Quotes about heel
page 2

Andrew Ure photo
Pat Condell photo
Lucy Mack Smith photo

“Whoever can feel, the love I do tell,
Would take by the heel, poor sinners from hell;
As downward they're going, to bring them above;
To sing of Christ's dying, a Heaven of love.”

Dorothy Ripley (1767–1832) missionary

A Hymn From My Nativity (22 August 1819), p. 18
The Bank of Faith and Works United (1819)

Joanna Baillie photo

“A willing heart adds feather to the heel,
And makes the clown a winged Mercury.”

Joanna Baillie (1762–1851) Scottish poet and dramatist

De Montfort (1798), Act III, scene 2; in A Series of Plays.

Ursula K. Le Guin photo
Winston S. Churchill photo
Nelson Algren photo
Aldo Leopold photo
Chuck Berry photo
Lawrence Lessig photo
F. Scott Fitzgerald photo
Courtney Love photo

“I didn't know it was such a guy's job. It's like playing football in high heels and lipstick; no wonder it smears.”

Courtney Love (1964) American punk singer-songwriter, musician, actress, and artist

On being a woman in rock, The Independent https://www.independent.ie/entertainment/music/it-still-feels-like-love-courtneys-back-26344406.html (13 January 2008)
2006–2013

Paul Cézanne photo

“Anyone who wants to paint should read Bacon. He defined the artists as homo additus naturae... Bacon had the right idea, but listen Monsieur Vollard, speaking of nature, the English philosopher, [Bacon] didn't for-see our open-air school, nor that other calamity which has followed close upon its heels: open-air indoors.”

Paul Cézanne (1839–1906) French painter

Quote in a conversation with Vollard in museum The Luxembourg, Paris 1897 - standing before the 'Olympia' of Manet; as quoted in Cézanne, by Ambroise Vollard, Dover publications Inc. New York, 1984, p. 36
Quotes of Paul Cezanne, 1880s - 1890s

Mahatma Gandhi photo

“My ambition is much higher than independence. Through the deliverance of India, I seek to deliver the so-called weaker races of the Earth from the crushing heels of Western exploitation in which England is the greatest partner.”

Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948) pre-eminent leader of Indian nationalism during British-ruled India

Young India (12 January 1928). Quoted in The Essential Writings of Gandhi, edited by Judith Brown. Oxford University Press, 2008, (p. 153).
1920s

Johnny Mercer photo

“So you met someone who set you back on your heels - goody, goody
You met someone and now you know how it feels - goody, goody”

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

Song Goody, Goody

Barbara W. Tuchman photo

“Business, like a jackal, trotted on the heels of war.”

Source: A Distant Mirror (1978), p. 389

Walter Raleigh photo

“Whosoever, in writing a modern history, shall follow truth too near the heels, it may happily strike out his teeth.”

Walter Raleigh (1554–1618) English aristocrat, writer, poet, soldier, courtier, spy, and explorer

The History of the World (1614), Preface

Alfred de Zayas photo

“When negotiations are at an impasse, when States dig their heels in, it is time to ‘undig’ them in a spirit of compromise. We all need to unlearn the predator in us, unlearn discrimination, unlearn privilege.”

Alfred de Zayas (1947) American United Nations official

Statement by Alfred de Zayas statement on International Day of Peace, 21 September 2012 - http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=12557&LangID=E.
2012

Arthur Quiller-Couch photo

“Only the heel
Of splendid steel
Shall stand secure on sliding fate,
When golden navies weep their freight.”

Arthur Quiller-Couch (1863–1944) British writer and literary critic

Poem The Splendid Spur http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-splendid-spur/

Peggy Noonan photo
Nick Cave photo
Nigel Lawson photo
James Ryder Randall photo
Anita Sarkeesian photo
Harry Turtledove photo

“A fellow with a great voice shouted, "Hearken now to the words of the President of the Confederate States of America, the honorable Woodrow Wilson." The president turned this way and that, surveying the great swarm of people all around him in the moment of silence the volley had brought. Then, swinging back to face the statue of George Washington- and, incidentally, Reginald Bartlett- he said, "The father of our country warned us against entangling alliances, a warning that served us well when we were yoked to the North, before its arrogance created in our Confederacy what had never existed before- a national consciousness. That was our salvation and our birth as a free and independent country." Silence broke then, with a thunderous outpouring of applause. Wilson raised a bony right hand. Slowly, silence, of a semblance of it, returned. The president went on, "But our birth of national consciousness made the United States jealous, and they tried to beat us down. We found loyal friends in England and France. Can we now stand aside when the German tyrant threatens to grind them under his iron heel?" "No!" Bartlett shouted himself hoarse, along with thousands of his countrymen. Stunned, deafened, he had trouble hearing what Wilson said next: "Jealous still, the United States in their turn also developed a national consciousness, a dark and bitter one, as any so opposed to ours must be." He spoke not like a politician inflaming a crowd but like a professor setting out arguments- he had taken one path before choosing the other. "The German spirit of arrogance and militarism has taken hold in the United States; they see only the gun as the proper arbiter between nations, and their president takes Wilhelm as his model. He struts and swaggers and acts the fool in all regards."”

Now he sounded like a politician; he despised Theodore Roosevelt, and took pleasure in Roosevelt's dislike for him.
Source: The Great War: American Front (1998), p. 32

Harry Reid photo

“Instead of joining us on the right side of history, all Republicans have come up with is this slow down, stop everything, let's start over. You think you've heard these same excuses before, you're right. When this country belatedly recognized the wrongs of slavery, there were those who dug in their heels and said, slow down, it's too early. Let's wait. Things aren't bad enough. When women spoke up for the right to speak up, they wanted to vote, some insisted slow down, there will be a better day to do that. The day isn't quite right. When this body was on the verge of guaranteeing equal civil rights to everyone, regardless of the color of their skin, some senators resorted to the same filibuster threats that we hear today. More recently, when chairman Chris Dodd of Connecticut, one of the people who will go down as a chief champion of the bill before us today, said that Americans should be able to take care of their families without fear of losing their jobs, you heard the same old excuses, seven years of fighting and more than one presidential veto, it was slow down, stop everything, start over. History is repeating itself before our eyes. There are now those who don't think it is the right time to reform health care. If not now, when, madam president? But the reality for many that feel that way, it will never, never be a good time to reform health care.”

Harry Reid (1939) American politician

On the Senate floor, during a debate on health care reform, December 7, 2009
Reid Compares Health Reform Bill with Slavery, Suffrage - George's Bottom Line, abcnews.com, December 7, 2009, 2009-12-08 http://blogs.abcnews.com/george/2009/12/reid-compares-health-reform-bill-with-slavery-suffrage.html,

Judith Krug photo

“Many libraries are digging in their heels and saying, "We are not going to add filtering mechanisms."”

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

"A Library That Would Rather Block Than Offend" by Pamela Mendels, The New York Times (January 18, 1997)

Jerome K. Jerome photo
Joseph Strutt photo
Daniel Handler photo

“At this point in the dreadful story I am writing, I must interrupt for a moment and describe something that happened to a good friend of mine named Mr. Sirin. Mr. Sirin was a lepidoptrerist, a word which usually means "a person who studies butterflies." In this case, however, the word "lepidopterist" means "a man who was being pursued by angry government officials," and on the night I am telling you about they were right on his heels. Mr. Sirin looked back to see how close they were--four officers in their bright-pink uniforms, with small flashlights in their left hands and large nets in their right--and realized that in a moment they would catch up, and arrest him and his six favorite butterflies, which were frantically flapping alongside him. Mr. Sirin did not care much if he was captured--he had been in prison four and a half times over the course of his long and complicated life--but he cared very much about the butterflies. He realized that these six delicate insects would undoubtedly perish in bug prison, where poisonous spiders, stinging bees, and other criminals would rip them to shreds. So, as the secret police closed in, Mr. Sirin opened his mouth as wide as he could and swallowed all six butterflies whole, quickly placing them in the dark but safe confines of his empty stomach. It was not a pleasant feeling to have these six insects living inside him, but Mr. Sirin kept them there for three years, eating only the lightest foods served in prison so as not to crush the insects with a clump of broccoli or a baked potato. When his prison sentence was over, Mr. Sirin burped up the grateful butterflies and resumed his lepidoptery work in a community that was much more friendly to scientists and their specimens.”

Lemony Snicket
The Hostile Hospital (2001)

Omar Bradley photo
Herman Melville photo
Norman Mailer photo
Babe Ruth photo
Toby Keith photo
Mike Oldfield photo
Jim Ross photo

“[…] is running like a scolded dog! (usually said when a heel wrestler flees from a fight)”

Jim Ross (1952) American professional wrestling commentator, professional wrestling referee, and restaurateur

Commentary Quotes
Source: Ross, Jim, http://www.wwe.com/superstars/smackdown/jimross/bio/, J.R.'s WWE Profile, 2008-01-06, January 5, 2008, JRsBarBQ.com

Rand Paul photo
Joseph Arch photo

“It is my considered opinion that the so called Kashmir problem, we have been facing, since 1947 has never been viewed in a historical perspective. That is why it has defied solution so far, and its end is not in sight in the near future. Politicians at the helm of affairs during this nearly half a century have been living from hand to mouth and are waiting for Pakistan to face them with a fait accompli. Once againg they are out to hand over Kashmir and its people to be butchers who have devastated this fair land and destroyed its rich eulture. … It is therefore high time that we renounce this ritual and have a look at the problem in a historical perspective. I should like to warn that histories of Kashmir written by Kashmiri Hindus in modern times are worse than useless for this purpose. I have read almost all of them, only to be left wondering at the piteous state to which the Hindu mind in Kashmir has been reduced. I am not taking these histories into account except for bits and pieces which fall into the broad pattern. … What distinguishes the Hindu rulers of Kashmir from Hindu rulers elsewhere is that they continued to recruit in their army Turks from Central Asia without realizing that the Turks had become Islamicized and as such were no longer mere wage earners. One of Kashmir's Hindu rulers Harsha (1089-1101 CE) was persuaded by his Muslim favourites to plunder temple properties and melt down icons made of precious metal. Apologists of Islam have been highlighting this isolated incident in order to cover up the iconoclastic record of Islam not only in Kashmir but also in the rest of Bharatvarsha. At the same time they conceal the fact that Kashmir passed under the heel of Islam not as a result of the labours of its missionaries but due to a coup staged by an Islamicised army. … Small wonder that balance of farces in Kashmir should have continued to tilt in favour of Islamic imperialism till the last Hindu has been hounded out of his ancestral homeland. Small wonder that the hoodlums strut around not only in the valley but in the capital city of Delhi with airs of injured innocence. Small wonder that the Marxist-Muslim combine of scribes who dominate the media blame Jagmohan for arranging an overnight and enmasse exodus of the Hindus from the valley. (They cannot forgive Jagmohan for bringing back Kashmir to India at a time when the combine was hoping that Pakistan would face India with an accomplished fact.) Small wonder that what Arun Shourie has aptly described as the "Formula Factory"”

Sita Ram Goel (1921–2003) Indian activist

the Nayars, the Puris, the Kotharis, the Dhars, the Haksars, the Tarkundes - should be busy devising ways for handing over the Kashmir Hindus to their age-old oppressors.
Kashmir: The Problem is Muslim Extremism by Sita Ram Goel https://web.archive.org/web/20080220033606/http://www.kashmir-information.com/Miscellaneous/Goel1.html

Eddie Izzard photo
John Bright photo

“If a man have three or four children, he has just three or four times as much interest in having the Corn Laws abolished as the man who has none. Your children will grow up to be men and women. It may be that your heads will be laid in the grave before they come to manhood or womanhood; but they will grow up, and want employment at honest trades—want houses and furniture, food and clothing, and all the necessaries and comforts of life. They will be honest and industrious as yourselves. But the difficulties which surround you will be increased tenfold by the time they have arrived at your age. Trade will then have become still more crippled; the supply of food still more diminished; the taxation of the country still further increased. The great lords, and some other people, will have become still more powerful, unless the freemen and electors of Durham and of other places stand to their guns, and resolve that, whatever may come of Queen, or Lords, or Commons, or Church, or anybody—great and powerful, and noble though they be—the working classes will stand by the working classes; and will no longer lay themselves down in the dust to be trampled upon by the iron heel of monopoly, and have their very lives squeezed out of them by evils such as I have described.”

John Bright (1811–1889) British Radical and Liberal statesman

Speech during the general election of 1843, quoted in G. M. Trevelyan, The Life of John Bright (London: Constable, 1913), pp. 113-114.
1840s

Piet Mondrian photo

“In Paris, I quickly mastered the Foxtrot, the Shimmy and the One Step, [he liked the Shimmy best:] At first, the heel-toe was sort of tricky. Nowadays, they find ways around it.”

Piet Mondrian (1872–1944) Peintre Néerlandais

Quote in Mondrian's letter to Theo van Doesburg, undated, c. 1917/18; as cited in 'Mondrian's World: From Primary Colors to the Boogie Woogie Footsteps' by Nina Stegal, 24 MAY, 2017 https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/24/travel/piet-mondrian-netherlands-abstract-painter-de-stijl-design.html?em_pos=medium&emc=edit_li_20170527&nl=nyt-living&nl_art=1&nlid=78029813&ref=headline&te=1&_r=0
1910's

Jim Ross photo

“"Jezebel!" (when talking about a female heel (villain) wrestler)”

Jim Ross (1952) American professional wrestling commentator, professional wrestling referee, and restaurateur

Commentary Nicknames

Terence photo

“I took to my heels as fast as I could.”

Act V, scene 2, 5, line 844.
Eunuchus

Robert Louis Stevenson photo
Winston S. Churchill photo
Revilo P. Oliver photo
Frederik Pohl photo
Kate Winslet photo
David Hume photo
Isocrates photo

“Sure he (Fred Astaire) was great, but don't forget that Ginger Rogers did everything he did, backwards… and in high heels.”

Bob Thaves (1924–2006) cartoonist

A May 3, 1982 Frank and Ernest cartoon.
Elizabeth Knowles, " Backwards and in high heels http://books.google.com/books?id=jxFQqDLav6wC&pg=PT25&dq=%22backwards%22+%22high+heels%22+%22ginger+rogers%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=wPs_U-qZC9PNsQS90YLYBQ&ved=0CDgQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22backwards%22%20%22high%20heels%22%20%22ginger%20rogers%22&f=false", What They Didn't Say: A Book of Misquotations (Oxford Press: 2006)
" Quotes About Ginger Rogers http://www.gingerrogers.com/about/quotes.html", Ginger Rogers: The Official Site
Often incorrectly attributed to Faith Whittlesey, Ann Richards (who used it in a 1988 speech), or to Ginger Rogers herself
Alternative version: Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, except backwards and in high heels.
Source: http://www.frankandernest.com/

Derren Brown photo
Nicole Kidman photo

“Now I can wear heels.”

Nicole Kidman (1967) Australian-American actress and film producer

On divorcing Tom Cruise
Dame Magazine http://www.damemagazine.com/entertainment/f384/TheWitandWisdomofNicoleKidman.php

Davy Crockett photo
Gaio Valerio Catullo photo

“Over head and heels.”
Per caputque pedesque.

XVII, line 9
Carmina

Mike Scott photo

“There’s a day to deny and a day to decry
and a day for the man the wind at his heels!”

Mike Scott (1958) songwriter, musician

"The Man With The Wind At His Heels" · Video at YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWrkveqkkQk
Book of Lightning (2007)
Context: There’s a day to ride thumb on a thunderhead
There’s a day to make fantasy real
There’s a day to deny and a day to decry
and a day for the man the wind at his heels!

Algis Budrys photo

“It’s good for us; hot breath on your heels is what keeps you on your toes.”

Source: Michaelmas (1977), Chapter 9 (p. 120)

Margaret Thatcher photo
Mahatma Gandhi photo

“That I address you as a friend is no formality. I own no foes. My business in life has been for the past 33 years to enlist the friendship of the whole of humanity by befriending mankind, irrespective of race, colour or creed. … We have no doubt about your bravery or devotion to your fatherland, nor do we believe that you are the monster described by your opponents… But your own writings and pronouncements and those of your friends and admirers leave no room for doubt that many of your acts are monstrous and unbecoming of human dignity, especially in the estimation of men like me who believe in human friendliness. Such are your humiliation of Czechoslovakia, the rape of Poland and the swallowing of Denmark. I am aware that your view of life regards such spoliations as virtuous acts. But we have been taught from childhood to regard them as acts degrading humanity…Hence we cannot possibly wish success to your arms…. But ours is a unique position. We resist British imperialism no less than Nazism… If there is a difference, it is in degree. One-fifth of the human race has been brought under the British heel by means that will not bear scrutiny… Our resistance to it does not mean harm to the British people. We seek to convert them, not to defeat them on the battle-field… No spoliator can compass his end without a certain degree of co-operation, willing or unwilling, of the victim…. The rulers may have our land and bodies but not our souls…. We know what the British heel means for us and the non-European races of the world. But we would never wish to end the British rule with German aid… We have found in non-violence a force which, if organized, can without doubt match itself against a combination of all the most violent forces in the world… If not the British, some other power will certainly improve upon your method and beat you with your own weapon. You are leaving no legacy to your people of which they would feel proud.”

Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948) pre-eminent leader of Indian nationalism during British-ruled India

Letter to Hitler. 24 December 1940. Quoted from Koenraad Elst: Return of the Swastika (2007). (Also in https://web.archive.org/web/20100310135408/http://koenraadelst.bharatvani.org/articles/fascism/gandhihitler.html)
1940s

Klaus Barbie photo
Rand Paul photo

“What I don't like from the president's administration is this sort of, 'I'll put my boot heel on the throat of BP.'”

Rand Paul (1963) American politician, ophthalmologist, and United States Senator from Kentucky

I think that sounds really un-American in his criticism of business. I've heard nothing from BP about not paying for the spill. And I think it's part of this sort of blame-game society in the sense that it's always got to be someone's fault instead of the fact that sometimes accidents happen. I mean, we had a mining accident that was very tragic and I've met a lot of these miners and their families. They're very brave people to do a dangerous job. But then we come in and it's always someone's fault. Maybe sometimes accidents happen.
Good Morning America
ABC
2010-05-21
Why Libertarianism Doesn’t Work, Part N+1
Paul Krugman
2010-05-21
New York Times
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/21/why-libertarianism-doesnt-work-part-n1/
on the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and 2010-05-05 explosion at Massey's Upper Big Branch mine
reference to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar telling CNN on 2010-05-02, "Our job basically is to keep the boot on the neck of British Petroleum."

Marilyn Monroe photo

“I don't know who invented the high heel, but all women owe him a lot. Excuse the pun, but it was the high heel that gave a big lift to my own career.”

Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962) American actress, model, and singer

As quoted in "When it comes to shoes, practicality often takes a back seat" https://www.newspapers.com/image/?clipping_id=85010977 by Mary T. Schmich, The Orlando Sentinel (November 9, 1983), p. 51

John Derbyshire photo

“Wherever there is a jackboot stomping on a human face there will be a well-heeled Western liberal to explain that the face does, after all, enjoy free health care and 100 percent literacy.”

John Derbyshire (1945) writer

Source: Derb Quotes https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/derb-quotes-john-derbyshire/, National Review, November 20, 2003.

Mike Scott photo

“There’s a day to ride thumb on a thunderhead
There’s a day to make fantasy real
There’s a day to deny and a day to decry
and a day for the man with the wind at his heels!”

Mike Scott (1958) songwriter, musician

Book of Lightning (2007)
Source: "The Man With The Wind At His Heels" · Video at YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozofHLXORsw

Sidney Poitier photo

“Compassion for other human beings has to extend to the society that’s been grinding the powerless under its heel. The more civilized the society becomes, the more humane it becomes; the more it can see its own humanity, the more it sees the ways in which its humanity has been behaving inhumanly. This injustice of the world inspires a rage so intense that to express it fully would require homicidal action; it’s self-destructive, destroy-the-world rage. Simply put, I’ve learned that I must find positive outlets for anger or it will destroy me. I have to try to find a way to channel that anger to the positive, and the highest positive is forgiveness.”

Sidney Poitier (1927) American-born Bahamian actor, film director, author, and diplomat

Variant: I’ve learned that I must find positive outlets for anger or it will destroy me. There is a certain anger; it reaches such intensity that to express it fully would require homicidal rage — self-destructive, destroy-the-world rage — and its flame burns because the world is so unjust. I have to try to find a way to channel that anger to the positive, and the highest positive is forgiveness.
Source: The Measure of a Man (2000)