Quotes about knock

A collection of quotes on the topic of knock, down, door, doing.

Quotes about knock

Hermann Göring photo

“The British, who can afford aluminium better than we can, knock together a beautiful wooden aircraft that every piano factory over there is building, and they give it a speed which they have now increased yet again. What do you make of that? There is nothing the British do not have. They have the geniuses and we have the nincompoops.”

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

This statement was attributed to Goering in at least one book on World War II, but it was removed from the English Wikipedia page on him on grounds that it was not actually verified that Goering had ever said it.
Disputed
Context: In 1940 I could at least fly as far as Glasgow in most of my aircraft, but not now! It makes me furious when I see the Mosquito. I turn green and yellow with envy. The British, who can afford aluminium better than we can, knock together a beautiful wooden aircraft that every piano factory over there is building, and they give it a speed which they have now increased yet again. What do you make of that? There is nothing the British do not have. They have the geniuses and we have the nincompoops. After the war is over I'm going to buy a British radio set – then at least I'll own something that has always worked.

Ed Sheeran photo

“I'm gonna pick up the pieces,
and build a Lego house.
When things go wrong we can knock it down.”

Ed Sheeran (1991) English singer-songwriter and producer

Song lyrics, + (2011)

Xenophon photo
Michael Jackson photo

“The way you make me feel,
You really turn me on,
You knock me off my feet,
My lonely days are gone.”

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

The Way You Make Me Feel
Bad (1987)

Rumi photo

“You knock at the door of Reality. You shake your thought wings, loosen your shoulders, and open.”

Rumi (1207–1273) Iranian poet

"The Gift of Water" Ch. 18 : The Three Fish, p. 200
The Essential Rumi (1995)

Tupac Shakur photo
Joel Osteen photo
Dylan Thomas photo
D.H. Lawrence photo

“Men fight for liberty and win it with hard knocks. Their children, brought up easy, let it slip away again, poor fools. And their grandchildren are once more slaves.”

D.H. Lawrence (1885–1930) English novelist, poet, playwright, essayist, literary critic and painter

Poem, "Liberty's old story" in Pansies (Third typing, ribbon copy - 231 poems, c. 11-28 February 1929)

Franz Schubert photo
Muhammad Ali photo

“I'm not the greatest; I'm the double greatest. Not only do I knock 'em out, I pick the round”

Muhammad Ali (1942–2016) African American boxer, philanthropist and activist

As quoted in "Ali's Quotes" at BBC Sport : Boxing (17 January 2007)

Nâzım Hikmet photo
Ransom Riggs photo

“When someone won't let you in, eventually you stop knocking.”

Source: Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (2011), Chapter 4, Page 88

Jesus photo

“One who seeks will find, and for [one who knocks] it will be opened”

Jesus (-7–30 BC) Jewish preacher and religious leader, central figure of Christianity

94
Gnostic Gospels, Gospel of Thomas (c. 2nd century AD manuscript)

William Shakespeare photo
Rabindranath Tagore photo
Chinua Achebe photo

“When suffering knocks at your door and you say there is no seat for him, he tells you not to worry because he has brought his own stool.”

Chinua Achebe (1930–2013) Nigerian novelist, poet, professor, and critic

Variant: When Suffering knocks at your door and you say there is no seat left for him, he tells you not to worry because he has brought his own stool.

Jimmy Carter photo

“In his early twenties, a man started collecting paintings, many of which later became famous: Picasso, Van Gogh, and others. Over the decades he amassed a wonderful collection. Eventually, the man’s beloved son was drafted into the military and sent to Vietnam, where he died while trying to save his friend. About a month after the war ended, a young man knocked on the devastated father’s door. “Sir,” he said, “I know that you like great art, and I have brought you something not very great.” Inside the package, the father found a portrait of his son. With tears running down his cheeks, the father said, “I want to pay you for this.ℍ “No,” the young man replied, “he saved my life. You don’t owe me anything.ℍ The father cherished the painting and put it in the center of his collection. Whenever people came to visit, he made them look at it. When the man died, his art collection went up for sale. A large crowd of enthusiastic collectors gathered. First up for sale was the amateur portrait. A wave of displeasure rippled through the crowd. “Let’s forget about that painting!” one said. “We want to bid on the valuable ones,” said another. Despite many loud complaints, the auctioneer insisted on starting with the portrait. Finally, the deceased man’s gardener said, “I’ll bid ten dollars.ℍ Hearing no further bids, the auctioneer called out, “Sold for ten dollars!” Everyone breathed a sigh of relief. But then the auctioneer said, “And that concludes the auction.” Furious gasps shook the room. The auctioneer explained, “Let me read the stipulation in the will: “Sell the portrait of my son first, and whoever buys it gets the entire art collection. Whoever takes my son gets everything.ℍ It’s the same way with God Almighty. Whoever takes his Son gets everything.”

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

Source: Through the Year with Jimmy Carter: 366 Daily Meditations from the 39th President

Simone Weil photo
Carlos Ruiz Zafón photo
Louis Sachar photo
Cassandra Clare photo
Humayun photo

“He holds aloft the banner of Islam and knocks down the infamous idols. He does away with people of infidelity and hostility”

Humayun (1508–1556) second Mughal Emperor

of Islam
Khwand Amir: Qanun-i Humayuni, M. Hidayat Hosain ed., Calcutta 1940. Cited in Harsh Narain, The Ayodhya Temple Mosque Dispute: Focus on Muslim Sources, p. 66-67

Richard Henry Dana Jr. photo
Dana White photo
Rabindranath Tagore photo
Miyamoto Musashi photo
Rocky Marciano photo

“Why waltz with a guy for 10 rounds if you can knock him out in one?”

Rocky Marciano (1923–1969) American boxer

As quoted in, "Remembering the Brockton Blockbuster", by Thomas Hauser, in The New York Sun (14 September 2005)

Claude Monet photo
Barack Obama photo
Alejandro Jodorowsky photo
Barack Obama photo

“I will never forget who this victory truly belongs to. It belongs to you. It belongs to you.
I was never the likeliest candidate for this office. We didn't start with much money or many endorsements. Our campaign was not hatched in the halls of Washington. It began in the backyards of Des Moines and the living rooms of Concord and the front porches of Charleston. It was built by working men and women who dug into what little savings they had to give $5 and $10 and $20 to the cause.
It grew strength from the young people who rejected the myth of their generation's apathy who left their homes and their families for jobs that offered little pay and less sleep.
It drew strength from the not-so-young people who braved the bitter cold and scorching heat to knock on doors of perfect strangers, and from the millions of Americans who volunteered and organized and proved that more than two centuries later a government of the people, by the people, and for the people has not perished from the Earth.
This is your victory.
And I know you didn't do this just to win an election. And I know you didn't do it for me.
You did it because you understand the enormity of the task that lies ahead. For even as we celebrate tonight, we know the challenges that tomorrow will bring are the greatest of our lifetime — two wars, a planet in peril, the worst financial crisis in a century.
Even as we stand here tonight, we know there are brave Americans waking up in the deserts of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan to risk their lives for us.”

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

2008, Election victory speech (November 2008)

Idi Amin photo

“Politics is like boxing — you try to knock out your opponents.”

Idi Amin (1925–2003) third president of Uganda

Interview, African summit talks, Angola, January 1976. Reported p.A8, Palm Beach Post, January 12, 1976.

Al Capone photo

“Don't get the idea that I'm one of these goddamn radicals. Don't get the idea that I'm knocking the American system.”

Al Capone (1899–1947) American gangster

As quoted in In Time of Trouble (1956) by Claud Cockburn

Dottie West photo
Octavia E. Butler photo
Lil Wayne photo

“Choppa knock yo face off, black shades Ray Charles”

Lil Wayne (1982) American rapper, singer, record executive and businessman

Cashed Out
Official Mix tapes, Dedication 4 (2012)

Woody Harrelson photo

“It's been at least 20 years. I used to eat burgers and steak, and I would just be knocked out afterward; I had to give it up. The first thing was dairy. I was about 24 years old and I had tons of acne and mucus. I met some random girl on a bus who told me to quit dairy and all those symptoms would go away three days later. By God she was right.”

Woody Harrelson (1961) American actor

Interview with Maxim magazine, explaining why he became vegan; as quoted in "Woody Harrelson’s Vegan Acne Cure", in HuffingtonPost.com (23 September 2009) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/23/woody-harrelsons-vegan-ac_n_295765.html.

Saul Bellow photo
Zack de la Rocha photo

“If ignorance is bliss, then knock the smile off my face.”

Zack de la Rocha (1970) American musician, poet rapper and activist best known as the vocalist and lyricist of rap metal band Rage Again…

"Settle for nothing".
Song lyrics, Rage Against the Machine (1992)

Stefan Zweig photo
Paul Weller (singer) photo
Napoleon I of France photo

“Muhammad was a prince; he rallied his compatriots around him. In a few years, the Muslims conquered half of the world. They plucked more souls from false gods, knocked down more idols, razed more pagan temples in fifteen years than the followers of Moses and Jesus did in fifteen centuries. Muhammad was a great man. He would indeed have been a god, if the revolution that he had performed had not been prepared by the circumstances.”

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

Campagnes d'Egypte et Syrie, Paris, Imprimerie Nationale, 1998, p. 275. Translated by John Tolan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Tolan in European Accounts of Muhammad's Life http://www.academia.edu/1834648/European_Accounts_of_Muhammads_Life. Napoleon wrote his memoirs on the island of Saint Helena. It is here he develops his portrait of Muhammad as a model lawmaker and conqueror.

Kurt Vonnegut photo
Barack Obama photo
E.M. Forster photo

“With this type of person knocking about, and constantly crossing one's path if one has eyes to see or hands to feel, the experiment of earthly life cannot be dismissed as a failure.”

E.M. Forster (1879–1970) English novelist

What I Believe (1938)
Context: On they go — an invincible army, yet not a victorious one. The aristocrats, the elect, the chosen, the Best People — all the words that describe them are false, and all attempts to organize them fail. Again and again Authority, seeing their value, has tried to net them and to utilize them as the Egyptian Priesthood or the Christian Church or the Chinese Civil Service or the Group Movement, or some other worthy stunt. But they slip through the net and are gone; when the door is shut, they are no longer in the room; their temple, as one of them remarked, is the holiness of the Heart's affections, and their kingdom, though they never possess it, is the wide-open world.
With this type of person knocking about, and constantly crossing one's path if one has eyes to see or hands to feel, the experiment of earthly life cannot be dismissed as a failure. But it may well be hailed as a tragedy, the tragedy being that no device has been found by which these private decencies can be transmitted to public affairs. As soon as people have power they go crooked and sometimes dotty as well, because the possession of power lifts them into a region where normal honesty never pays.

James A. Michener photo

“I think young people ought to seek that differential experience that is going to knock them off dead center. I was a typical American school boy. I happened to get straight A's and be pretty good in sports. But I had no great vision of what I could be. And I never had any yearning.
My job was to live through Friday afternoon, get through the week, and eat something. And then along came these differential experiences that you don't look for, that you don't plan for, but, boy, you better not miss them. The things that make you bigger than you are. The things that give you a vision. The things that give you a challenge.”

James A. Michener (1907–1997) American author

Academy of Achievement interview (1991)
Context: I do believe that everyone growing up faces differential opportunities. With me, it was books and travel and some good teachers. With somebody else, it may be a boy scout master. With somebody else, it will be a clergyman. Somebody else, an uncle who was wiser than the father. I think young people ought to seek that differential experience that is going to knock them off dead center. I was a typical American school boy. I happened to get straight A's and be pretty good in sports. But I had no great vision of what I could be. And I never had any yearning.
My job was to live through Friday afternoon, get through the week, and eat something. And then along came these differential experiences that you don't look for, that you don't plan for, but, boy, you better not miss them. The things that make you bigger than you are. The things that give you a vision. The things that give you a challenge.

Malcolm X photo

“Whenever you got a racial powder keg sitting in your lap, you’re in more trouble than if you had an atomic powder keg sitting in your lap. When a racial powder keg goes off, it doesn’t care who it knocks out the way. Understand this, it’s dangerous.”

Malcolm X (1925–1965) American human rights activist

The Ballot or the Bullet (1964), Speech in Detroit, Michigan (12 April 1964)
Context: And 1964 looks like it might be the year of the ballot or the bullet. Why does it look like it might be the year of the ballot or the bullet? Because Negroes have listened to the trickery, and the lies, and the false promises of the white man now for too long. And they’re fed up. They’ve become disenchanted. They’ve become disillusioned. They’ve become dissatisfied, and all of this has built up frustrations in the black community that makes the black community throughout today more explosive than all of the atomic bombs the Russians can ever invent. Whenever you got a racial powder keg sitting in your lap, you’re in more trouble than if you had an atomic powder keg sitting in your lap. When a racial powder keg goes off, it doesn’t care who it knocks out the way. Understand this, it’s dangerous.

Ogden Nash photo

“Some primal termite knocked on wood
And tasted it, and found it good!”

Ogden Nash (1902–1971) American poet

"The Termite"
Good Intentions (1942)
Context: Some primal termite knocked on wood
And tasted it, and found it good!
And that is why your Cousin May
Fell through the parlor floor today.

Joan Robinson photo

“Progress is slow partly from mere intellectual inertia. In a subject where there is no agreed procedure for knocking out errors, doctrines have a long life.”

Joan Robinson (1903–1983) English economist

Source: Economic Philosophy (1962), p. 79
Context: Progress is slow partly from mere intellectual inertia. In a subject where there is no agreed procedure for knocking out errors, doctrines have a long life. A professor teaches what he was taught, and his pupils, with a proper respect and reverence for teachers, set up a resistance against his critics for no other reason than that it was he whose pupils they were.

C.G. Jung photo

“Well, I was sitting opposite of her one day, with my back to the window, listening to her flow of rhetoric. She had an impressive dream the night before, in which someone had given her a golden scarab-a costly piece of jewellery. While she was still telling me this dream, I heard something behind me gently tapping on the window. I turned round and saw that it was a fairly large flying insect that was knocking against the window from outside in the obvious effort to get into the dark room. This seemed to me very strange. I opened the window and immediately and caught the insect in the air as it flew in. It was a scarabaeid beetle, or common rose-chafer, whose gold-green color most nearly resembles that of a golden scarab. I handed the beetle to my patient with the words "Here is your scarab."”

Source: Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle (1960), p. 110
Context: My example concerns a young woman patient who, in spite of efforts made on both sides, proved to be psychologically inaccessible. The difficulty lay in the fact that she always knew better about everything. Her excellent education had provided her with a weapon ideally suited to this purpose, namely a highly polished Cartesian rationalism with an impeccably "geometrical" idea of reality. After several fruitless attempts to sweeten her rationalism with a somewhat more human understanding, I had to confine myself to the hope that something unexpected and irrational would turn up, something that burst the intellectual retort into which she had sealed herself. Well, I was sitting opposite of her one day, with my back to the window, listening to her flow of rhetoric. She had an impressive dream the night before, in which someone had given her a golden scarab-a costly piece of jewellery. While she was still telling me this dream, I heard something behind me gently tapping on the window. I turned round and saw that it was a fairly large flying insect that was knocking against the window from outside in the obvious effort to get into the dark room. This seemed to me very strange. I opened the window and immediately and caught the insect in the air as it flew in. It was a scarabaeid beetle, or common rose-chafer, whose gold-green color most nearly resembles that of a golden scarab. I handed the beetle to my patient with the words "Here is your scarab." This broke the ice of her intellectual resistance. The treatment could now be continued with satisfactory results.

Barack Obama photo

“Our democracy is not the buildings, not the monuments. It's you being willing to work to make things better and being willing to listen to each other and argue with each other and come together and knock on doors and make phone calls and treat people with respect.”

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

2017, Farewell to Staff Members (January 2017)
Context: Our democracy is not the buildings, not the monuments. It's you being willing to work to make things better and being willing to listen to each other and argue with each other and come together and knock on doors and make phone calls and treat people with respect. And that doesn't end. This is just... this is just a little pit stop. This is not a period, this is a comma in the continuing story of building America.

Julius Caesar photo

“There are also animals which are called elks [alces "moose" in Am. Engl.; elk "wapiti"]. The shape of these, and the varied colour of their skins, is much like roes, but in size they surpass them a little and are destitute of horns, and have legs without joints and ligatures; nor do they lie down for the purpose of rest, nor, if they have been thrown down by any accident, can they raise or lift themselves up. Trees serve as beds to them; they lean themselves against them, and thus reclining only slightly, they take their rest; when the huntsmen have discovered from the footsteps of these animals whither they are accustomed to betake themselves, they either undermine all the trees at the roots, or cut into them so far that the upper part of the trees may appear to be left standing. When they have leant upon them, according to their habit, they knock down by their weight the unsupported trees, and fall down themselves along with them.”
Sunt item, quae appellantur alces. Harum est consimilis capris figura et varietas pellium, sed magnitudine paulo antecedunt mutilaeque sunt cornibus et crura sine nodis articulisque habent neque quietis causa procumbunt neque, si quo adflictae casu conciderunt, erigere sese aut sublevare possunt. His sunt arbores pro cubilibus: ad eas se applicant atque ita paulum modo reclinatae quietem capiunt. Quarum ex vestigiis cum est animadversum a venatoribus, quo se recipere consuerint, omnes eo loco aut ab radicibus subruunt aut accidunt arbores, tantum ut summa species earum stantium relinquatur. Huc cum se consuetudine reclinaverunt, infirmas arbores pondere adfligunt atque una ipsae concidunt.

Book VI
De Bello Gallico

Sugar Ray Robinson photo

“He was a tremendous puncher, with either hand. Knock you dead puncher. Knock you dead. And a terrific finisher.”

Sugar Ray Robinson (1921–1989) American boxer

Teddy Atlas on Robinson's punching power http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2441835652984416201&ei=sjpZS9eZGZPllQevwenkAw&q=sugar+ray+robinson#
About Sugar Ray sourced

John Lennon photo
Gilbert O'Sullivan photo

“Say it is. Say it isn't.
Say it's someone else instead.
Say it's good when you don't like fishing.
You just knock it on the head.
You just knock it on the head.
Say goodbye. Say good morning.
Say good evening and good noon.
Say "Hello, tell me how you're feeling."”

Gilbert O'Sullivan (1946) Irish singer-songwriter

"Very well thanks and how are you?"
"Say Goodbye" (song)
Song lyrics
Source: Gilbert O'Sullivan, "Say Goodbye" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCLuE28J-WU (song on YouTube)

Suzanne Collins photo
Annie Dillard photo
George Gordon Byron photo
Alice Sebold photo

“Your first kiss is destiny knocking.”

Source: The Lovely Bones

Sarah Vowell photo
Mike Dooley photo
Borís Pasternak photo
Connie Willis photo
Meg Cabot photo
Robin McKinley photo
Sherrilyn Kenyon photo
Scott Lynch photo

“You might as well answer the door, my child,
the truth is furiously knocking.”

Lucille Clifton (1936–2010) American poet

Source: Good Woman: Poems and a Memoir 1969-1980

Roald Dahl photo
Dave Barry photo
Fiona Wood photo

“My problems are like waves - just as one disappears with a snarl and a hiss there’s another shaping up to knock me down.”

Fiona Wood (1958) British–Australian physician and plastic surgeon

Source: Six Impossible Things

Meg Cabot photo
Oprah Winfrey photo

“Opportunity may knock only once but temptation leans on the door bell”

Oprah Winfrey (1954) American businesswoman, talk show host, actress, producer, and philanthropist

Source: Oprah Winfrey Speaks: Insights from the World's Most Influential Voice

Jerry Spinelli photo
Sherrilyn Kenyon photo

“You don’t knock on the devil’s door, boy, unless you want him to answer. (Ravyn)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Dark Side of the Moon

Albert Einstein photo

“If you get stuck to the committed path then…
this wall has to be..
KNOCKED DOWN!!”

Yoshiki Nakamura (1969) Artist

Source: Skip Beat!, Vol. 02

Robert M. Pirsig photo

“The truth knocks on the door and you say, "Go away, I'm looking for the truth," and so it goes away. Puzzling.”

Source: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (1974), Ch. 1
Source: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values

Stephen Colbert photo

“Knock Knock. Who's there? The Truth. No joke.”

Stephen Colbert (1964) American political satirist, writer, comedian, television host, and actor
Frances Hodgson Burnett photo
Joel Osteen photo

“We may get knocked down on the outside, but the key to living in victory is to learn how to get up on the inside.”

Joel Osteen (1963) American televangelist and author

Source: Your Best Life Now: 7 Steps to Living at Your Full Potential

Martin Luther King, Jr. photo
Woody Allen photo

“Don't knock masturbation. It's sex with someone you love.”

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

Source: Standup Comic