a smile on the face of a woman
And shine in her memory
As a moment saved without planning.”

Dejan Stojanovic (1959) poet, writer, and businessman

Task of a Poet http://www.poetrysoup.com/famous/poem/21367/Task_of_a_Poet From the poems written in English

World, Smile, Color, Feeling

“We don’t realize that in the sizzle of our steaks there is the suffering of animals, the mining of our topsoil, the slashing of our forests, the harming of our economy, and the eroding of our health. We don’t hear in the sizzle the cry of the hungry millions who might otherwise be fed. We don’t see the toxic poisons accumulating in the food chains, poisoning our children and our earth for generations to come. But once we become aware of the impact of our food choices, we can never really forget… All things are deeply connected, and so the choices we make in our daily lives have enormous influence, not only on our own health and vitality, but also on the lives of other beings, and indeed on the destiny of life on earth. Thankfully, we have cause to be grateful—what’s best for us personally is also best for other forms of life, and for the life support systems on which we all depend.”

John Robbins book Diet for a New America

Source: Diet for a New America (1987), Ch. 12: All Things Are Connected

Life, Children, Health, Food

“When those far removed from the creation of wealth -- undergraduates, reporters, politicians -- hear that the richest 5% of the people have half the total wealth, they tend to think injustice! An experienced programmer would be more likely to think is that all? The top 5% of programmers probably write 99% of the good software.”

Paul Graham (1964) English programmer, venture capitalist, and essayist

"How to Make Wealth" http://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html, May 2004

People, Thinking, Wealth

“A group came to the hospital to rescue me. I could hear them speaking in English but I was still very afraid. Then a soldier came into the room. He tore the American flag from his uniform and he handed it to me in my hand. And he told me "We're American soldiers, and we're here to take you home."
And I looked at him and I said "Yes, I am an American soldier too."”

Jessica Lynch (1983) Recipient of the Purple Heart medal

Congressional testimony (2007)

Home

“I see Macbeth as a young, open-faced warrior, who is gradually sucked into a whirpool of events because of his ambition. When he meets the weird sisters and hears their prophecy, he's like the man who hopes to win a million — a gamble for high stakes.”

Roman Polanski (1933) Polish-French film director, producer, writer, actor, and rapist

Interview in Playboy magazine (February 1972); also quoted in Make It Again, Sam : A Survey of Movie Remakes (1975) by Michael B. Druxman, p. 105

Hope, Sister

“She was married for seven years
to a concrete castle king.
She said she wanted to learn to play the guitar
and to hear her children sing.
So I'd show up about once a week
in my faded tight-legged jeans
with a backlog full of hobo stories
and dilapidated dreams.”

Harry Chapin (1942–1981) American musician

I Wanna Learn a Love Song
Song lyrics, Verities & Balderdash (1974)

Children, Dreams, Learning, Singing

“Curious, if we will reflect on it, this of having no books. Except by what he could see for himself, or hear of by uncertain rumor of speech in the obscure Arabian Desert, he could know nothing. The wisdom that had been before him or at a distance from him in the world, was in a manner as good as not there for him. Of the great brother souls, flame-beacons through so many lands and times, no one directly communicates with this great soul. He is alone there, deep down in the bosom of the Wilderness; has to grow up so,—alone with Nature and his own Thoughts. But, from an early age, he had been remarked as a thoughtful man.”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

1840s, Heroes and Hero-Worship (1840), The Hero as Prophet

Wisdom, Books, Age, World

“They rowed her in across the rolling foam,
The cruel crawling foam,
The cruel hungry foam,
To her grave beside the sea:
But still the boatmen hear her call the cattle home
Across the sands of Dee.”

Charles Kingsley (1819–1875) English clergyman, historian and novelist

The Sands of Dee, st. 4.

Home, Sea

“To be thus—
Grey-hair'd with anguish, like these blasted pines,
Wrecks of a single winter, barkless, branchless,
A blighted trunk upon a cursed root,
Which but supplies a feeling to decay—
And to be thus, eternally but thus,
Having been otherwise! Now furrow'd o'er
With wrinkles, plough'd by moments, not by years
And hours—all tortured into ages—hours
Which I outlive!—Ye toppling crags of ice!
Ye avalanches, whom a breath draws down
In mountainous o'erwhelming, come and crush me!
I hear ye momently above, beneath,
Crash with a frequent conflict; but ye pass,
And only fall on things that still would live.”

George Gordon Byron book Manfred

Act I, scene ii.
Manfred (1817)

Age, Feeling, Mountain, Winter

“The question I propose to consider is in what way one may justify the study of English on cultural and disciplinary, and not merely on sentimental or utilitarian, grounds. My own conviction is that if English is to be thus justified it must be primarily by what I am terming the discipline of ideas.
As a matter of fact one hears it commonly said nowadays that literature may be rescued from the philologist on the one hand and the mere dilettante on the other by an increase of emphasis on its intellectual content, that the teaching of literature, if it is to have virility, must be above all the teaching of ideas.”

Irving Babbitt (1865–1933) American academic and literary criticism

Source: "English and the Discipline of Ideas" (1920), p. 63

Way, Literature, Idea, Question

“(Sylvia) What do you hope never to hear your pilot say? 1) ”I had the worst fight of my life with my wife this morning.” 2) “Let’s see how fast this baby will go.” 3) “Whoops.””

Nicole Hollander (1939) Cartoonist

Source: Sylvia cartoon strip, p. 120

Life, Hope, Fight, Baby

“I'll be damned if I am not getting tired of this. It seems to be the profession of a President simply to hear other people talk.”

William Howard Taft (1857–1930) American politician, 27th President of the United States (in office from 1909 to 1913)

Quoted in Archibald W. Butt (1930), Taft and Roosevelt.
Attributed

People

“If someone tells me that I've hurt their feelings I'm still waiting to hear what your point is.”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

Authors@Google, August 16, 2007, YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sD0B-X9LJjs&feature=youtu.be&t=1h6m59s 2000s, 2007

Feeling, Waiting, Hurt

“The love of art…. reconciles us to our lined faces and white hear. [Berthe Morisot was 40 years then]”

Berthe Morisot (1841–1895) painter from France

quote in a letter to a friend, c. 1881; as cited in The Correspondence of Berthe Morisot, with her family and friends, Denish Rouart - newly introduced by Kathleen Adler and Tamer Garb; Camden Press London 1986, p. 117
1881 - 1895

Love, Art

“I remember a decade ago at my first annual meeting in St. Louis. After my banquet remarks to a packed house, they presented me with a very special gift. It was a splendid hand-crafted musket.
I admit I was overcome by the power of its simple symbolism. I looked at that musket and I thought of all of the lives given for that freedom. I thought of all of the lives saved with that freedom. It dawned on me that the doorway to all freedoms is framed by muskets.
So I lifted that musket over my head for all to see. And as flashbulbs popped around the room, my heart and a few tears swelled up, and I uttered five unscripted words. When I did, that room exploded in sustained applause and hoots and shouts that seemed to last forever. … So as we set out this year to defeat the divisive forces that would take freedom away, I want to say those words again for everyone within the sound of my voice to hear and to heed, and especially for you, Mr. Gore: From my cold dead hands!”

Charlton Heston (1923–2008) American actor

Speech at NRA Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina (20 May 2000)
referencing a slogan from a series of NRA bumper stickers, "I'll give you my gun when you take it from my cold, dead hands"

Tear, Freedom, Heart, Housing

“Well, I hear that Laurel Canyon is full of famous stars,
But I hate them worse than lepers and I'll kill them in their cars.”

Neil Young (1945) Canadian singer-songwriter

Revolution Blues
Song lyrics, On the Beach (1974)

Hate, Cars, Star

“Our longing to save consciousness, to give personal and human finality to the Universe and to existence, is such that even in the midst of a supreme, an agonizing and lacerating sacrifice, we should still hear the voice that assured us that if our consciousness disappears, it is that the infinite and eternal Consciousness may be enriched thereby, that our souls may serve as a nutriment to the Universal soul.”

Miguel de Unamuno (1864–1936) 19th-20th century Spanish writer and philosopher

The Tragic Sense of Life (1913), VII : Love, Suffering, Pity

Soul, Universe, Personality

“Rarely do we hear that Iraq has never committed any aggression against the United States. No one in the media questions our aggression against Iraq for the past 12 years by continuous bombing and imposed sanctions responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of children. […] Only tyrants can take a nation to war without the consent of the people. The planned war against Iraq without a Declaration of War is illegal. It is unwise because of many unforeseen consequences that are likely to result. It is immoral and unjust, because it has nothing to do with US security and because Iraq has not initiated aggression against us. We must understand that the American people become less secure when we risk a major conflict driven by commercial interests and not constitutionally authorized by Congress. Victory under these circumstances is always elusive, and unintended consequences are inevitable”

Ron Paul (1935) American politician and physician

Before We Bomb Iraq http://www.house.gov/paul/congrec/congrec2002/cr022602.htm (February 26, 2002). 2000s, 2001-2005

Death, War, Children, People

“There is a blood red circle
On the cold dark ground.
And the rain is falling down.
The church door's thrown open;
I can hear the organ's song.
But the congregation's gone.
My city of ruins.
My city of ruins.”

Bruce Springsteen (1949) American singer and songwriter

"My City of Ruins"
Song lyrics, The Rising (2002)

“Mr Mayor and gentlemen - I have great pleasure in associating myself in how ever humble and transitory manner with this great and splendid undertaking. I am glad to be associated with an enterprise which I hope will carry still further the prosperity and power of Liverpool, and which will carry down the name of Liverpool to posterity as the place where a great mechanical undertaking first found its home. Sir William Forwood has alluded to the share which this city took in the original establishment of railways. My memory does not quite carry me back to the melancholy event by which that opening was signalised, but I can remember that which presents to my mind a strange contrast with the present state of things. Almost the earliest thing I can recollect is being brought down here to my mother's house which is close in the neighbourhood, and we took two days on the road, and had to sleep half way. Comparing that with my journey yesterday I feel what an enormous distance has been traversed in the interval, and perhaps a still larger distance and a still more magnificent rate of progress will be achieved before a similar distance of time has elapsed from the present day. I will not detain you in a room where it is perhaps difficult to hear. Of all my oratorical efforts, the one which I find most difficult to achieve is that of competing with a steam engine. Occasionally you are invited to do it at railway stations, and I know distinguished statesmen who do it with effect, but I think I have never ventured to compete in that line. I will therefore, though with some fear and trembling, fulfil the injunctions of Sir William Forwood, and proceed to handle the electric machinery which is to set this line in motion. I only hope the result will be no different from what he anticipates.”

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) British politician

At the opening of the Liverpool Overhead Railway, 4 February 1893. Quoted in the Liverpool Echo of the same day, p. 3
1890s

Pleasure, Fear, Hope, Way

“By and large these attempts to rewrite history were not taken seriously, but it was disconcerting to hear that they had gained even a toehold.”

Alastair Reynolds book Chasm City

Source: Chasm City (2001), Chapter 30 (p. 490).

History

“I know what the power of silence is. When I used to play in clubs, everybody was loud; there was a lot of noise. So I would take my mute off the microphone, and I would play something so soft that you could hardly hear it… and you talk about listening. Roy Eldridge did that. He's one of my favorites.”

Miles Davis (1926–1991) American jazz musician

As quoted in Jazz-Rock Fusion: The People, The Music, p. 40
1970s

Silence

“Among life’s cruelest truths is this one: Wonderful things are especially wonderful the first time they happen, but their wonderfulness wanes with repetition. Just compare the first and last time your child said "Mama" or your partner said "I love you" and you’ll know exactly what I mean. When we have an experience hearing a particular sonata, making love with a particular person, watching the sunset from a particular window of a particular room—on successive occasions, we quickly begin to adapt to it, and the experience yields less pleasure each time. Psychologists call this habituation, economists call it declining marginal utility, and the rest of us call it marriage. But human beings have discovered two devices that allow them to combat this tendency: variety and time.”

Daniel T. Gilbert book Stumbling on Happiness

Source: Stumbling on Happiness, 2006, p. 30

Love, Life, Marriage, Pleasure

“I seem to see before me the smiling faces of thousands of children some young and fresh and some wearing the friendly marks of age. But all children at heart and not an unfriendly face among them. And while I’m trying hard to speak the right word, I seem to hear a voice lifted above the rest saying you have made some of us happy. And so I feel my heart fluttering and my lips trembling, and I have to bow silently and turn away and hurry back into the obscurity that fits me best.”

Joel Chandler Harris (1848–1908) Journalist, children's writer

Uncle Remus: His Songs and His Sayings (1895), Preface.

Happiness, Children, Age, Smile

“Nature is what we see,
The Hill, the Afternoon—
Squirrel, Eclipse, the Bumble-bee,
Nay—Nature is Heaven.

Nature is what we hear,
The Bobolink, the Sea—
Thunder, the Cricket—
Nay,—Nature is Harmony.

Nature is what we know
But have no art to say,
So impotent our wisdom is
To Her simplicity.”

Emily Dickinson (1830–1886) American poet

Source: Collected Poems (1993), p. 268-269. The Single Hound.

Wisdom, Art, Nature, Bee

“I just love the feeling from the fans and when I'm walking on deck I can hear people screaming and wishing you the best. That puts you into the game more than anything.”

David Ortiz (1975) Dominican-American professional baseball player, designated hitter

Love, People, Feeling, Game

“You have seen bigger horses than his thirteen and a half, perhaps fourteen hands, his nine hundred pounds. You have seen handsomer profiles than this Roman nose, slightly convex. Burrs cling to his long sweeping tail. His coat is dark and unglossed. Yet look again, while he is still, for he will not be still long. Sense the vitality in those muscles, trembling beneath the skin; see the pride in that high head, hear the haughty command to his voice. For this is a wild horse, my friend. Once he claimed the western range. Then they took his range away from him. But nothing, no one claims him. He feels the wind and the air with his nose, with his ears, with his very soul, and what he feels is good. He tosses his head, once, quickly, and behind him his harem of six mares trot up to join him, and behind them, a yearling colt, a filly and two stork-legged foals. Coats dusty and chewed, tails spiked with bits of the desert, sage and nettle and leftover pine needles from winter climbs down from timberland. The Barb-nosed stallion led his family down to the waterhole. Not Barb from barbed wire, though perhaps the chewed skin was from barbed wire, but Barb from the Spanish horses from which he descended, brought to the New World over four hundred years ago, from the Barbary states of North Africa, Tunisia, Morocco, Algeria, Fez, Tripoli. Indians stole them from the Spaniards; the Barbs stole themselves free from the Indians. Running wild, a few still run free.”

Arnold Hano (1922) American writer

From Running Wild (1973) by Hano, p. 10
Other Topics

World, Family, Feeling, Soul

“Isn't it said, and should it not be believed, or at least affirmed, or at any rate not repudiated, that you should expect to suffer for this; that you should expect to be reviled; that you should be proud to be abused; that you will be told that what you believe is absurd; that you should be glad to hear it, for His sake; that those who despitefully use you is to be expected. And isn't that a rather dignified position, a rather honorable position for the Church to take? Something that even an atheist, and humanist, and Marxist like myself can understand and respect. But instead what do we get? An endless whine of self-pity, of "Well why are they picking on us. They wouldn't say that about the Jews!" And an endless play on the ethnic politics and identity politics card. An endless appeal to self-pity. Well you should be proud that you're in a fight for your politics and your Church. And you seem instead to be resentful about it, and perhaps, who knows, a little insecure. However, for the main part of it, you only have to open a paper to see the exaggerated deference paid to every utterance of his Holiness the Pope, wherever he goes, and the extraordinary deference shown to him whenever he visits these shores and decides to grace us with his presence.”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

2000s, 2000, "Hostility Of America to Religion" (2000)

Understanding, Suffering, Fight, Parting

“[My] publicity agent … went to hear Father Divine and he had a sermon and his subject was 'you got to accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative.' And I said 'Wow, that's a colorful phrase!”

Johnny Mercer (1909–1976) American lyricist, songwriter, singer and music professional

And I said 'Wow, that's a colorful phrase!' Interviewed 1971 https://findingaids.library.unt.edu/?p=collections/findingaid&id=959&q=&rootcontentid=204947 by [Gilliland, John, Pop Chronicles the 40's: The Lively Story of Pop Music in the 40's, 978-1-55935-147-8, 31611854] Tape 1, side B. Quoted by PDF, '40s Sounds Return to Radio, 1972-10-29, Oakland Tribune, Bob, MacKenzie, 2009-04-03, http://web.archive.org/web/20120209175145/http://www.sfradiomuseum.com/audio/ksfo/1972/Trib_Pop-Chronicles-Article-2_1972.pdf, 2012-02-09 http://www.bayarearadio.org/audio/ksfo/1972/Trib_Pop-Chronicles-Article-2_1972.pdf,

Color

“In a city where buzzwords and catch phrases have a half-life of perhaps six months to a year, the term and the concept of "competitiveness" have lasted much longer; there is every sign we'll hear it for many years to come.”

Allen B. Rosenstein (1920–2018) American systems engineers

Allen B. Rosenstein and Phillip Burgess (1988) "U.S. Competitiveness." Bureaucrat. Vol. 17-18. p. 21.

Life

“When trade is at stake, it is your last entrenchment; you must defend it, or perish…Sir, Spain knows the consequence of a war in America; whoever gains, it must prove fatal to her…is this any longer a nation? Is this any longer an English Parliament, if with more ships in your harbours than in all the navies of Europe; with above two millions of people in your American colonies, you will bear to hear of the expediency of receiving from Spain an insecure, unsatisfactory, dishonourable Convention?”

William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham (1708–1778) British politician

Denouncing the Spanish Convention of Pardo in the House of Commons (6 March 1739), quoted in William Pitt, The Speeches of the Right Honourable the Earl of Chatham in the Houses of Lords and Commons: With a Biographical Memoir and Introductions and Explanatory Notes to the Speeches (London: Aylott & Jones, 1848), pp. 6-7.

War, People

“Consider: the darkening ease, the brightening trouble; the pleasure pleasure because it was, the pain pain because it shall be; the glad acts grown proud, the proud acts growing stubborn; the panting and trembling towards a being gone, a being to come; and the true true no longer, and the false true not yet. And to decide not to smile after all, sitting in the shade, hearing the cicadas, wishing it were night, wishing it were morning, saying, No, it is not the heart, no, it is not the liver, no, it is not the prostate, no, it is not the ovaries, no, it is muscular, it is nervous.”

Samuel Beckett book Watt

Part III, p. 201
Watt (1943)

Pain, Pleasure, Smile, Heart

“Finally the light rested down upon and overwhelmed him in the midst of it, and his mind at the same time seemed to be caught away from surrounding objects, and he saw nothing excepting the light and two glorious personages standing before him in the midst of this light. One of these personages, pointing to the other, said-"Behold my beloved Son, hear ye him."”

Orson Pratt (1811–1881) Apostle of the LDS Church

Journal of Discourses 17:279 (September 20, 1874).
Joseph Smith Jr.'s First Vision

Light, Time

“I first listen to someone who speaks the language and who reads the lyrics to me. I pay great attention to pronunciation. Once I hear the words spoken, I write the song lines phonetically in Hindi and then sing. By the grace of god, my songs in other languages – including Bengali – have been appreciated. People say they are good and the words have been correctly pronounced.”

Lata Mangeshkar (1929) Indian singer

Above two quotes about her singing in Urdu and other languages in Lata Mangeshkar has to thank Dilip Kumar for her Urdu skills!, 29 Npvember 2013, India Today http://www.deccanherald.com/content/10118/,

God, People, Singing, Reading

“Against the exclusiveness of the paradigm of work as activity, first of all, there is leisure as "non-activity" — an inner absence of preoccupation, a calm, an ability to let things go, to be quiet.
Leisure is a form of that stillness that is the necessary preparation for accepting reality; only the person who is still can hear, and whoever is not still, cannot hear. […] Leisure is the disposition of receptive understanding, of contemplative beholding, and immersion — in the real.”

Josef Pieper (1904–1997) German philosopher

Source: Leisure, the Basis of Culture (1948), Leisure, the Basis of Culture, p. 31

Understanding, Reality, Personality

“Hark! hark! – What mean those yells – those cries?
His chain some furious madman breaks!
He comes! I see his glaring eyes!
Now! now! my dungeon bars he shakes.
Help! Help! He's gone! Oh! fearful woe,
Such screams to hear – such sights to see!
My brain! my brain!”

Matthew Lewis (writer) (1775–1818) English novelist and dramatist

I know, I know
I am not mad, but soon shall be.
"The Captive"; cited from The Life and Correspondence of M. G. Lewis (London: Henry Colburn, 1839) vol. 1, pp. 239-40.

Fear, Help, Madness

“There is a common response from people when they hear that in the absence of evidence to convince me otherwise I don’t have any particular belief in ghosts, psychic powers or an afterlife. It normally runs something along the lines of ‘So you think we just live, die and that’s it? Come on…’ There’s a clear implication there that this earthly life – the wonder of being human – is somehow worthless. That it’s cheap and disappointing enough to warrant that ‘just’ and the accompanying incredulous tone, which are usually reserved for sentences like ‘After all that it was just a little spider? Come on…’ I live, I am sure, in a fairly narrow band of life, and make an embarrassingly pitiful attempt to explore the world I find myself upon. I ache with guilt and conflict when I hear of people living as adventurers, abandoning mainstream lives and living each day with abandon. But I really hope I have a brighter vision for this life and a greater curiosity for its richness than one who can say, and mean, ‘You think we just live, die and that’s it?”

Derren Brown (1971) British illusionist

Books, Confessions of a Conjuror (2010)

Life, People, World, Hope

“The hearing ear is always found close to the speaking tongue.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson English Traits

English Traits, Race
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German writer, artist, and politician

Bk. V, Ch. 1
Wilhelm Meister's Lehrjahre (Apprenticeship) (1786–1830)
Original: (de) Man sollte alle Tage wenigstens ein kleines Lied hören, ein gutes Gedicht lesen, ein treffliches Gemälde sehen und, wenn es möglich zu machen wäre, einige vernünftige Worte sprechen.

Reading

“It was in 1929 that Salvador Dali [Dali is writing about himself] brought his attention to hear upon the internal mechanism of paranoiac phenomena and envisaged the possibility of an experimental method based on the sudden power of the systematic associations proper to paranoia; this method afterwards became the delirio-critical synthesis which hears the name of "paranoiac-critical activity". Paranoia: delirium of interpretive association bearing a systematic structure. Paranoiac-critical activity: spontaneous method of irrational knowledge based upon the interpretive-critical association of delirious phenomena.”

Salvador Dalí (1904–1989) Spanish artist

Source: Quotes of Salvador Dali, 1931 - 1940, My Pictorial Struggle', S. Dali, 1935, Chapter: 'My Pictorial Struggle', p. 15

Knowledge

“Tis Summer Time on Bredon,
And now the farmers swear:
The cattle rise and listen
In valleys far and near,
And blush at what they hear.

But when the mists in autumn
On Bredon top are thick,
And happy hymns of farmers
Go up from fold and rick,
The cattle then are sick.”

Hugh Kingsmill (1889–1949) British writer and journalist

"Two Poems, After A. E. Housman", no. 2, line 1

Happiness, Autumn, Time, Summer

“A. No matter what you do, you're always hearing something.
Q. You mean to say that all of the accidental environmental sounds that surround the piece become a part of the realization of the score?
A. Yes, that's right.
Q. In that case, even the chairs are musical?
A. Yes. In fact, there is perhaps nothing that is not musical. Perhaps there's no moment in life that's not musical.”

George Brecht (1926–2008) American artist and composer

Source: James Fitzsimmons, ‎Jim Fitzsimmons (1967). Art International. Vol. 11. p. 24

Life, Music, Parting

“Every time I turn on the television and hear a manager from the lower divisions, they’ve usually got a Scottish accent. I don’t know the reason for that but let’s hope it continues. I like the philosophy of Scottish managers, they’ve always got this will to win and this work ethic, which I believe in.”

George Graham (1944) Scottish footballer

Interview, Sport.co.uk, 14 January 2011

Hope, Time

“There is a paradox at the heart of Chopin's style, in its unlikely combination of a rich chromatic web of polyphony, based on a profound experience of J. S. Bach, with a sense of melody and a way of sustaining the melodic line derived directly from Italian opera. The paradox is only apparent, and it is never felt as such when one hears the music. The two influences are perfectly synthesized, and they give each other a new kind of power.”

Charles Rosen (1927–2012) American pianist and writer on music

Source: The Romantic Generation (1995), Ch. 5 : Chopin: Counterpoint and the Narrative Forms

Music, Way, Sense, Heart

“After all, in the poets love has its priests, and sometimes one hears a voice which knows how to defend it; but of faith one hears never a word. Who speaks in honor of this passion? Philosophy goes further. Theology sits rouged at the window and courts its favor, offering to sell her charms to philosophy. it is supposed to be difficult to understand Hegel, but to understand Abraham is a trifle. To go beyond Hegel's is a miracle, but to get beyond Abraham is the easiest thing of all.”

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

Problemata: Preliminary Expectoration
1840s, Fear and Trembling (1843)

Love, Faith, Understanding, Passion

“Now, over the last few decades, as the various global crises have been accumulating — climate change, the threat of nuclear war as well as the dangers of nuclear energy, the uncontrollability of the global financial system, and so on — we now hear people saying things like: “Look at what humanity has done.” Now suddenly the subject is “humanity,” whereas originally, Euro-Americans had claimed: “Look at the stunning achievements of the West.””

Talal Asad (1932) Aanthropologist at the CUNY Graduate Center

Interview by Hasan Azad, The Islamic Monthly, October 21, 2015 http://theislamicmonthly.com/being-human-an-interview-with-talal-asad/

War, People, Change

““And then along came Satan’s Eye Itself. Television.” He laughed, as at some fatal irony. “Don’t you hear the evil hum of the word, the knell of Satan? Television! It’s the ruling character of your lives, like the moon must have been for Indians. An oracle, a companion, a signal of the changing seasons. But rather than divine illumination, each night it spews forth Satan’s imagery. Murders, car crashes, mad policemen, perverted strangers! And you lie there decomposing in its flickering, blue-gray light, absorbing His horrid fantasies!””

Lucius Shepard book Green Eyes

Source: Green Eyes (1984), Chapter 10, p. 115

Lie, Cars, Light, Evil

“Never tell the box-office man that you can't hear well or he will sell you a seat where you can't see either.”

Kin Hubbard (1868–1930) cartoonist

Short Furrows http://books.google.com/books?id=DCQOAAAAYAAJ&q=%22Never+tell+the+box-office+man+that+you+can't+hear+well+or+he+will+sell+you+a+seat+where+you+can't+see+either%22&pg=PA10#v=onepage (1911).

Box

Quotes about hearing page 26

Quotes about hearing
page 26