Quotes about hearing
page 27

William Golding photo
George II of Great Britain photo

“Who is this Pope that I hear so much about? I cannot discover what is his merit. Why will not my subjects write in prose?”

George II of Great Britain (1683–1760) British monarch

As quoted in Sir James Prior's Life of Edmond Malone (1860), p. 369.
Attributed

George W. Bush photo

“I faced a lot of criticism as president. I didn't like hearing people claim I had lied about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction or cut taxes to benefit the rich. But the suggestion that I was a racist because of the response to Katrina represented an all-time low. I told Laura at the time that it was the worst moment of my presidency. I feel the same way today.”

pp. 325, Chapter 10: Katrina https://books.google.com/books?id=iUJTvsUGWOcC&printsec=frontcover&dq=decision+points&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CBwQ6AEwAGoVChMImu6s8_WEyAIVjNkeCh1oFgyY#v=onepage&q=kanye&f=false
2010s, 2010, Decision Points (November 2010)

Adlai Stevenson photo

“We hear the Secretary of State boasting of his brinkmanship — the art of bringing us to the edge of the abyss.”

Adlai Stevenson (1900–1965) mid-20th-century Governor of Illinois and Ambassador to the UN

Referring to Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, in a speech in Hartford, Connecticut (25 February 1956)

Bill Bryson photo
Nathanael Greene photo

“I rejoice to hear of the defeat of that vile traitor, Major Rogers, and his party of Tories, though I am exceeding sorry to hear it cost us so brave an officer as Major Greene.”

Nathanael Greene (1742–1786) American general in the American Revolutionary War

Letter to George Washington (24 October 1776)

Daniel Handler photo
Cindy Sheehan photo
Ann Coulter photo
Richard Rodríguez photo
Thomas Sturge Moore photo

“Shells with lip, or tooth, or bleeding gum,
Tell-tale shells, and shells that whisper 'Come',
Shells that stammer, blush, and yet are dumb – "
"O let me hear!”

Thomas Sturge Moore (1870–1944) British playwright, poet and artist

"A Duet", line 5; from The Sea is Kind (London: Grant Richards, 1914) p. 78.

Bill Engvall photo

“[after watching a spitting cobra spit at Steve Irwin]
Y'all, I am screaming at my television set: THEY'RE SPITTING COBRAS, YOU MORON!! Didn't you hear the”

Bill Engvall (1957) American comedian and actor

Hocking sound
Here's Your Sign Live! (2004)

Marcel Duchamp photo
Anne Louise Germaine de Staël photo

“The sight of such a monument is like continual and stationary music, which one hears for one's good as one approaches it.”

La vue d'un tel monument est comme une musique continuelle et fixée, qui vous attend pour vous faire du bien quand vous vous en approchez.
Bk. 4, ch. 3
The idea that "architecture is frozen music" — an aphorism of disputed origin sometimes misattributed to de Staël — is found in a number of German writers of the period.
Corinne (1807)

François de La Rochefoucauld photo

“Sometimes it is pleasant for a husband to have a jealous wife: he always hears what he loves being talked about.”

François de La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680) French author of maxims and memoirs

Il est quelquefois agréable à un mari d'avoir une femme jalouse; il entend toujours parler de ce qu'il aime.
Maxim 48 from the Manuscrit de Liancourt.
Later Additions to the Maxims

Brian Wilson photo
Kent Hovind photo
Edwin Abbott Abbott photo
André Maurois photo
Georges Duhamel photo

“Just as we say “listening and hearing,” “looking and seeing,” so we ought to have two expressions to distinguish active reading from passive.”

Georges Duhamel (1884–1966) French writer

Source: Défense des Lettres [In Defense of Letters] (1937), p. 47

Jane Austen photo
Victor Villaseñor photo
Albrecht Thaer photo
Little Richard photo

“I call my music the healing music… It makes the blind feel that they can see, the lame feel that they can walk, the deaf and dumb that they can hear and talk.”

Little Richard (1932) American pianist, singer and songwriter

Pop Chronicles: Show 5 - Hail, Hail, Rock 'n' Roll: The rock revolution gets underway. (Part 1) https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc19751/m1/#track/6, interview recorded 1.2.1968 http://web.archive.org/web/20110615153027/http://www.library.unt.edu/music/special-collections/john-gilliland/o-s.

Margaret Atwood photo

“When you hear me singing
you get the rifle down
and the flashlight, aiming for my brain,
but you always miss and when you set out the poison
I piss on it
to warn the others.”

Margaret Atwood (1939) Canadian writer

"Rat Song" http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=21984 (1974)
Selected Poems 1965-1975 (1976)

“It's a movie barely fit for a cretin, much less a King. … If you hear a door slam in the theater, you'll know that Elvis has left the building -- in disgust.”

Stephanie Zacharek (1963) American film critic

Review http://archive.salon.com/ent/movies/review/2001/02/23/graceland/index.html of 3000 Miles to Graceland (2001)

Albert Jay Nock photo
Rupert Boneham photo

“We hear from the saints who experienced prayer power that prayer gives wings to humans lifting them up so they can fly.”

Matta El Meskeen (1919–2006) Egyptian monk

Orthodox Prayer Life: The Interior Way

Otoman Zar-Adusht Ha'nish photo
Mona Charen photo
Muhammad photo
Jane Fonda photo

“In the hyper-sensitized reality of the region in which any criticism of Israel is swiftly and often unfairly branded as anti-Semitic, it can become counterproductive to inflame rather than explain and this means to hear the narratives of both sides, to articulate the suffering on both sides, not just the Palestinians.”

Jane Fonda (1937) American actress and activist

Jane Fonda expresses regret over film fest protest http://web.archive.org/web/20090924084738/http://www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress/article/ALeqM5hbIn5EBVrgcVoM8z8WGshai3begA, by Cassandra Szklarski, September 14, 2009.

Lyndon B. Johnson photo

“Johnson: What do you think about this Vietnam thing? I’d like to hear you talk a little bit.
Russell: Well, frankly, Mr. President, it’s the damn worse mess that I ever saw, and I don’t like to brag and I never have been right many times in my life, but I knew that we were going to get into this sort of mess when we went in there. And I don’t see how we’re ever going to get out of it without fighting a major war with the Chinese and all of them down there in those rice paddies and jungles. I just don’t see it. I just don’t know what to do.
Johnson: Well, that’s the way I have been feeling for six months.
Russell: Our position is deteriorating and it looks like the more we try to do for them, the less they are willing to do for themselves. It is a mess and it’s going to get worse, and I don’t know how or what to do. I don’t think the American people are quite ready for us to send our troops in there to do the fighting. If I was going to get out, I’d get the same crowd that got rid of old Diem [the Vietnamese prime minister who was overthrown and assassinated in 1963] to get rid of these people and to get some fellow in there that said we wish to hell we would get out. That would give us a good excuse for getting out.
Johnson: How important is it to us?
Russell: It isn’t important a damn bit for all this new missile stuff.
Johnson: I guess it is important.
Russell: From a psychological standpoint. Other than the question of our word and saving face, that’s the reason that I said that I don’t think that anybody would expect us to stay in there. It’s going to be a headache to anybody that tries to fool with it. You’ve got all the brains in the country, Mr. President—you better get ahold of them. I don’t know what to do about this. I saw it all coming on, but that don’t do any good now, that’s water over the dam and under the bridge. And we are there.”

Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–1973) American politician, 36th president of the United States (in office from 1963 to 1969)

1960s, Telephone call with Senator Richard Russell (May 27, 1964)

Samuel Beckett photo
J.M.W. Turner photo

“Chantrey [good friend of Turner] is as gay and as good as ever, ready to serve: he requests, for my benefit, that you bottle up all the yellows which may be found straying out of the right way; but what you may have told him about the old masters which you did not tell me, I can't tell, but we expected to hear a great deal from each other, but the stormy brush of Tintoretto was only to make the 'Notte' more visible.”

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

Quote from Turner's letter, London Feb. 1830, to his friend George Jones in Rome; as cited in 'The life of J.M.W. Turner', Volume II, George Walter Thornbury; https://ia801207.us.archive.org/18/items/lifeofjmwturnerr02thor/lifeofjmwturnerr02thor.pdf Hurst and Blackett Publishers, London, 1862, p. 234
1821 - 1851

John Muir photo

“Sit down in climbing, and hear the pines sing.”

John Muir (1838–1914) Scottish-born American naturalist and author

page 428
John of the Mountains, 1938

River Phoenix photo

“Sometimes I'll hear stuff like, 'Hey, man, where's your skateboard, dude,' from people who think I'm Christian Slater.”

River Phoenix (1970–1993) American actor, musician, and activist

Movieline (1991)

Michael Savage photo
Cesar Chavez photo
Thomas Fuller (writer) photo

“3657. None so deaf, as he that will not hear.”

Thomas Fuller (writer) (1654–1734) British physician, preacher, and intellectual

Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727), Gnomologia (1732)

Thomas Gray photo

“Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,
Their homely joys, and destiny obscure;
Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile,
The short and simple annals of the poor.”

Thomas Gray (1716–1771) English poet, historian

St. 8
Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard http://www.thomasgray.org/cgi-bin/display.cgi?text=elcc (written 1750, publ. 1751)

Sarah Helen Whitman photo

“Raven from the dim dominions
On the Night's Plutonian shore,
Oft I hear thy dusky pinions
Wave and flutter round my door—
See the shadow of thy pinions
Float along the moonlit floor.”

The Raven (written as a counterpart to Poe's poem by the same name).
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Will Cuppy photo

“I hear so many things about who I am supposed to be I hardly know what to believe. I am willing to tell all, but what Is it? Doubtless all these myths and legends will be straightened out eventually, but It may take years.”

Will Cuppy (1884–1949) American writer

Comic interview with Jo Ranson, "Living from Can to Mouth," Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Brooklyn Eagle Magazine, November 24, 1929, p. 5.

Percy Bysshe Shelley photo

“Have you not heard
When a man marries, dies, or turns Hindoo,
His best friends hear no more of him?”

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) English Romantic poet

Letter to Maria Gisborne (1820), l. 235

Ernst Bloch photo

“Marxist fixation on an atheistic status quo … offers the human soul nothing but a more or less eudaimonistically furnished "heaven on earth" without the music we ought to hear from this effortlessly functioning economic and social mechanism.”

Ernst Bloch (1885–1977) German philosopher

... wenn der Marxismus atheistisch fix mit Status quo bleibt, um der Menschenseele nichts als einen mehr oder minder eudämonistisch eingerichteten »Himmel« auf Erden zu setzen - ohne die Musik, die aus diesem mühelos funktionierenden Mechanismus der Ökonomie und des Soziallebens zu ertönen hätte.
Source: Man on His Own: Essays in the Philosophy of Religion (1959), p. 38

Margaret Thatcher photo
Bono photo
Jonathan Safran Foer photo
Confucius photo

“If I hear the Way [of truth] in the morning, I am content even to die in that evening.”

Confucius (-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher

Source: The Analects, Chapter IV

Alfred Brendel photo
Aldo Leopold photo

“When we hear [the crane’s] call we hear no mere bird. We hear the trumpet in the orchestra of evolution. He is the symbol of our untamable past, of that incredible sweep of millennia which underlies and conditions the daily affairs of birds and men.”

“Wisconsin: Marshland Elegy”, p. 96.
A Sand County Almanac, 1949, "Wisconsin: Marshland Elegy," "Wisconsin: The Sand Counties" "Wisconsin: On a Monument to the Pigeon," and "Wisconsin: Flambeau"

Ben Harper photo
Judith Krug photo

“Blocking material leads to censorship. That goes for pornography and bestiality, too. If you don't like it, don't look at it… Every time I hear someone say, I want to protect the children, I want to pull my hair out.”

Judith Krug (1940–2009) librarian and freedom of speech proponent

"Preventing Kids From Seeing Illegal Smut Is Not Unconstitutional; It's Common Sense" http://www.ncpa.org/bothside/krt/krt051700a.html by Janet M. LaRue, Senior Director of Legal Studies at the Family Research Council, National Policy Center: Idea House (2001)

John Bright photo
El Lissitsky photo
Nick Cave photo
Nick Cave photo
H.L. Mencken photo

“When I hear artists or authors making fun of business men, I think of a regiment in which the band makes fun of the cooks.”

H.L. Mencken (1880–1956) American journalist and writer

Reported in various works including Eugene C. Gerhart, Quote It Completely!: World Reference Guide to More Than 5,500 Memorable Quotes from Law and Literature (1998), p. 113, which cites the quote to MENCKEN, HL, A New Dictionary of Quotations, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1957, p. 134. However, the authorship of the quote does not lie with any work original to Mencken, and was previously reported as an anonymous quote.
Misattributed

Alexander Pope photo

“The famous Lord Hallifax (though so much talked of) was rather a pretender to taste, than really possessed of it.—When I had finished the two or three first books of my translation of the Iliad, that lord, "desired to have the pleasure of hearing them read at his house." Addison, Congreve, and Garth, were there at the reading.—In four or five places, Lord Hallifax stopped me very civilly; and with a speech, each time of much the same kind: "I beg your pardon, Mr. Pope, but there is something in that passage that does not quite please me.—Be so good as to mark the place, and consider it a little at your leisure.—I am sure you can give it a little turn."—I returned from Lord Hallifax's with Dr. Garth, in his chariot; and as we were going along, was saying to the doctor, that my lord had laid me under a good deal of difficulty, by such loose and general observations; that I had been thinking over the passages almost ever since, and could not guess at what it was that offended his lordship in either of them.—Garth laughed heartily at my embarrassment; said, I had not been long enough acquainted with Lord Hallifax, to know his way yet: that I need not puzzle myself in looking those places over and over when I got home. "All you need do, (said he) is to leave them just as they are; call on Lord Hallifax two or three months hence, thank him for his kind observations on those passages; and then read them to him as altered. I have known him much longer than you have, and will be answerable for the event."—I followed his advice; waited on Lord Hallifax some time after: said, I hoped he would find his objections to those passages removed[; ] read them to him exactly as they were at first; and his lordship was extremely pleased with them, and cried out, "Ay now, Mr. Pope, they are perfectly right! nothing can be better."”

Alexander Pope (1688–1744) eighteenth century English poet

As quoted in Anecdotes, Observations, and Characters, of Books and Men (1820) by Joseph Spence [published from the original papers; with notes, and a life of the author, by Samuel Weller Singer]; "Spence's Anecdotes", Section IV. pp. 134–136.
Attributed

Karl Kraus photo

“I and my public understand each other very well: it does not hear what I say, and I don't say what it wants to hear.”

Karl Kraus (1874–1936) Czech playwright and publicist

Half-Truths and One-And-A-Half Truths (1976)

Iris DeMent photo
Northrop Frye photo

“If I had been on the hills of Bethlehem in the year one, I do not think I should have heard angels singing because I do not hear them now, & there is no reason to suppose that they have stopped.”

Northrop Frye (1912–1991) Canadian literary critic and literary theorist

Source: "Quotes", Notebooks and Lectures on the Bible and Other Religious Texts (2003), p. 74

Michael von Faulhaber photo
George W. Bush photo
Jim Butcher photo
Mark Harmon photo
Augustus De Morgan photo

“I did not hear what you said, but I absolutely disagree with you.”

Augustus De Morgan (1806–1871) British mathematician, philosopher and university teacher (1806-1871)

Attributed to Augustus De Morgan in: August Stern (1994). The Quantum Brain: Theory and Implications. North-Holland/Elsevier. p. 7

Sarah Dessen photo
Thomas Sturge Moore photo

“Then, cleaving the grass, gazelles appear
(The gentler dolphins of kindlier waves)
With sensitive heads alert of ear;
Frail crowds that a delicate hearing saves.”

Thomas Sturge Moore (1870–1944) British playwright, poet and artist

"The Gazelles", line 13; from The Centaur's Booty (London: Duckworth, 1903) p. ix.

Paramahansa Yogananda photo
Thanissaro Bhikkhu photo
Kate Bush photo
Charles Fort photo
Horatius Bonar photo

“Toil on, and in thy toil rejoice;
For toil comes rest, for exile, home;
Soon shalt thou hear the bridegroom's voice,
The midnight peal: "Behold, I come."”

Horatius Bonar (1808–1889) British minister and poet

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 125.

Owen Lovejoy photo

“Is it desired to call attention to this fact? Proclaim it upon the house-tops! Write it upon every leaf that trembles in the forest! Make it blaze from the sun at high noon and shine forth in the radiance of every star that bedecks the firmament of God. Let it echo through all the arches of heaven, and reverberate and bellow through all the deep gorges of hell, where slave catchers will be very likely to hear it. Owen Lovejoy lives at Princeton, Illinois, three-quarters of a mile east of the village, and he aids every fugitive that comes to his door and asks it. Thou invisible demon of slavery! Dost thou think to cross my humble threshold, and forbid me to give bread to the hungry and shelter to the houseless? I bid you defiance in the name of my God.”

Owen Lovejoy (1811–1864) American politician

As quoted in His Brother's Blood: Speeches and Writings, 1838–64 https://books.google.com/books?id=qMEv8DNXVbIC&pg=PA178 (2004), edited by William Frederick Moore and Jane Ann Moore, p. 178
Also quoted in The History of Abraham Lincoln, and the Overthrow of Slavery http://books.google.com/books?id=RW0FAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA225, by Isaac Newton Arnold
Also quoted as Yes, I do assist fugitive slaves to escape! Proclaim it upon the house-tops; write it upon every leaf that trembles in the forest; make it blaze from the sun at high noon, and shine forth in the radiance of every star that bedecks the firmament of God. Let it echo through all the arches of heaven, and reverberate and bellow through all the deep gorges of hell, where slave catchers will be very likely to hear it. Owen Lovejoy lives at Princeton, Illinois, and he aids every fugitive that comes to his door and asks it. Thou invisible demon of slavery! Dost thou think to cross my humble threshold, and forbid me to give bread to the hungry and shelter to the houseless? I bid you defiance in the name of God.
1850s, The Fanaticism of the Democratic Party (February 1859)

Hayley Jensen photo
David Bohm photo

“The field of the finite is all that we can see, hear, touch, remember, and describe. This field is basically that which is manifest, or tangible. The essential quality of the infinite, by contrast, is its subtlety, its intangibility. This quality is conveyed in the word spirit, whose root meaning is "wind, or breath." This suggests an invisible but pervasive energy, to which the manifest world of the finite responds. This energy, or spirit, infuses all living beings, and without it any organism must fall apart into its constituent elements. That which is truly alive in the living being is this energy of spirit, and this is never born and never dies.”

David Bohm (1917–1992) American theoretical physicist

As quoted in Infinite Potential: The Life and Times of David Bohm by F. David Peat https://books.google.com/books?id=pobZMUmZbAEC&pg=PA322&dq=The+field+of+the+finite+is+all+that+we+can+see,+hear,+touch,+remember,+and+describe.+This+field+is+basically+that+which+is+manifest,+or+tangible.+The+essential+quality+of+the+infinite,+by+contrast,+is+its+subtlety,+its+intangibility.+This+quality+is+conveyed+in+the+word+spirit,+whose+root+meaning+is+%22wind,+or+breath.%22+This+suggests+an+invisible+but+pervasive+energy,+to+which+the+manifest+world+of+the+finite+responds.+This+energy,+or+spirit,+infuses+all+living+beings,+and+without+it+any+organism+must+fall+apart+into+its+constituent+elements.+That+which+is+truly+alive+in+the+living+being+is+this+energy+of+spirit,+and+this+is+never+born+and+never+dies&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjotZe8m6_TAhWs5oMKHbA4CkMQ6AEIIzAA#v=onepage&q=The%20field%20of%20the%20finite%20is%20all%20that%20we%20can%20see%2C%20hear%2C%20touch%2C%20remember%2C%20and%20describe.%20This%20field%20is%20basically%20that%20which%20is%20manifest%2C%20or%20tangible.%20The%20essential%20quality%20of%20the%20infinite%2C%20by%20contrast%2C%20is%20its%20subtlety%2C%20its%20intangibility.%20This%20quality%20is%20conveyed%20in%20the%20word%20spirit%2C%20whose%20root%20meaning%20is%20%22wind%2C%20or%20breath.%22%20This%20suggests%20an%20invisible%20but%20pervasive%20energy%2C%20to%20which%20the%20manifest%20world%20of%20the%20finite%20responds.%20This%20energy%2C%20or%20spirit%2C%20infuses%20all%20living%20beings%2C%20and%20without%20it%20any%20organism%20must%20fall%20apart%20into%20its%20constituent%20elements.%20That%20which%20is%20truly%20alive%20in%20the%20living%20being%20is%20this%20energy%20of%20spirit%2C%20and%20this%20is%20never%20born%20and%20never%20dies&f=false (1997) page 322, .

Paul A. Samuelson photo
John Green photo
John Frusciante photo

“I fail to do
What I'm trying
I've been these walls
And everyone who dies
Hears other times”

John Frusciante (1970) American guitarist, singer, songwriter and record producer

In Rime
Lyrics, To Record Only Water for Ten Days (2000)

Aaron Sorkin photo
Josephine Butler photo
Kenneth Gärdestad photo

“I don't want the memory of Ted Gärdestad to be associated with his illness too much; but also how positive he was. He could, of course, do it, regardless of his hearing of the voices. He sometimes said that he would set for the votes to justice; they would answer for stuffs they did against him.”

Kenneth Gärdestad (1948–2018) Swedish song lyricist, architect and lecturer

On the circumstances of Ted Gärdestad's mental illness, as quoted on Kenneth Gärdestad: “Jag vill inte att minnet av Ted förknippas för mycket med hans sjukdom”, Lahti, Gabriella, News55.SE, published on 20 February 2016 (web) http://www.news55.se/artiklar/kenneth-gardestad-jag-vill-inte-att-minnet-av-ted-forknippas-for-mycket-med-hans-sjukdom/

Alfred de Zayas photo

“Self-censorship as a result of intimidation or social pressures, sometimes referred to as “political correctness”, constitutes a serious obstacle to the proper functioning of democracy. It is important to hear the views of all persons, including the “silent majority”, and to give heed to the weaker voices.”

Alfred de Zayas (1947) American United Nations official

Interim report of the Independent Expert on the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order, Alfred Maurice de Zayas http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/IntOrder/A.67.277_en.pdf.
2012

Henry Liddon photo
Thomas Gray photo

“Still as they run they look behind,
They hear a voice in every wind,
And snatch a fearful joy.”

Thomas Gray (1716–1771) English poet, historian

St. 4
Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College http://www.thomasgray.org/cgi-bin/display.cgi?text=odec (written 1742–1750)

John Angell James photo
John Donne photo