Quotes about height

A collection of quotes on the topic of height, greatness, other, likeness.

Quotes about height

“I put a lot of mannequins in my room in the past, and I still have mannequins in my room, because I used to be very lonely, painfully lonely. You have no idea. I used to walk the streets looking for people to talk to. I'm talking about the height of one's career…. I would walk up to them, strangers, and say, "will you be my friend?" They'd go, "my god, Michael Jackson!"”

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

and that's not what I wanted.
The Michael Jackson Interview: The Footage You Were Never Meant to See (2002)

God, People, Idea, Past

“No one is afraid of heights, they're afraid of falling down. No one is afraid of saying I love you, they're afraid of the answer…”

Kurt Cobain (1967–1994) American musician and artist

Love

“It is the same with man as with the tree. The more he seeks to rise into the height and light, the more vigorously do his roots struggle earthword, downword, into the dark, the deep - into evil.”

Friedrich Nietzsche book Thus Spoke Zarathustra

Source: Thus Spoke Zarathustra

For Men, Tree, Light, Evil

“Never stay up on the barren heights of cleverness, but come down into the green valleys of silliness.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) Austrian-British philosopher

Source: Culture and Value (1980), p. 76e

“Am I a romantic? I've seen "Wuthering Heights" ten times. I'm a romantic.”

Johnny Depp (1963) American actor, film producer, and musician

Time

“But to reach…the pinnacle of power, it will be necessary, to climb rugged heights.”

Jose Cecilio del Valle (1777–1996) Honduran politician-

1821

“There is no top. There are always further heights to reach.”

Jascha Heifetz (1901–1987) Lithuanian violinist

Heifetz official web site http://www.jaschaheifetz.com/about/quotes.html

“Placing your stick at the end of the shadow of the pyramid, you made by the sun's rays two triangles, and so proved that the pyramid [height] was to the stick [height] as the shadow of the pyramid to the shadow of the stick.”

Thales (-624–-547 BC) ancient Greek philosopher and mathematician

W. W. Rouse Ball, A Short Account of the History of Mathematics (1893, 1925)

Sun

“The surest way to work up a crusade in favor of some good cause is to promise people they will have a chance of maltreating someone. To be able to destroy with good conscience, to be able to behave badly and call your bad behavior 'righteous indignation' — this is the height of psychological luxury, the most delicious of moral treats.”

Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) English writer

People, Chance, Way, Behavior

“Every time I think you’ve reached the limits of arrogance, you show me new heights. Truly, your egotism is like the Universe—ever expanding.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Strikes

Thinking, Universe, Time

“On every level of life, from housework to heights of prayer, in all judgment and efforts to get things done, hurry and impatience are sure marks of the amateur.”

Evelyn Underhill (1875–1941) British saint, poet, novelist

Life, Effort

“Happiness makes up in height for what it lacks in length.”

Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet

Title of poem (1942)
1940s

Happy, Happiness

“What in me is dark
Illumine, what is low raise and support,
That to the height of this great argument
I may assert eternal Providence,
And justify the ways of God to men. 1
Paradise Lost. Book i. Line 22.”

John Milton book Paradise Lost

i.17-26
Paradise Lost (1667)
Context: And chiefly Thou O Spirit, that dost prefer
Before all Temples th' upright heart and pure,
Instruct me, for Thou know'st; Thou from the first
Wast present, and with mighty wings outspread
Dove-like satst brooding on the vast Abyss
And mad'st it pregnant: What in me is dark
Illumine, what is low raise and support;
That to the highth of this great Argument
I may assert th' Eternal Providence,
And justifie the wayes of God to men.

Men, God, Books, Way

“If there be light, then there is darkness; if cold, heat; if height, depth; if solid, fluid; if hard, soft; if rough, smooth; if calm, tempest; if prosperity, adversity; if life, death.”

Pythagoras (-585–-495 BC) ancient Greek mathematician and philosopher

As quoted in Bibliotheca Sacra and Theological Review by ? Vol. IV, No. 8 (1847) by Dallas Theological Seminary, p. 107

Life, Death, Light

“Every day in the United States, seventeen children are killed by gunfire. That’s about 6,000 children each year who are killed by guns, as compared, for example, with about 3,000 a year who died at the height of the polio epidemic of the 1950s. We rose up as a society to fight against polio. Why do we not act more forcefully to halt today’s even greater scourge?”

Jimmy Carter (1924) American politician, 39th president of the United States (in office from 1977 to 1981)

Source: Sources of Strength: Meditations on Scripture for a Living Faith

Children, Fight

“Worldly Wisdom

Do not stay in the field!
Nor climb out of sight.
The best view of the world
Is from a medium height.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

Source: The Gay Science

Wisdom, World

“In her eyes is the living Hght
Of a wanderer to earth
From a far celestial height:
Summers five are all the span —
Summers five since Time began
To veil in mists of human night
A shining angel-birth.

Does an angel look from her eyes?
Will she suddenly spring away,
And soar to her home in the skies?
Beatrice! Blessing and blessed to be!”

Lewis Carroll Three Sunsets and Other Poems

Beatrice (1862), st. 1
Three Sunsets and Other Poems (1898)

Birth, Angels, Home, Spring

“One night as I walked in the desert the mountains rode on my shoulders
and the sky became my heart,
and the earth - my own body, I explored.
Every object began to wink at me, and Mira wisely calculated thinking,
My charms must be at their height
now would be a good time to rush into his arms,
maybe He won't drop me so quick.”

Meera Bai Hindu mystic poet

Mira Bai, Love Poems from God: Twelve Sacred Voices from the East and West http://books.google.co.in/books?id=ENaRTjQRMaIC&pg=PT329

Mountain, Thinking, Time, Heart

“On the heights it is warmer than people in the valleys suppose, especially in winter. The thinker recognizes the full import of this simile.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919), Maxims

People, Winter

“But, I'm sure you weren't aware of the dream that was born in me when I was small… Well, let me rephrase that -- when I was young -- because, technically, I'm still very small. And I get this from everybody when they meet me: 'You're so tiny.' I guess I am. I don't feel any height, but, apparently, I am not that big.”

Gloria Estefan (1957) Cuban-American singer-songwriter, actress and divorciada

address to LULAC (July 1, 2005)
2007, 2008

Dreams, Feeling

“Tormented by spiritual thirst,
I dragged myself through a somber desert.
And a six-winged seraph
Appeared to meet me at the crossing of the ways.
He touched my eyes
With fingers as light as a dream:
And my prophetic eyes opened
Like those of a frightened eagle.
He touched my ears
And they were filled with noise and ringing:
And I heard the shuddering of the heavens,
And the flight of the angels in the heights,
And the movement of the beasts of the sea under the waters,
And the sound of the vine growing in the valley.
He bent down to my mouth
And tore out my tongue,
Sinful, decitful, and given to idle talk;
with the right hand steeped in blood
He inserted the tongue of a wise serpent,
Into my benumbed mouth.
He clove my breast with a sword,
And plucked out my quivering heart,
And thrust a coal of live fire
Into my gaping breast.
Like a corpse I lay in the desert.
And the voice of God called out to me:
'Arise, O prophet, see and hear,
Be filled with my will,
Go forth over land and sea,
And set the hearts of men on fire with your Word.”

Aleksandr Pushkin The Prophet

English translation found in New Society, Volume 8, (1966). New Society Limited. p. 413.
Also quoted by Kahn, Andrew (2006). The Cambridge Companion to Pushkin. Cambridge University Press, p. 84.
The Prophet (1826)

Men, God, Dreams, Angels

“Other heights in other lives, God willing.”

Robert Browning (1812–1889) English poet and playwright of the Victorian Era

Stanza xii.
One Word More (1855)

God

“From the heights of these pyramids, forty centuries look down on us.”

Napoleon I of France (1769–1821) French general, First Consul and later Emperor of the French

Speech to his troops in Egypt (21 July 1798) Variant translation: "Soldiers, from the summit of yonder pyramids forty centuries look down upon you...". Published in the autobiography of French general Eugène de Beauharnais.

“Name one practical, down-to-earth effect of spirituality," said the skeptic who was ready for an argument.
"Here's one," said the Master. "When someone offends you, you can raise your spirits to heights where offenses cannot reach.”

Anthony de Mello (1931–1987) Indian writer

Source: One Minute Nonsense (1992), p. 80

“On the receipt of this letter, Hijaj obtained the consent of Wuleed, the son of Abdool Mullik, to invade India, for the purpose of propagating the faith and at the same time deputed a chief of the name of Budmeen, with three hundred cavalry, to join Haroon in Mikran, who was directed to reinforce the party with one thousand good soldiers more to attack Deebul. Budmeen failed in his expedition, and lost his life in the first action. Hijaj, not deterred by this defeat, resolved to follow up the enterprise by another. In consequence, in the year AH 93 (AD 711) he deputed his cousin and son-in-law, Imad-ood-Deen Mahomed Kasim, the son of Akil Shukhfy, then only seventeen years of age, with six thousand soldiers, chiefly Assyrians, with the necessary implements for taking forts, to attack Deebul'… 'On reaching this place, he made preparations to besiege it, but the approach was covered by a fortified temple, surrounded by strong wall, built of hewn stone and mortar, one hundred and twenty feet in height. After some time a bramin, belonging to the temple, being taken, and brought before Kasim, stated, that four thousand Rajpoots defended the place, in which were from two to three thousand bramins, with shorn heads, and that all his efforts would be vain; for the standard of the temple was sacred; and while it remained entire no profane foot dared to step beyond the threshold of the holy edifice. Mahomed Kasim having caused the catapults to be directed against the magic flag-staff, succeeded, on the third discharge, in striking the standard, and broke it down… Mahomed Kasim levelled the temple and its walls with the ground and circumcised the brahmins. The infidels highly resented this treatment, by invectives against him and the true faith. On which Mahomed Kasim caused every brahmin, from the age of seventeen and upwards, to be put to death; the young women and children of both sexes were retained in bondage and the old women being released, were permitted to go whithersoever they chose… On reaching Mooltan, Mahomed Kasim also subdued that province; and himself occupying the city, he erected mosques on the site of the Hindoo temples.”

Muhammad bin Qasim (695–715) Umayyad general

Tarikh-i-Firishta, translated into English by John Briggs under the title History of the Rise of the Mahomedan Power in India, 4 Volumes, New Delhi Reprint, 1981. p. 234-238

Life, Death, Women, Children

“At the ceremony of signing the decoration I met Field-Marshal Montgomery for the first time. During the war I had closely followed the actions of British troops under his command. In 1940 the British Expeditionary Corps had sustained a disastrous setback at Dunkirk. Later, British troops under Montgomery's command had smashed the German corps under General Rommel at El Alamein. During the Normandy landing Montgomery had ably commanded the Allied forces and their advance to the banks of the Seine. Montgomery was above medium height, very agile, soldierly, trim and created an impression of a lively and intelligent man. He began to talk about the operations at El Alamein and at Stalingrad. In his view the two operations were of equal significance. I did not want to belittle the merits of the British troops, but still I had to explain to him that the El Alamein operation was carried out on an army scale, while at Stalingrad the operation engaged a group of fronts and it had a vast strategic importance- it resulted in the rout of a maor enemy force in the area of the Volga and Don rivers and later, in the North Caucasus. It was an operation that actually marked a radical turning-point in the war and ensured the retreat of the German forces from our country.”

Georgy Zhukov (1896–1974) Marshal of the Soviet Union

p. 661

War, Intelligence, Time, Country

“People travel to wonder at the height of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motion of the stars; and they pass by themselves without wondering.”

Aurelius Augustinus book Confessions

Variant: Men go abroad to admire the heights of mountains, the mighty billows of the sea, the broad tides of rivers, the compass of the ocean, and the circuits of the stars, and pass themselves by.
Source: Confessions (c. 397), X

People, Travel, Mountain, Star

“To attempt the destruction of our passions is the height of folly. What a noble aim is that of the zealot who tortures himself like a madman in order to desire nothing, love nothing, feel nothing, and who, if he succeeded, would end up a complete monster!”

Denis Diderot (1713–1784) French Enlightenment philosopher and encyclopædist

Source: Pensées Philosophiques (1746), Ch. 5, as quoted in Selected Writings (1966) edited by Lester G. Crocker

Love, Feeling, Passion

“For I am the size of what I see
not my height's size.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Attributed to the Caeiro alter ego, in A Factless Autobiography, Richard Zenith Edition, Lisbon, 2006, p. 71
The Book of Disquiet
Original: Porque eu sou do tamanho do que vejo
e não do tamanho da minha altura.

“The British soldier is second to none in the communities of fighting men. Some may possess more élan, others may be better disciplined; but none excels him in all-round character. We require no training in bravery in Britain; we can trust to our own native manliness to see us through. So it is with the soldier. It is his natural pride which gives him his fighting qualities. How often he has stood firm before tyranny and oppression, the last hope of the free world! In the midst of the noise and confusion of the battlefield, the simple homely figure of the British soldier stands out calm and resolute—dominating all around him with his quiet courage, his humour and his cheerfulness, his unflinching acceptance of the situation. May the ideals for which he has struggled never vanish from the world! May he never be forgotten by the nation for which he has fought so nobly! I know better than most to what heights the British soldier can aspire. His greatness is a measure of the greatness of the British character, and I have seen the quality of our race proved again and again on the battlefield.”

Bernard Montgomery, 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein (1887–1976) British Army officer, Commander of Allied forces at the Battle of El Alamein

Memoirs (London: Collins, 1958), pp. 543-544.

Men, World, Hope, Home

“Tonight, more than 200 years after a former colony won the right to determine its own destiny, the task of perfecting our union moves forward. It moves forward because of you. It moves forward because you reaffirmed the spirit that has triumphed over war and depression, the spirit that has lifted this country from the depths of despair to the great heights of hope, the belief that while each of us will pursue our own individual dreams, we are an American family and we rise or fall together as one nation and as one people.”

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

2012, Re-election Speech (November 2012)

War, People, Family, Dreams

“He looked about thirty, thin, rather above average height, exaggeratedly bent over when seated but less so when he stood up, dressed with a certain negligence, which was not entirely negligence. On his pale, uninteresting face an air of suffering did not stir interest, although it was difficult to define what kind of suffering that air — it seemed to suggest several kinds: privation, anguish, and a suffering born from the indifference of having suffered a great deal.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Introduction, tr. by Alfred Mac Adam
The Book of Disquiet

Suffering, Indifference

“The body sprang
At once to the height, and stayed; but the soul,—no!”

Robert Browning (1812–1889) English poet and playwright of the Victorian Era

A Death in the Desert (1864)

Soul

“How you treat everyone you encounter is the measure of the genuineness of your respect—and the heights you can each as a leader.”

Don Soderquist (1934–2016)

Don Soderquist “ Live Learn Lead to Make a Difference https://books.google.com/books?id=s0q7mZf9oDkC&lpg=pg=PP1&dq=Don%20Soderquist&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false, Thomas Nelson, April 2006 p. 135. <br class="br">On Treating Everyone with Respect

“That we are beaten is a self-evident fact, and any further resistance on our part would be justly regarded as the very height of folly and rashness.”

Nathan Bedford Forrest (1821–1877) Confederate Army general

Forrest to his men, 1865. As quoted in May I Quote You, General Forrest? by Randall Bedwell.
1860s

Parting

“Almost everything interesting in the human experience is the result of an individual experiencing, experimenting, explaining, and sharing,” said my young friend. “A hive mind would be the ancient television broadcasts, or life at the height of the datasphere…consensual idiocy.”

Dan Simmons book The Rise of Endymion

Source: The Rise of Endymion (1997), Chapter 21 (p. 464)

Life

“The horse carries the rider with power and speed. But the rider controls the horse. Talent carries the artist to great heights with power and speed. But the artist directs his talent. That is the element of 'consciousness', of 'calculation' in the work – or whatever else one chooses to call it.”

Wassily Kandinsky (1866–1944) Russian painter

Source: 1916 -1920, Autobiography', 1918, p. 31

Horse, Speed

“Ah, what a life is theirs who live in Christ;
How vast the mystery!
Reaching in height to heaven, and in its depth
The unfathomed sea!”

Elizabeth Prentiss (1818–1878) American musician, hymnwriter

Religious Poems‎ (1873), p. 41.

Life, Christ, Sea

“Being a part of the show, is nothing less than a compliment. This show has taken us all to a new height; we will miss each other a lot and hope to work with each other in the future as well. The show is going off air but something new will definitely come up for our fans.”

Sukirti Kandpal (1987) Indian actress

Message to fans on the ending of Pyaar Kii Ye Ek Kahaani http://www.tellychakkar.com/tv/tv-news/pyaar-kii-actors-get-nostalgic-about-the-show/ <br class="br">On her shows

Hope, Future, Parting

“Christianity is not satisfied with producing merely the specious guise of virtue. She requires the substantial reality, which may stand the scrutinizing eye of that Being “who searches the heart.” Meaning therefore that the Christian should live and breathe; in an atmosphere, as it were, of benevolence, she forbids whatever can tend to obstruct its diffusion or vitiate its purity. It is on this principle that Emulation is forbidden: for, besides that this passion almost insensibly degenerates into envy, and that it derives its origin chiefly from pride and a desire of self-exaltation; how can we easily love our neighbour as ourselves, if we consider him at the same time our rival, and are intent upon surpassing him in the pursuit of whatever is the subject of our competition?
Christianity, again, teaches us not to set our hearts on earthly possessions and earthly honours; and thereby provides for our really loving, or even cordially forgiving, those who have been more successful than ourselves in the attainment of them, or who have even designedly thwarted us in the pursuit. “Let the rich,” says the Apostle, “rejoice in that he is brought low.” How can he who means to attempt, in any degree, to obey this precept, be irreconcilably hostile towards any one who may have been instrumental in his depression?
Christianity also teaches us not to prize human estimation at a very high rate; and thereby provides for the practice of her injunction, to love from the heart those who, justly or unjustly, may have attacked our reputation, and wounded our character. She commands not the shew, but the reality of meekness and gentleness; and by thus taking away the aliment of anger and the fomenters of discord, she provides for the maintenance of peace, and the restoration of good temper among men, when it may have sustained a temporary interruption.
It is another capital excellence of Christianity, that she values moral attainments at a far higher rate than intellectual acquisitions, and proposes to conduct her followers to the heights of virtue rather than of knowledge. On the contrary, most of the false religious systems which have prevailed in the world, have proposed to reward the labour of their votary, by drawing aside the veil which concealed from the vulgar eye their hidden mysteries, and by introducing him to the knowledge of their deeper and more sacred doctrines.”

William Wilberforce (1759–1833) English politician

Source: Real Christianity (1797), p. 257.

Love, Men, Hostility, World

“When you return to your homes rise up to the height of a generation of men worthy of a free Government, and we will carry out the great work we have commenced. I return to you my sincere thanks, soldiers, for the honor you have done me this afternoon.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

1860s, Speeches to Ohio Regiments (1864), Speech to the One Hundred Sixty-fourth Ohio Regiment

Men, Home, Sincerity

“This is Nietzsche’s twofold struggle: against those who remove values from criticism, contenting themselves with producing inventories of existing values or with criticizing things in the name of established values (the “philosophical labourers”, Kant and Schopenhauer, BGE 211); but also against those who criticise or respect values by deriving them from simple facts, from so-called “objective facts” (the utilitarians, the “scholars”, BGE Part 6). In both cases philosophy moves in the indifferent element of the valuable in itself or the valuable for all. Nietzsche attacks both the “high” idea of foundation which leaves values indifferent to their origin and the idea of simple causal derivation or smooth beginning which suggests an indifferent origin for values. Nietzsche substitutes the pathos of difference or distance (the differential element) for both the Kantian principle of universality and the principle of resemblance dear to the utilitarians. “It was from the height of this pathos of distance that they first seized the right to create values and to coin names for them; what did utility matter?””

Gilles Deleuze book Nietzsche and Philosophy

GM I 2 p. 26
Source: Nietzsche and Philosophy (1962), p. 2

Idea, Universe, Parting, Indifference

“One of the things I love about Kate Bush is her absolute ability to take things, to pluck things that you would never expect to see on a rock album, and put them there and make them work. James Joyce's Ulysses — one of the greatest passages in all of English or Anglo-Irish literature, is Molly Bloom's glorious soliloquy ending in a sequence of Yeses. It's about embracing the world of the senses, embracing yourself, embracing sex, embracing love, embracing the future, embracing all possibility, and it goes all the way back to me, to "Wuthering Heights" — this is somebody who is not afraid of books. This is somebody who is not afraid of reading, somebody who's not afraid of writers, and who's not afraid of translating, being an intermediary, being a door, between the world of books and the world of rock.”

Neil Gaiman (1960) English fantasy writer

The Kate Bush Story (2014)

Love, Books, World, Sex

“The cold winds sweeping the mountain-height,
And pathless was the dreary wild,
And ’mid the cheerless hours of night
A mother wandered with her child:
As through the drifting snows she press’d,
The babe was sleeping on her breast.”

Seba Smith (1792–1868) American humorist

The Snow Storm.

Mountain, Sleep, Night

“Man will make it his purpose to master his own feelings, to raise his instincts to the heights of consciousness, to make them transparent, to extend the wires of his will into hidden recesses, and thereby to raise himself to a new plane, to create a higher social biologic type, or, if you please, a superman.”

Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) Marxist revolutionary from Russia

Literature and Marxism (1924)

Feeling

“He is truly great that is great in charity. He is truly great that is little in himself, and maketh no account of any height of honor. And he is truly learned that doeth the will of God, and forsaketh his own will.”

Thomas à Kempis (1380–1471) German canon regular

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 293.

God, Learning

“Many people today believe that cynicism requires courage. Actually, cynicism is the height of cowardice. It is innocence and open-heartedness that requires the true courage -- however often we are hurt as a result of it.”

Erica Jong (1942) Novelist, poet, memoirist, critic

How to Save Your Own Life (1977)

People, Courage, Hurt

“Tonight, we gather to affirm the greatness of our nation—not because of the height of our skyscrapers, or the power of our military, or the size of our economy. Our pride is based on a very simple premise, summed up in a declaration made over two hundred years ago: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."”

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

That is the true genius of America—a faith in simple dreams, an insistence on small miracles.
2004, Democratic National Convention speech (July 2004)

Life, Men, Truth, Faith

“Towards the outside, at any rate, the ego seems to maintain clear and sharp lines of demarcation. There is only one state — admittedly an unusual state, but not one that can be stigmatized as pathological — in which it does not do this. At the height of being in love the boundary between ego and object threatens to melt away.”

Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) Austrian neurologist known as the founding father of psychoanalysis

Source: 1920s, Civilization and Its Discontents (1929), Ch. 1, as translated by Joan Riviere (1961)
Context: Towards the outside, at any rate, the ego seems to maintain clear and sharp lines of demarcation. There is only one state — admittedly an unusual state, but not one that can be stigmatized as pathological — in which it does not do this. At the height of being in love the boundary between ego and object threatens to melt away. Against all the evidence of his senses, a man who is in love declares that "I" and "you" are one, and is prepared to behave as if it were a fact.

Love

“For the greatness of Reason is not measured by length or height, but by the resolves of the mind.”

Epictetus (50–138) philosopher from Ancient Greece

Golden Sayings of Epictetus
Context: Knowest thou what kind of speck you art in comparison with the Universe?—That is, with respect to the body; since with respect to Reason, thou art not inferior to the Gods, nor less than they. For the greatness of Reason is not measured by length or height, but by the resolves of the mind. Place then thy happiness in that wherein thou art equal to the Gods. (33).

“You must acquire the best knowledge first, and without delay; it is the height of madness to learn what you will later have to unlearn.”

Desiderius Erasmus (1466–1536) Dutch Renaissance humanist, Catholic priest, and theologian

Letter to Christian Northoff (1497), as translated in Collected Works of Erasmus (1974), p. 114

Knowledge, Learning, Madness

“It was bad enough to have toppled from the Olympic heights to make my living competing with animals. But the competition wasn't even fair. No man could beat a race horse, not even for 100 yards.”

Jesse Owens (1913–1980) American track and field athlete

Jesse Owens, Champion Athlete (1990)
Context: It was bad enough to have toppled from the Olympic heights to make my living competing with animals. But the competition wasn't even fair. No man could beat a race horse, not even for 100 yards. … The secret is, first, get a thoroughbred horse because they are the most nervous animals on earth. Then get the biggest gun you can find and make sure the starter fires that big gun right by the nervous thoroughbred's ear.

Animals, Horse

“Only through the group, I realised — through sharing the suffering of the group — could the body reach that height of existence that the individual alone could never attain.”

Yukio Mishima book Sun and Steel

Source: Sun and Steel (1968), p. 87.
Context: Only through the group, I realised — through sharing the suffering of the group — could the body reach that height of existence that the individual alone could never attain. And for the body to reach that level at which the divine might be glimpsed, a dissolution of individuality was necessary. The tragic quality of the group was also necessary, the quality that constantly raised the group out of the abandon and torpor into which it was prone to lapse, leading it to an ever-mounting shared suffering and so to death, which was the ultimate suffering. The group must be open to death — which meant, of course, that it must be a community of warriors.

Suffering

“There exists, then, the "spirit" of the scientist, a thing far above his mere "mechanical skill," and the scientist is at the height of his achievement when the spirit has triumphed over the mechanism. When he has reached this point, science will receive from him not only new revelations of nature, but philosophic syntheses of pure thought.”

Maria Montessori (1870–1952) Italian pedagogue, philosopher and physician

Source: The Montessori Method (1912), Ch. 1 : A Critical Consideration of the New Pedagogy in its Relation to Modern Science, p. 8.
Context: We give the name scientist to the type of man who has felt experiment to be a means guiding him to search out the deep truth of life, to lift a veil from its fascinating secrets, and who, in this pursuit, has felt arising within him a love for the mysteries of nature, so passionate as to annihilate the thought of himself. The scientist is not the clever manipulator of instruments, he is the worshipper of nature and he bears the external symbols of his passion as does the follower of some religious order. To this body of real scientists belong those who, forgetting, like the Trappists of the Middle Ages, the world about them, live only in the laboratory, careless often in matters of food and dress because they no longer think of themselves; those who, through years of unwearied use of the microscope, become blind; those who in their scientific ardour inoculate themselves with tuberculosis germs; those who handle the excrement of cholera patients in their eagerness to learn the vehicle through which the diseases are transmitted; and those who, knowing that a certain chemical preparation may be an explosive, still persist in testing their theories at the risk of their lives. This is the spirit of the men of science, to whom nature freely reveals her secrets, crowning their labours with the glory of discovery.
There exists, then, the "spirit" of the scientist, a thing far above his mere "mechanical skill," and the scientist is at the height of his achievement when the spirit has triumphed over the mechanism. When he has reached this point, science will receive from him not only new revelations of nature, but philosophic syntheses of pure thought.

Nature, Science

“When I contemplate this immense reunited country, my soul mounts to that height demanded by the colossal perspective of a picture so wonderful.”

Simón Bolívar (1783–1830) Venezuelan military and political leader, South American libertador

Close of the address, as quoted in Rise of the Spanish-American Republics as Told in the Lives of their Liberators (1918) by William Spence Robertson, p. 239
The Angostura Address (1819)
Context: When I contemplate this immense reunited country, my soul mounts to that height demanded by the colossal perspective of a picture so wonderful. My imagination takes flight toward future ages and admiringly observes from them the prosperity, the splendor, and the life which will exist within this vast territory. I am carried away; and I seem to behold it in the heart of the universe, stretching along its extensive coasts between two oceans which nature has separated; but which our fatherland has united by long and wide canals. I see it serve as the bond, as the center, as the emporium of the human race. I see it sending to the ends of the earth the treasures of gold and silver which its mountains contain. I see it, through the healing virtue of its plants, dispensing health and life to afflicted men of the Old World. I see it disclosing its precious secrets to the sages who know that the store of knowledge is more valuable than the store of riches which nature has so prodigally bestowed upon us. I see it seated upon the throne of liberty, the scepter of justice in its hand, crowned by glory, showing to the Old World the majesty of the New World.

Soul, Country

“If this is a dream, then perhaps our dreaming
Can touch life's height to a finer fire:
Who knows but the heavens and all their seeming
Were made by the heart's desire?”

Edwin Markham (1852–1940) American poet

Source: The Shoes of Happiness, and Other Poems (1913), The Crowning Hour, II
Context: p>If this is a dream, then perhaps our dreaming
Can touch life's height to a finer fire:
Who knows but the heavens and all their seeming
Were made by the heart's desire?One thing shines clear in the heart's sweet reason,
One lightning over the chasm runs —
That to turn from love is the world's one treason
That darkens all the suns.</p

Life, Dreams, Heart

“You wish to be great, begin from the least. You are thinking to construct some mighty fabric in height; first think of the foundation of humility.”

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

Sermon 19:2 on the New Testament http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/160319.htm <br class="br">Sermons <br class="br">Context: You wish to be great, begin from the least. You are thinking to construct some mighty fabric in height; first think of the foundation of humility. And how great soever a mass of building one may wish and design to place above it, the greater the building is to be, the deeper does he dig his foundation.

Thinking

“If any personal description of me is thought desirable, it may be said I am, in height, six feet four inches, nearly; lean in flesh, weighing on an average one hundred and eighty pounds; dark complexion, with coarse black hair and gray eyes. No other marks or brands recollected.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

Source: 1850s, Autobiographical Sketch Written for Jesse W. Fell (1859)

Personality

“It is in fact the height of selfishness to merely consume what others create and to retreat into a shell of limited goals and immediate pleasures.”

Robert Greene book Mastery

Source: Mastery

Pleasure, Selfishness

“… the only difference between a young person at the height of their exuberance and a very old person who is frail and physically wasted is time.”

John O'Donohue (1956–2008) Irish writer, priest and philosopher

Source: Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom

Time, Personality

“I love thee to the depth and breadth and height my soul can reach.”

Elizabeth Barrett Browning book Sonnets from the Portuguese

No. LXIII
Sonnets from the Portuguese (1850)
Variant: How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach
Context: How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
Context: How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints,—I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! —and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

love, Cute, Romantic, Wedding

“… You know the mistrust of heights is the mistrust of self, you don't know whether you're going to jump.”

Janet Fitch book White Oleander

Source: White Oleander

“What is more tragic than to see a person who has risen to the disciplined heights of tough-mindedness but has at the same time sunk to the passionless depths of hard-heartedness?”

Martin Luther King, Jr. book Strength to Love

Source: Strength to Love

Time, Personality

“The heights by great men reached and kept
Were not attained by sudden flight,
But they, while their companions slept,
Were toiling upward in the night.”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) American poet

The Ladder of St. Augustine, st. 10.
Source: Good Poems for Hard Times

Back To Work, Men, Night

“Words are like eggs dropped from great heights. You could no more call them back then ignore the mess they left when they fell.”

Stephen R. Covey (1932–2012) American educator, author, businessman and motivational speaker

“I feel as though I have lived many lives, experienced the heights and depths of each and like the waves of the ocean, never known rest. Throughout the years, I looked always for the unusual, for the wonderful, for the mysteries at the heart of life.”

Leni Riefenstahl (1902–2003) German film director, photographer, actress and dancer

Life, Feeling, Heart

“there is no ascent to the heights without prior descent into darkness, no new life without some form of death.”

Karen Armstrong (1944) author and comparative religion scholar from Great Britain

Source: A Short History of Myth

Life, Death

“My time I divide as follows: the one half I sleep; the other half I dream. I never dream when I sleep; that would be a shame, because to sleep is the height of genius.”

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

Source: Either/Or: A Fragment of Life

Dreams, Sleep, Time

“For too long, and despite what people told me, I had fallen for what the culture said about beauty, youth, features, heights, weights, hair textures, upper arms.”

Anne Lamott (1954) Novelist, essayist, memoirist, activist

People, Youth, Beauty

“Words are like eggs dropped from great heights; you can no more call them back than ignore the mess they leave when they fall.”

Jodi Picoult Salem Falls

Source: Salem Falls

“And the great spirit of darkness spread a shroud over me… everything was silent-everything. But upon the heights soughed the everlasting song, the voice of the air, the distant, toneless humming which is never silent.”

Knut Hamsun book Hunger

Source: Hunger

Distant

“Literature as a whole is not an aggregate of exhibits with red and blue ribbons attached to them, like a cat-show, but the range of articulate human imagination as it extends from the height of imaginative heaven to the depth of imaginative hell.”

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

Source: The Educated Imagination

Imagination, Cats, Literature, Hell

“I failed to make the chess team because of my height.”

Woody Allen (1935) American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, author, playwright, and musician

“All we can know is that we know nothing. And that's the height of human wisdom.”

Leo Tolstoy book War and Peace

Variant: The only thing that we know is that we know nothing — and that is the highest flight of human wisdom.
Source: War and Peace (1865–1867; 1869), Ch. I

Wisdom