Quotes about lay (1436 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

“I just wanna lay my head on your chest,
so I'm as close as it gets to your heart
We can fall apart, start over again”

Lil Peep (1996–2017) American rapper

Song We Think Too Much, Album: Hellboy

Heart

“Today is filled with anger, fueled with hidden hate.
Scared of being outkast, afraid of common fate.
Today is build on tragedies which no one want's to face.
Nightmares to humanity and morally disgraced.
Tonight is filled with Rage, violence in the air.
Children bred with ruthlessness cause no one at home cares.
Tonight I lay my head down but the pressure never stops,
knowing that my sanity content when I'm droped.
But tomorrow I see change, a chance to build a new,
build on spirit intent of heart and ideas based on truth.
Tomorrow I wake with second wind and strong because of pride.
I know I fought with all my heart to keep the dream alive.”

Tupac Shakur (1971–1996) rapper and actor

Hate , Fate , Children , Truth

“I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.”

Isaac Newton (1643–1727) British physicist and mathematician and founder of modern classical physics

Memoirs of the Life, Writings, and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton (1855) by Sir David Brewster (Volume II. Ch. 27). Compare: "As children gath'ring pebbles on the shore", John Milton, Paradise Regained, Book iv. Line 330

Truth , World , Boy , Appearance

“Great stones they lay upon his chest until he plead aye or nay. They say he give them but two words. "More weight," he says. And died.”

Arthur Miller The Crucible

Source: The Crucible

“The phenomenological world is not the bringing to explicit expression of a pre-existing being, but the laying down of being. Philosophy is not the reflection of a pre-existing truth, but, like art, the act of bringing truth into being.”

Maurice Merleau-Ponty book Phenomenology of Perception

Source: Phenomenology of Perception

Truth , World , Art

“I am too sick to lay down
the sidewalks frighten me
the whole damned city frightens me,
what I will become
what I have become
frightens me.”

Charles Bukowski book Mockingbird Wish Me Luck

Source: Mockingbird Wish Me Luck

“If it ever lay in my power, I will work the Cardinal as much displeasure as he has done to me”

Anne Boleyn (1501–1536) Second wife of Henry VIII of England, mother of Queen Elizabeth I of England

About her dislike of Cardinal Wolsey, "Anne Bleyn" http://www.sixwives.info/anne-boleyn.htm, quote under section "Anne Boleyn and Henry Percy", The Tudors

“Our strategy should be not only to confront empire, but to lay siege to it. To deprive it of oxygen. To shame it. To mock it. With our art, our music, our literature, our stubbornness, our joy, our brilliance, our sheer relentlessness – and our ability to tell our own stories. Stories that are different from the ones we’re being brainwashed to believe.”

Arundhati Roy (1961) Indian novelist, essayist

Source: An Ordinary Person's Guide to Empire (2005), p. 86
Source: War Talk

Art , Music , Literature , Joy

“I could express my feelings more easily if they could be put into the notes of music, but as the very best concert would not cover my affection for you, dear daddy, I must use the simple words of my heart, to lay before you my utmost gratitude and filial affection”

Frédéric Chopin (1810–1849) Polish composer

As quoted in Chopin's Letter.
Source: Chopin's Letter (1988) by Henryk Opieński,E. L. Voynich, p. 4

Music , Feeling , Heart , Gratitude

“I can better understand the inert blindness & defiant ignorance of the reactionaries from having been one of them. I know how smugly ignorant I was—wrapped up in the arts, the natural (not social) sciences, the externals of history & antiquarianism, the abstract academic phases of philosophy, & so on—all the one-sided standard lore to which, according to the traditions of the dying order, a liberal education was limited. God! the things that were left out—the inside facts of history, the rational interpretation of periodic social crises, the foundations of economics & sociology, the actual state of the world today … & above all, the habit of applying disinterested reason to problems hitherto approached only with traditional genuflections, flag-waving, & callous shoulder-shrugs! All this comes up with humiliating force through an incident of a few days ago—when young Conover, having established contact with Henneberger, the ex-owner of WT, obtained from the latter a long epistle which I wrote Edwin Baird on Feby. 3, 1924, in response to a request for biographical & personal data. Little Willis asked permission to publish the text in his combined SFC-Fantasy, & I began looking the thing over to see what it was like—for I had not the least recollection of ever having penned it. Well …. I managed to get through, after about 10 closely typed pages of egotistical reminiscences & showing-off & expressions of opinion about mankind & the universe. I did not faint—but I looked around for a 1924 photograph of myself to burn, spit on, or stick pins in! Holy Hades—was I that much of a dub at 33 … only 13 years ago? There was no getting out of it—I really had thrown all that haughty, complacent, snobbish, self-centred, intolerant bull, & at a mature age when anybody but a perfect damned fool would have known better! That earlier illness had kept me in seclusion, limited my knowledge of the world, & given me something of the fatuous effusiveness of a belated adolescent when I finally was able to get around more in 1920, is hardly much of an excuse. Well—there was nothing to be done … except to rush a note back to Conover & tell him I'd dismember him & run the fragments through a sausage-grinder if he ever thought of printing such a thing! The only consolation lay in the reflection that I had matured a bit since '24. It's hard to have done all one's growing up since 33—but that's a damn sight better than not growing up at all.”

H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author

Letter to Catherine L. Moore (7 February 1937), in Selected Letters V, 1934-1937 edited by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei, pp. 407-408
Non-Fiction, Letters

God , Age , World , Education

“Cause the registration of firearms so that you can eventually confiscate them. Gun control, Communist idea. Lenin said, "One person with a gun can control a hundred people without one." Imagine this scene. You're standing in a bank trying to cash a check. Somebody runs in there, pulls out a gun, and says, "Everybody lay on the floor!" So everybody lies on the floor. Now imagine this scene. Every citizen is armed. The guy runs in the bank, "Lay on the floor!" Everybody else pulls out their guns. You lay on the floor while they all stomp on your head. Every dictator throughout history has wanted gun control. It's just a normal thing. You have to control the guns. Every dictator has wanted that. Gun control isn't about guns, it's about control. Somebody sent me this button as a joke, "Proudly Unarmed". Would you wear this? What does this say to a criminal? "Rob me!"”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

Isn't that what it says?
Creation seminars (2003-2005), The dangers of evolution

People , Guy , Imagination , History

“The greatest sorrow and burden you can lay on the Father, the greatest unkindness you can do to him is not to believe that he loves you.”

John Owen (1616–1683) English theologian

Source: Communion with God

Love

“Prayer is not overcoming God's reluctance. It is laying hold of His willingness.”

Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation

God

“If I am more alive because love burns and chars me,
as a fire, given wood or wind, feels new elation,
it's that he who lays me low is my salvation,
and invigorates the more, the more he scars me.”

Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475–1564) Italian sculptor, painter, architect and poet

Love , Feeling

“I lay it down as a fact that if all men knew what others say of them, there would not be four friends in the world.”

Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer, and Christian philosopher

Men , World

“It's lovely to live on a raft. We had the sky up there, all speckled with stars, and we used to lay on our backs and look up at them, and discuss about whether they was made or only just happened.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Love , Star

“What love lays bare in me is energy.”

Roland Barthes book A Lover's Discourse: Fragments

Source: A Lover's Discourse: Fragments

Love

“I’m tired, can’t think of anything and want only to lay my face in your lap, feel your hand on my head and remain like that through all eternity.”

Franz Kafka book Letters to Milena

Source: Letters to Milena

Feeling , Thinking

“In particular, at this point also urge governing authorities and parents to rule well and to send their children to school. Point out how they are obliged to do so and what a damnable sin they commit if they do not, for thereby, as the worst enemies of God and humanity, they overthrow and lay waste both the kingdom of God and the kingdom of the world. Explain very clearly what kind of horrible damage they do when they do not help to train children as pastors, preachers, civil servants, etc., and tell them that God will punish them dreadfully for this. For in our day and age it is necessary to preach about these things. The extent to which parents and governing authorities are now sinning in these matters defies description. The devil, too, intends to do something horrible in all this.”

Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation

Foreword to the small catechismus, as quoted in the Preface, The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church (2000) by Robert Kolb and Timothy J. Wengert, p. 19

God , Children , Age , World

“Love knows not distance; it hath no continent; its eyes are for the stars, its feet for the swords; it continueth, though an army lay waste the pasture; it comforteth when there are no medicines; it hath the relish of manna; and by it do men live in the desert.”

Gilbert Parker (1862–1932) Canadian novelist and British politician

"The White Omen"

Love , Men , Star

“Chill out, what're you yelling for? Lay back. It's all been done before, and if? You could only let it be? You will see, I like you the way you are. When we're driving in your car and you're talking to me one and one. But you've become somebody else, like everyone else! You're watching your back, like you can't relax. You're trying to be cool; you look like a fool to me.”

Avril Lavigne (1984) Canadian singer-songwriter and actress

"Complicated"
Let Go (2002)

Fools , Cars , Way

“In his arms, my lady lay asleep, wrapped in a veil.
He woke her then and trembling and obedient
She ate that burning heart out of his hand;
Weeping I saw him then depart from me.”

Dante Alighieri book Vita Nuova

ne le braccia avea
madonna involta in un drappo dormendo.
Poi la svegliava, e d'esto core ardendo
lei paventosa umilmente pascea:
appresso gir lo ne vedea piangendo.
Source: La Vita Nuova (1293), Chapter I, First Sonnet (tr. Mark Musa)

Heart

“Consider the world as an abode where in you have dropped down for an hour, then you have got to leave it and go ahead; or (suppose it is) like the wealth which you lay hands upon in a dream and become over-joyed and glad. Then you wake up to find yourself empty handed.”

Muhammad al-Baqir (677–733) fifth of the Twelve Shia Imams

Ibn Shu’ba al-Harrani, Tuhaf al-'Uqul, p. 287

World , Dreams , Joy , Wealth

“If I may, and if I might
Lay me down, weeping.”

Kurt Cobain (1967–1994) American musician and artist

Do Re Mi
Song lyrics, Posthumously released (post-1994)

“The heavyweight boxer Evander Holyfield, banned from boxing because of a heart condition, went to a Benny Hinn crusade in Philadelphia, had Hinn lay hands on him, and gave Hinn a check for $265,000 after he was told he was healed. In fact, he passed his next examination by the boxing commission, but later his doctors said he never had a heart condition in the first place – he had been misdiagnosed.”

Benny Hinn (1952) American-Canadian evangelist

About

Heart , Box

“A baby is born into this world in a state of fear. Total paranoia and awareness. He sees the world with eyes not used yet. As he grows up, his parents lay all this stuff on him. They tell him, when they should be letting him tell them. Let the children lead you.”

Charles Manson (1934–2017) American criminal and musician

Rolling Stone interview (June 1970)

Children , World , Fear , Parent

“If we judge from Islamic history, there is much to encourage us. For century after century, the Arabs, the Persians, the Turks and many other Islamic societies achieved powerful leadership roles in the world — not only politically and economically but also intellectually… The fundamental reason for the pre-eminence of Islamic civilizations lay neither in accidents of history nor in acts of war, but rather in their ability to discover new knowledge, to make it their own, and to build constructively upon it. They became the Knowledge Societies of their time.”

Aga Khan IV (1936) 49th and current Imam of Nizari Ismailism

Address by His Highness the Aga Khan to the 2006 Convocation of the Aga Khan University, Karachi, Pakistan (2 December 2006)]

War , World , History , Knowledge

“Now there was fought a battle such as men have not seen the like. And the earth was covered with steel, and arrows fell from the clouds like hail, and the ground was torn with hoofs, and blood flowed like water upon the plains. And the dead lay around in masses, and the feet of the horses could not stir because of them.”

Ferdowsi book Shahnameh

Translation of Helen Zimmern http://classics.mit.edu/Ferdowsi/kings.14.defeatafrasiyab.html
Shahnameh

Men , Water , Horse , Dead

“I told the world one day I would pay it back, say it on tape, lay it, so that one day i could play it back.”

Eminem (1972) American rapper and actor

2010s, I Need a Doctor (2011)

World

“No, we fight because we are free men who don't sleep under oppression. We want to restore freedom to our nation, just as you lay waste to our nation. So shall we lay waste to yours.”

Osama bin Laden (1957–2011) founder of al-Qaeda

2000s, 2004, 2004 Video Broadcast on Al-Jazeera October 29

Men , Sleep , Freedom , Fight

“Dear God, these are anxious times. Tonight for the first time I lay in the dark with burning eyes as scene after scene of human suffering passed before me. I shall promise You one thing, God, just one very small thing: I shall never burden my today with cares about my tomorrow, although that takes some practice. Each day is sufficient unto itself. I shall try to help You, God, to stop my strength ebbing away, though I cannot vouch for it in advance. But one thing is becoming increasingly clear to me: that You cannot help us, that we must help You to help ourselves. And that is all we can manage these days and also all that really matters: that we safeguard that little piece of You, God, in ourselves. And perhaps in others as well. Alas, there doesn't seem to be much You Yourself can do about our circumstances, about our lives. Neither do I hold You responsible. You cannot help us, but we must help You and defend Your dwelling place inside us to the last.”

Etty Hillesum (1914–1943) Jewish diarist

12 July 1942, p. 488-89
Etty: The Letters and Diaries of Etty Hillesum, 1941-1943

God , Suffering , Time , Help

“The ultimate in disposing one's troops is to be without ascertainable shape. Then the most penetrating spies cannot pry in nor can the wise lay plans against you.”

Sun Tzu (-543–-495 BC) ancient Chinese military general, strategist and philosopher from the Zhou Dynasty

Source: The Art of War, Chapter VI · Weaknesses and Strengths

“What did it matter where you lay once you were dead? In a dirty sump or in a marble tower on top of a high hill? You were dead, you were sleeping the big sleep, you were not bothered by things like that. Oil and water were the same as wind and air to you. You just slept the big sleep, not caring about the nastiness of how you died or where you fell. Me, I was part of the nastiness now.”

Raymond Chandler book The Big Sleep

Source: The Big Sleep (1939), Chapter 32, Phillip Marlowe
Context: What did it matter where you lay once you were dead? In a dirty sump or in a marble tower on top of a high hill? You were dead, you were sleeping the big sleep, you were not bothered by things like that. Oil and water were the same as wind and air to you. You just slept the big sleep, not caring about the nastiness of how you died or where you fell. Me, I was part of the nastiness now. Far more a part of it than Rusty Regan was. But the old man didn't have to be. He could lie quiet in his canopied bed, with his bloodless hands folded on the sheet, waiting. His heart was a brief, uncertain murmur. His thoughts were as gray as ashes. And in a little while he too, like Rusty Regan, would be sleeping the big sleep.

Sleep , Water , Parting , Dead

“All you kiddies remember to lay off the needle drugs”

Abbie Hoffman (1936–1989) American political and social activist

"God Bless America — Shoot Nixon", on the spoken word album Wake Up America! (1970).
Context: All you kiddies remember to lay off the needle drugs, the only dope worth shooting is Richard Nixon.

“I'll blow my brains in your lap, lay here and die in your arms”

Eminem (1972) American rapper and actor

"Space Bound"
2010s, Recovery (2010)
Context: After a year and six months, it's no longer me that you want. But, I love you so much it hurts. Never mistreated you once; I poured my heart out to you. Let down my guard, swear to God. I'll blow my brains in your lap, lay here and die in your arms. Drop to my knees and I'm pleading; I'm trying to stop you from leaving. You won't even listen, so...

“If, in each hour, a man could learn a single fragment of some branch of knowledge, a single rule of some mechanical art, a single pleasing story or proverb (the acquisition of which would require no effort), what a vast stock of learning he might lay by. Seneca is therefore right when he says: "Life is long, if we know how to use it." It is consequently of importance that we understand the art of making the very best use of our lives.”

John Amos Comenius (1592–1670) Czech teacher, educator, philosopher and writer

Understanding , Learning , Art , Knowledge

“The great honor of Christianity, its incontestable merit, and the whole secret of its unprecedented and yet thoroughly legitimate triumph, lay in the fact that it appealed to that suffering and immense public to which the ancient world, a strict and cruel intellectual and political aristocracy, denied even the simplest rights of humanity. Otherwise it never could have spread.”

Mikhail Bakunin book God and the State

Dover edition, p 75
God and the State (1871; publ. 1882)

World , Secret , Suffering

“Folk like you always lay the blame on somebody else. If I'd listened to talk like that, I'd've let myself get killed by my own people months ago.”

Tamora Pierce (1954) American writer of fantasy novels for children

Veralidaine "Daine" Sarrasri

People

“Lazines is just like a bed if you lay on it, you would think you have everything at your disposal.But you are building poverty at a fastest rate”

Manuel Archives

Thinking

“Beauty lay not in the thing, but in what the thing symbolized.”

Thomas Hardy (1840–1928) English novelist and poet

Source: Tess of the D'Urbervilles

Beauty

“At last she shut the book sharply, lay back, and drew a deep breath, expressive of the wonder which always marks the transition from the imaginary world to the real world.”

Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) English writer

Books , World

“He opened his arms and she moved into the space they made in the world, and laying her head against his chest she permitted herself the almost unimaginable luxury of grief.”

Guy Gavriel Kay book The Lions of Al-Rassan

Source: The Lions of Al-Rassan

World

“Thank God men cannot fly, and lay waste the sky as well as the earth.”

Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist

Men , God , Flying

“You're simple, straightforward and honest, a little bit on the primitive side, I should think. To interest you a woman would have to…
-To lay her cards out on the table.”

Tennessee Williams A Streetcar Named Desire

Source: A Streetcar Named Desire

Thinking

“Yes, she thought, laying down her brush in extreme fatigues, I have had my vision.”

Virginia Woolf book To the Lighthouse

Source: To the Lighthouse

“A picture held us captive. And we could not get outside it, for it lay in our language and language seemed to repeat it to us inexorably.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein book Philosophical Investigations

Source: Philosophical Investigations

“A visiting pastor at our church in Plains once told a story about a priest from New Orleans. Father Flanagan’s parish lay in the central part of the city, close to many taverns. One night he was walking down the street and saw a drunk thrown out of a pub. The man landed in the gutter, and Father Flanagan quickly recognized him as one of his parishioners, a fellow named Mike. Father Flanagan shook the dazed man and said, “Mike!” Mike opened his eyes and Father Flanagan said, “You’re in trouble. If there is anything I can do for you, please tell me what it is.ℍ “Well, Father,” Mike replied, “I hope you’ll pray for me.” “Yes,” the priest answered, “I’ll pray for you right now.” He knelt down in the gutter and prayed, “Father, please have mercy on this drunken man.ℍ At this, a startled Mike woke up fully and said, “Father, please don’t tell God I’m drunk.ℍ Sometimes we don’t feel much of a personal relationship between God and ourselves, as though we have a secret life full of failures and sins that God knows nothing about. We want to involve God only when we plan to give thanks or when we’re in trouble and need help. But the rest of our lives, we’d rather keep to ourselves.”

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

Life , God , Secret , Hope

“I don't know how long I kept at it…
I felt reasonably safe, streched out on the floor, and lay quite still.
It didn't seem to be summer any more”

Sylvia Plath book The Bell Jar

Source: The Bell Jar

Summer

“The bright dawn flooded the room, and swept the fantastic shadows into dusky corners, where they lay shuddering.”

Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray

Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

“There is nothing in our book, the Qur'an, that teaches us to suffer peacefully. Our religion teaches us to be intelligent. Be peaceful, be courteous, obey the law, respect everyone; but if someone lays a hand on you, send him to the cemetery. That's a good religion.”

Malcolm X (1925–1965) American human rights activist

November 10, 1963
This was said before Malcolm X left the Nation of Islam and as he himself stated, before he truly understood Islam.
Malcolm X Speaks (1965)

Books , Peace , Religion , Law

“If you want to be a doormat you have to lay yourself down first.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

“That's why I call this place the Haunted Bookshop. Haunted by the ghosts of the books I haven't read. Poor uneasy spirits, they walk and walk around me. There's only one way to lay the ghost of a book, and that is to read it.”

Christopher Morley book The Haunted Bookshop

Source: The Haunted Bookshop

Books , Way , Reading

“Death belongs to life as birth does. The walk is in the raising of the foot as in the laying of it down.”

Rabindranath Tagore Stray Birds

268
Source: Stray Birds (1916)

Life , Death , Birth

“I had hoped, at my departure, I would feel sure and knowledgeable about everything that lay ahead -- after all, I had been "analyzed." Instead, all I could see were question marks.”

Sylvia Plath book The Bell Jar

Source: The Bell Jar

Hope , Feeling , Departure , Question

“After all that I'd been through, after all that I'd learned and all that I'd been given, I was going to do what I had been doing every day for the last few years now: just show up and do the best that I could do with whatever lay in front of me.”

Michael J. Fox (1961) Canadian-American actor

Source: Lucky Man

Learning

“Oh why rebuke you him that loves you so? / Lay breath so bitter on your bitter foe.”

William Shakespeare A Midsummer Night's Dream

Source: A Midsummer Night's Dream

Love

“Tiffany thought of the little spot in the woods where Granny Weatherwax lay. Remembered.

And knew that You had been right. Granny Weatherwax was indeed here. And there. She was, in fact, and always would be, everywhere.”

Terry Pratchett book The Shepherd's Crown

Source: The Shepherd's Crown

“Do ye not understand?"he said, in near desparation. "I would lay the world at your feet, Claire-and I have nothing to give ye!"
He honestly thought it mattered.”

Diana Gabaldon book Voyager

Source: Voyager

World , Understanding

“The ancients adorned their sarcophagi with the emblems of life and procreation, and even with obscene symbols; in the religions of antiquity the sacred and the obscene often lay very close together. These men knew how to pay homage to death. For death is worthy of homage as the cradle of life, as the womb of palingenesis.”

Thomas Mann book The Magic Mountain

Source: The Magic Mountain (1924), Ch. 5

Life , Death , Men , Religion

“…when I had gone through the whole, and saw what a plain, simple, reason able thing Christianity was, suited to all conditions and capacities; and in the morality of it now, with divine authority, established into a legible law, so far surpassing all that philosophy and human reason had attained to, or could possibly make effectual to all degrees of man kind; I was flattered to think it might be of some use in the world; especially to those, who thought either that there was no need of revelation at all, or that the revelation of our Saviour required the belief of such articles for salvation, which the settled notions, and their way of reasoning in some, and want of understanding in others, made impossible to them. Upon these two topics the objections seemed to turn, which were with most assurance made by deists, against Christianity; but against Christianity misunderstood. It seemed to me, that there needed no more to show them the weakness of their exceptions, but to lay plainly before them the doctrine of our Saviour and his apostles, as delivered in the scriptures, and not as taught by the several sects of Christians.”

John Locke (1632–1704) English philosopher and physician

Preface to the Reader
The Reasonableness of Christianity (1695)

World , Law , Way , Understanding

“But at a time when our discourse has become so sharply polarized — at a time when we are far too eager to lay the blame for all that ails the world at the feet of those who think differently than we do — it's important for us to pause for a moment and make sure that we are talking with each other in a way that heals, not a way that wounds.”

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

2011, Tucson Memorial Address (January 2011)

World , Way , Thinking , Time

“He wondered at the presence of these raiders, for this country lay far to the south of the districts usually frequented by the Moslems. But avarice can drive men far, as the Englishmen knew. He had dealt with these gentry of old. Even as he watched, old scars burned in his back—scars made by Moslem whips in a Turkish galley. And deeper still burned Kane's unquenchable hate.”

Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) American author

"The Footfalls Within" (1931)

Men , Hate , Country

“Grey dawn was seeping into the sick room [around Christmas 1867, Munch was almost dying then and spitting blood when he was 13; but he recovered]. I lay in the middle of the bed with my hands outside the bedclothes, looking straight ahead. Now I was in a pact with God. I had promised to serve him if I survived, if he allowed me to escape the tuberculosis. Now I could never be as before.”

Edvard Munch (1863–1944) Norwegian painter and printmaker

T 2771, as quoted in Edvard Much – behind the scream, Sue Prideaux; Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2007, p. 26
after 1930

God , Christmas

“Voltaire, who was both the flatterer and the satirist of despotism, took another line. His force lay in exposing and ridiculing the superstitions which priest-craft, united with state-craft, had interwoven with governments. It was not from the purity of his principles, or his love of mankind (for satire and philanthropy are not naturally concordant), but from his strong capacity of seeing folly in its true shape, and his irresistible propensity to expose it, that he made those attacks. They were, however, as formidable as if the motive had been virtuous; and he merits the thanks rather than the esteem of mankind.”

Thomas Paine book Rights of Man

Part 1.3 Rights of Man
1790s, Rights of Man, Part I (1791)

Love , Motivation , Nature , Strong

“Now, through my own infirmity I recover what he was to me: my opposite. Being naturally truthful, he did not see the point of these exaggerations, and was borne on by a natural sense of the fitting, was indeed a great master of the art of living so that he seems to have lived long, and to have spread calm round him, indifference one might almost say, certainly to his own advancement, save that he had also great compassion. […] We have no ceremonies, only private dirges and no conclusions, only violent sensations, each separate. Nothing that has been said meets our case. […] After a long lifetime, loosely, in a moment of revelation, I may lay hands on it, but now the idea breaks in my hand. Ideas break a thousand times for once that they globe themselves entire. […] I am yawning. I am glutted with sensations. I am exhausted with the strain and the long, long time — twenty-five minutes, half an hour — that I have held myself alone outside the machine.”

Virginia Woolf book The Waves

Bernard on Percival, section V
The Waves (1931)

Truth , Art , Idea , Nature

“Mahomet established a religion by putting his enemies to death; Jesus Christ, by commanding his followers to lay down their own lives.”

Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer, and Christian philosopher

Thoughts on Religion and Philosophy http://books.google.pt/books?id=MGkNAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA202&dq=%22Mahomet+established+a%22&hl=pt-PT&sa=X&ei=oZmPU-fCDemp7Ab7s4HQAg&ved=0CCsQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22Mahomet%20established%20a%20religion%22&f=false (W. Collins, 1838), Ch. XVI, p. 202

Death , Religion , Christ

“There’s a fire starting in my heart
Reaching a fever pitch,
It’s bringing me out the dark
Finally I can see you crystal clear
Go head and sell me out
And I'll lay your ship bare.

See how I leave with every piece of you[[
Don’t underestimate the things that I will do.”

Adele (singer) (1988) British singer-songwriter

Rolling in the Deep, written by Adele and Paul Epworth
Song lyrics, 21 (2011)

Heart

“The scientific man does not aim at an immediate result. He does not expect that his advanced ideas will be readily taken up. His work is like that of the planter — for the future. His duty is to lay the foundation for those who are to come, and point the way. He lives and labors and hopes.”

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor

"Radio Power Will Revolutionize the World" in Modern Mechanics and Inventions (July 1934)

Hope , Way , Idea , Future

“Thinking more of others’ happiness than of her own was very fine; but did it not mean giving up her very individuality, quenching all the warm love, the true desires, that made her herself? Yet in this deadness lay her only comfort; so it seemed.”

Elizabeth Gaskell book Wives and Daughters

Wives and Daughters, ch. 11
Wives and Daughters

Love , Thinking , Dead , Happiness

“Whoever is completely and wholly an artist is to all eternity separated from the "real," the actual; on the other hand, one can understand how he may sometimes weary to the point of desperation of the eternal "unreality" and falsity of his innermost existence- and that then he may well attempt what ia most forbidden him, to lay hold of actuality, for once actually to be.”

Friedrich Nietzsche book On the Genealogy of Morality

Third Essay, Section 4
On the Genealogy of Morality (1887)

Understanding

“Buddhism is a practice, not a belief, and every Buddhist is, in some way, lay clergy — involved in the way a scientist is involved in his or her work, or in the way a writer's mind is involved in writing, present in the background, all the time.”

Francisco Varela (1946–2001) Chilean biologist

The Emergent Self (1995)

Way , Time

“Never for a moment do we lay aside our mistrust of the ideals established by society, and of the convictions which are kept by it in circulation. We always know that society is full of folly and will deceive us in the matter of humanity. … humanity meaning consideration for the existence and the happiness of individual human beings.”

Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965) French-German physician, theologian, musician and philosopher

Source: Kulturphilosophie (1923), Vol. 2 : Civilization and Ethics, Chapter 26

Happiness

“Capital is money, capital is commodities. … By virtue of it being value, it has acquired the occult ability to add value to itself. It brings forth living offspring, or, at the least, lays golden eggs.”

Karl Marx (1818–1883) German philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist and revolutionary socialist

Vol. I, Ch. 4, pp. 171–172
(Buch I) (1867)

Money

“Faith has a saving connection with Christ. Christ is on the shore, so to speak, holding the rope, and as we lay hold of it with the hand of our confidence, He pulls us to shore; but all good works having no connection with Christ are drifted along down the gulf of fell despair.”

Charles Spurgeon (1834–1892) British preacher, author, pastor and evangelist

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 228.

Faith , Confidence , Christ , Despair

“We believe our campaign isn’t just about the Games in our city in 2024. We believe this bid is about ensuring that the Games are sustainable and relevant in every year beyond 2024 as well. This bid isn’t only about L. A.’s future — it’s about our collective future. We are planning a great Games in Los Angeles — make no mistake — but we’re also laying the ground work along with you for future Games.”

Eric Garcetti (1971) American politician

2016, Los Angeles 2024 Summer Olympics bid

Angels , Game , Future

“In the past, the virtue of women's writing often lay in its divine spontaneity … But it was also, and much more often, chattering and garrulous … In future, granted time and books and a little space in the house for herself, literature will become for women, as for men, an art to be studied. Women's gift will be trained and strengthened. The novel will cease to be the dumping-ground for the personal emotions. It will become, more than at present, a work of art like any other, and its resources and its limitations will be explored.”

Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) English writer

"Women and Fiction"
Granite and Rainbow (1958)

Women , Men , Books , Art

“I wanna lay you down in a bed of roses”

Jon Bon Jovi (1962) American singer and musician

Music, Keep The Faith (1992)

“The views of space and time which I wish to lay before you have sprung from the soil of experimental physics, and therein lies their strength. They are radical. Henceforth, space by itself, and time by itself, are doomed to fade away into mere shadows, and only a kind of union of the two will preserve an independent reality.”

Hermann Minkowski (1864–1909) German mathematician and physicist

Address to the 80th Assembly of German Natural Scientists and Physicians, (Sep 21, 1908)

Reality , Time

“Most men are scantily nourished on a modicum of happiness and a number of empty thoughts which life lays on their plates. They are kept in the road of life through stern necessity by elemental duties which they cannot avoid.
Again and again their will-to-live becomes, as it were, intoxicated: spring sunshine, opening flowers, moving clouds, waving fields of grain — all affect it. The manifold will-to-live, which is known to us in the splendid phenomena in which it clothes itself, grasps at their personal wills. They would fain join their shouts to the mighty symphony which is proceeding all around them. The world seem beauteous…but the intoxication passes. Dreadful discords only allow them to hear a confused noise, as before, where they had thought to catch the strains of glorious music. The beauty of nature is obscured by the suffering which they discover in every direction. And now they see again that they are driven about like shipwrecked persons on the waste of ocean, only that the boat is at one moment lifted high on the crest of the waves and a moment later sinks deep into the trough; and that now sunshine and now darkening clouds lie on the surface of the water.
And now they would fain persuade themselves that land lies on the horizon toward which they are driven. Their will-to-live befools their intellect so that it makes efforts to see the world as it would like to see it. It forces this intellect to show them a map which lends support to their hope of land. Once again they essay to reach the shore, until finally their arms sink exhausted for the last time and their eyes rove desperately from wave to wave. …
Thus it is with the will-to-live when it is unreflective.
But is there no way out of this dilemma? Must we either drift aimlessly through lack of reflection or sink in pessimism as the result of reflection? No. We must indeed attempt the limitless ocean, but we may set our sails and steer a determined course.”

Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965) French-German physician, theologian, musician and philosopher

Source: The Spiritual Life (1947), p. 256

Life , Men , Lie , World

“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

“When we assumed the Soldier, we did not lay aside the Citizen.”

George Washington (1732–1799) first President of the United States

George Washington to New York Legislature http://www.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/presentationsandactivities/presentations/timeline/amrev/contarmy/newyork.html (26 June 1775)
1770s

“[W]hat I used to respect was not really aristocracy, but a set of personal qualities which aristocracy then developed better than any other system... a set of qualities, however, whose merit lay only in a psychology of non-calculative, non-competitive disinterestedness, truthfulness, courage, and generosity fostered by good education, minimum economic stress, and assumed position, AND JUST AS ACHIEVABLE THROUGH SOCIALISM AS THROUGH ARISTOCRACY.”

H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author

Letter to C.L. Moore (c. mid-October 1936), quoted in "H.P. Lovecraft, a Life" by S.T. Joshi, p. 566
Non-Fiction, Letters

Truth , Education , Courage , Personality

“That a deep-rooted feeling of discontent pervades the masses, none can deny; that there is a just cause for it, must be admitted. The old cry, “These agitators are stirring up a feeling of dissatisfaction among working men and they should be suppressed,” will not avail now. Every thinking person knows that the agitator did not throw two millions of men out of employment. The man that reads such paragraphs as this will not lay the blame of it at the door of the agitator:
“Mrs. Sarah Jane Geary, an Englishwoman, residing in this city, committed suicide a few days since. Her husband is a miner, and, owing to the frequent suspensions of business in the mines during the past winter, his meager earnings were insufficient to support the family. The fact preyed on Mrs. Geary’s mind, and she resolved to end her life, that her children might receive her share of the food, otherwise they would go hungry.””

Terence V. Powderly (1849–1924) American mayor

"The Army of the Discontented," http://ebooks.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/pageviewer-idx?c=nora;cc=nora;g=moagrp;xc=1;q1=The%20Army%20of%20the%20Discontented;rgn=full%20text;cite1=Powderly;cite1restrict=author;view=image;seq=0381;idno=nora0140-4;node=nora0140-4%3A8 North American Review, vol. 140, whole no. 341 (April 1885), p. 371.

Life , Men , Children , Family