Quotes about leave
page 18

Richard Brinsley Sheridan photo

“I leave my character behind me.”

Act II, sc. ii.
The School for Scandal (1777)

James Baldwin photo
Johnny Mercer photo
Han-shan photo
James A. Garfield photo

“No American has carried greater fame out of the White House than this silent man who leaves it today.”

James A. Garfield (1831–1881) American politician, 20th President of the United States (in office in 1881)

Regarding Ulysses S. Grant (4 March 1877), as quoted in Grant: A Biography https://books.google.com/books?id=cv5IbR5f9oMC&pg=PA449&lpg=PA449&dq=%22No+American+has+carried+greater+fame+out+of+the+White+House+than+this+silent+man+who+leaves+it+today%22&source=bl&ots=HoaHfwjqo6&sig=uaEqRbH27mRCUcR_OZatQlYcFK0&hl=en&sa=X&ei=owv8VPGnIIHsgwSyioC4AQ&ved=0CB4Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22No%20American%20has%20carried%20greater%20fame%20out%20of%20the%20White%20House%20than%20this%20silent%20man%20who%20leaves%20it%20today%22&f=false (1981), by William S. McFeely, p. 449
1870s

George Mikes photo
Henryk Sienkiewicz photo
André Maurois photo

“Old age is far more than white hair, wrinkles, the feeling that it is too late and the game finished, that the stage belongs to the rising generations. The true evil is not the weakening of the body, but the indifference of the soul. Upon crossing the shadow line, it is more the desire to act than the power to do so that is lost. Is it possible, after fifty years of experiences and disappointments, to retain the ardent curiosity of youth, the desire to know and understand, the power to love wholeheartedly, the certainty that beauty, intelligence, and kindness unite naturally, and to preserve faith in the efficacy of reason? Beyond the shadow line lies the realm of even, tempered light where the eyes, not being dazzled any more by the blinding sun of desire, can see things and people as they are. How is it possible to believe in the moral perfection of pretty women if you have loved one of them? How is it possible to believe in progress when you have discovered throughout a long and difficult life that no violent change can triumph over human nature and that it is only the most ancient customs and ceremonies that can provide people with the flimsy shelter of civilization? "What's the use?" says the old man to himself. This is perhaps the most dangerous phrase he can utter, for after having said: "What's the use of struggling?" he will say one day: "What's the use of going out?" then: "What's the use of leaving my room?" then: "What's the use of leaving my bed?" and at last comes "What's the use of living?"”

André Maurois (1885–1967) French writer

which opens the portals of death.
Un Art de Vivre (The Art of Living) (1939), The Art of Growing Old

Louis Riel photo
Maurice Merleau-Ponty photo
Francis Bacon photo
René Girard photo

“An examination of our terms, such as competition, rivalry, emulation, etc., reveals that the traditional perspective remains inscribed in the language. Competitors are fundamentally those who run or walk together, rivals who dwell on opposite banks of the same river, etc…The modern view of competition and conflict is the unusual and exceptional view, and our incomprehension is perhaps more problematic than the phenomenon of primitive prohibition. Primitive societies have never shared our conception of violence. For us, violence has a conceptual autonomy, a specificity that is utterly unknown to primitive societies. We tend to focus on the individual act, whereas primitive societies attach only limited importance to it and have essentially pragmatic reasons for refusing to isolate such an act from its context. This context is one of violence. What permits us to conceive abstractly of an act of violence and view it as an isolated crime is the power of a judicial institution that transcends all antagonists. If the transcendence of the judicial institution is no longer there, if the institution loses its efficacy or becomes incapable of commanding respect, the imitative and repetitious character of violence becomes manifest once more; the imitative character of violence is in fact most manifest in explicit violence, where it acquires a formal perfection it had not previously possessed. At the level of the blood feud, in fact, there is always only one act, murder, which is performed in the same way for the same reasons in vengeful imitation of the preceding murder. And this imitation propagates itself by degrees. It becomes a duty for distant relatives who had nothing to do with the original act, if in fact an original act can be identified; it surpasses limits in space and time and leaves destruction everywhere in its wake; it moves from generation to generation. In such cases, in its perfection and paroxysm mimesis becomes a chain reaction of vengeance, in which human beings are constrained to the monotonous repetition of homicide. Vengeance turns them into doubles.”

Source: Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World (1978), p. 11-12.

Francis Galton photo
Vincent Van Gogh photo
Jürgen Klinsmann photo
Srinivasa Ramanujan photo

“I beg to introduce myself to you as a clerk in the Accounts Department of the Port Trust Office at Madras… I have no University education but I have undergone the ordinary school course. After leaving school I have been employing the spare time at my disposal to work at Mathematics. I have not trodden through the conventional regular course which is followed in a University course, but I am striking out a new path for myself. I have made a special investigation of divergent series in general and the results I get are termed by the local mathematicians as "startling"…. Very recently I came across a tract published by you styled Orders of Infinity in page 36 of which I find a statement that no definite expression has been as yet found for the number of prime numbers less than any given number. I have found an expression which very nearly approximates to the real result, the error being negligible. I would request that you go through the enclosed papers. Being poor, if you are convinced that there is anything of value I would like to have my theorems published. I have not given the actual investigations nor the expressons that I get but I have indicated the lines on which I proceed. Being inexperienced I would very highly value any advice you give me. Requesting to be excused for the trouble I give you. I remain, Dear Sir, Yours truly…”

Srinivasa Ramanujan (1887–1920) Indian mathematician

Letter to G. H. Hardy, (16 January 1913), published in Ramanujan: Letters and Commentary American Mathematical Society (1995) History of Mathematics, Vol. 9

Jonathan Swift photo

“I'll give you leave to call me anything, if you don't call me "spade."”

Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) Anglo-Irish satirist, essayist, and poet

Polite Conversation (1738), Dialogue 2

John Milton photo
Jonathan Stroud photo
Calvin Coolidge photo
Orson Scott Card photo

“As the caterpillar chooses the fairest leaves to her eggs on, so the priest lays his curse on the fairest joys.”

Orson Scott Card (1951) American science fiction novelist

Source: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Seventh Son (1987), Chapter 9.

Clarence Thomas photo
Thomas Fuller (writer) photo

“5196. To leave no Stone unturn'd.”

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

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

Ray Comfort photo
Jacques Ellul photo
Thomas Campbell photo
Sherman Alexie photo
Clarence Darrow photo

“Life cannot be reconciled with the idea that back of the universe is a Supreme Being, all merciful and kind, and that he takes any account of the human beings and other forms of life that exist upon the earth. Whichever way man may look upon the earth, he is oppressed with the suffering incident to life. It would almost seem as though the earth had been created with malignity and hatred. If we look at what we are pleased to call the lower animals, we behold a universal carnage. We speak of the seemingly peaceful woods, but we need only look beneath the surface to be horrified by the misery of that underworld. Hidden in the grass and watching for its prey is the crawling snake which swiftly darts upon the toad or mouse and gradually swallows it alive; the hapless animal is crushed by the jaws and covered with slime, to be slowly digested in furnishing a meal. The snake knows nothing about sin or pain inflicted upon another; he automatically grabs insects and mice and frogs to preserve his life. The spider carefully weaves his web to catch the unwary fly, winds him into the fatal net until paralyzed and helpless, then drinks his blood and leaves him an empty shell. The hawk swoops down and snatches a chicken and carries it to its nest to feed its young. The wolf pounces on the lamb and tears it to shreds. The cat watches at the hole of the mouse until the mouse cautiously comes out, then with seeming fiendish glee he plays with it until tired of the game, then crushes it to death in his jaws. The beasts of the jungle roam by day and night to find their prey; the lion is endowed with strength of limb and fang to destroy and devour almost any animal that it can surprise or overtake. There is no place in the woods or air or sea where all life is not a carnage of death in terror and agony. Each animal is a hunter, and in turn is hunted, by day and night. No landscape is beautiful or day so balmy but the cry of suffering and sacrifice rends the air. When night settles down over the earth the slaughter is not abated. Some creatures are best at night, and the outcry of the dying and terrified is always on the wind. Almost all animals meet death by violence and through the most agonizing pain. With the whole animal creation there is nothing like a peaceful death. Nowhere in nature is there the slightest evidence of kindness, of consideration, or a feeling for the suffering and the weak, except in the narrow circle of brief family life.”

Clarence Darrow (1857–1938) American lawyer and leading member of the American Civil Liberties Union

Source: The Story of My Life (1932), p. 383

Benjamin Ricketson Tucker photo
Paul Krugman photo
Alexander Bain photo
Alan Keyes photo
Max Weber photo
Paul Cézanne photo

“But there are motifs that would need three or four months' work, which could be done, as the vegetation doesn't change here. There are the olive trees and the pines that always keep their leaves. The sun is so fierce that objects seem to be silhouetted, not only in black or white, but in blue, red, brown, violet. I may be wrong, but this seems to be the very opposite of 'modeling'. How happy the gentle landscapists of Auvers would be here, and that [con, or 'bastard'? ] Guillemet.”

Paul Cézanne (1839–1906) French painter

Quote from Cezanne's letter to Camille Pissarro, from L'Estaque 2 July 1876, taken from Alex Danchev, The Letters of Paul Cézanne, 2013; as quoted in the 'Daily Beast' online, 13 Oct. 2013 https://www.thedailybeast.com/cezannes-letter-to-pissarro-picture-business-isnt-going-well
'The very opposite of 'modeling' meant roughly that Cézanne and Pissarro in their common painting-years in open air would lay down one plane or patch of color next to another in the painting, without any 'modeling' or shading between them - so that it looked as if each component part of the painting could be picked up from the canvas a little like a 'playing card from the table', as Cezanne explains here.
Quotes of Paul Cezanne, 1860s - 1870s

Hoyt Axton photo
Daniel O'Connell photo
Preston Manning photo
Herbert Marcuse photo

“Who is, in the classical conception, the subject that comprehends the ontological condition of truth and untruth? It is the master of pure contemplation (theoria), and the master of a practice guided by theoria, i. e., the philosopher-statesman. To be sure, the truth which he knows and expounds is potentially accessible to everyone. Led by the philosopher, the slave in Plato’s Meno is capable of grasping the truth of a geometrical axiom, i. e., a truth beyond change and corruption. But since truth is a state of Being as well as of thought, and since the latter is the expression and manifestation of the former, access to truth remains mere potentiality as long as it is not living in and with the truth. And this mode of existence is closed to the slave — and to anyone who has to spend his life procuring the necessities of life. Consequently, if men no longer had to spend their lives in the realm of necessity, truth and a true human existence would be in a strict and real sense universal. Philosophy envisages the equality of man but, at the same time, it submits to the factual denial of equality. For in the given reality, procurement of the necessities is the life-long job of the majority, and the necessities have to be procured and served so that truth (which is freedom from material necessities) can be. Here, the historical barrier arrests and distorts the quest for truth; the societal division of labor obtains the dignity of an ontological condition. If truth presupposes freedom from toil, and if this freedom is, in the social reality, the prerogative of a minority, then the reality allows such a truth only in approximation and for a privileged group. This state of affairs contradicts the universal character of truth, which defines and “prescribes” not only a theoretical goal, but the best life of man qua man, with respect to the essence of man. For philosophy, the contradiction is insoluble, or else it does not appear as a contradiction because it is the structure of the slave or serf society which this philosophy does not transcend. Thus it leaves history behind, unmastered, and elevates truth safely above the historical reality. There, truth is reserved intact, not as an achievement of heaven or in heaven, but as an achievement of thought — intact because its very notion expresses the insight that those who devote their lives to earning a living are incapable of living a human existence.”

Source: One-Dimensional Man (1964), pp. 128-130

Najib Razak photo

“In our national discourse and in pursuing our national agenda, we must never leave anyone behind. We must reach out to the many who may have been disaffected and left confused by political games, deceit and showmanship. The people first must transcend every level of society.”

Najib Razak (1953) Malaysian politician

Upon assuming office as the sixth prime minister of Malaysia.
Quotable quotes from Najib, NST, 11 Jul 2009 http://www.nst.com.my/Current_News/NST/articles/6kon/Article/index_html,

Marc Chagall photo

“In exasperation, I furiously attacked the floors and walls of the Moscow Theater. My mural paintings sight there, in obscurity. Have you seen them? Rant and rave, my contemporaries! In one way or another, my first theatrical alphabet gave you a belly-ache. Not modest? I'll leave that to my grandmother: it bores me. Despise me, if you like.”

Marc Chagall (1887–1985) French artist and painter

ca. 1921
Quote from 'Chagall in the Yiddish Theater', Avram Kampf, as quoted in Marc Chagall - the Russian years 1906 – 1922, editor Christoph Vitali, exhibition catalogue, Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, 1991, p. 94
1920's

Homér photo
Peter Whittle (politician) photo
Richard Cobden photo
Thomas Hood photo

“Boughs are daily rifled
By the gusty thieves,
And the book of Nature
Getteth short of leaves.”

Thomas Hood (1799–1845) British writer

The Season; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
20th century

Charles Dickens photo
Ernesto Che Guevara photo
John Dryden photo

“Leave writing plays, and choose for thy command
Some peaceful province in acrostic land.
There thou mayst wings display and altars raise,
And torture one poor word ten thousand ways.”

John Dryden (1631–1700) English poet and playwright of the XVIIth century

Source: Mac Flecknoe (1682), l. 205–208.

Elon Musk photo

“Never saw this British expat guy who lives in Thailand (sus) at any point when we were in the caves. Only people in sight were the Thai navy/army guys, who were great. Thai navy seals escorted us in — total opposite of wanting us to leave. Water level was actually very low & still (not flowing) — you could literally have swum to Cave 5 with no gear, which is obv how the kids got in. If not true, then I challenge this dude to show final rescue video. You know what, don’t bother showing the video. We will make one of the mini-sub/pod going all the way to Cave 5 no problemo. Sorry pedo guy, you really did ask for it.”

Elon Musk (1971) South African-born American entrepreneur

Refering to British diver Vern Unsworth, who participated in the Tham Luang cave rescue. As quoted in Elon Musk calls British diver who helped rescue Thai schoolboys 'pedo guy' in Twitter outburst https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/thai-cave-rescue-elon-musk-british-diver-vern-unsworth-twitter-pedo-a8448366.html (15 July 2018) by Eleanor Busby, The Independent.

Venkatraman Ramakrishnan photo
Ayumi Hamasaki photo

“On that day, you decided
That you would walk by yourself
On the endless road
that crosses the clouds [and leads] to the sky
Leaving so much here
I want to tell you and talk about.”

Ayumi Hamasaki (1978) Japanese recording artist, lyricist, model, and actress

Untitled ~For Her~
Lyrics, Guilty

Peter Medawar photo
Keir Hardie photo
Wallace Stevens photo
George William Russell photo
Tom McCarthy (writer) photo
Franklin D. Roosevelt photo

“I'm just afraid that I may not have the strength to do this job. After you leave me tonight, Jimmy, I am going to pray. I am going to pray that God will help me, that he will give me the strength and the guidance to do this job and to do it right. I hope that you will pray for me, too, Jimmy.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945) 32nd President of the United States

Talking to his son James http://politicalwire.com/archives/2008/11/04/fear_and_strength.html on the night of his landslide victory over Herbert Hoover (8 November 1932), as quoted in Traitor to His Class: The Privileged Life and Radical Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt (2008) by H. W. Brands
1930s

Andrei Codrescu photo
Iris DeMent photo
Octavia E. Butler photo
Narendra Modi photo
Krishna Raja Wadiyar IV photo

“That no one who had followed the events of the Great War could help realising that while it had resulted in overthrowing the three great monarchies of Europe, its effect on the British Empire had been to strengthen the bonds between king and people and to leave the British Throne more deeply seated in the affections of every class of His Imperial Majesty's subjects.”

Krishna Raja Wadiyar IV (1884–1940) King of Mysore

Lord Irwin on the occasion of the State Banquet held on the 29th July on his taking over as Viceroy. Modern_Mysore, Dr. B. R. Ambedkar Open University, 26 November 2013, archive.org, 345-46 http://archive.org/stream/modernmysore035292mbp/modernmysore035292mbp_djvu.txt,
As ruler of the state

Dave Matthews photo

“You know she's gonna leave my broken heart behind her.”

Dave Matthews (1967) American singer-songwriter, musician and actor

Busted Stuff
Busted Stuff (2002)

Oliver Goldsmith photo
Edward Payson photo
Patrick Buchanan photo
Paul Gauguin photo
Oliver Hazard Perry photo

“I leave it to your discretion to strike or not, but the American colors must not be pulled down over my head today.”

Oliver Hazard Perry (1785–1819) United States Naval Officer

Final instructions to Lieutenant John Joliffe Yarnall, upon leaving the disabled Lawrence in the Battle of Lake Erie (10 September 1813)

Amit Chaudhuri photo

“Mahadev Govind Ranade. Leaving aside his air of self-importance, he looks marginally foreign, as all statues do.”

Amit Chaudhuri (1962) contemporary Indian-English novelist

Friend of My Youth (2017)

James Russell Lowell photo
Neil Young photo
Paul Scofield photo

“It isn't difficult to leave King Lear or Macbeth, but once you have gone back to yourself, you want it to be the same self you have always been.”

Paul Scofield (1922–2008) English actor

Quoted in Alan Strachan, "Paul Scofield: Oscar-winning actor whose phenomenal range was unmatched in his generation" http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/paul-scofield-oscarwinning-actor-whose-phenomenal-range-was-unmatched-in-his-generation-798984.html, The Independent (2008-03-21)

“Jane Seymour made my I. B. S act up. I had to leave the room.”

Radio From Hell (April 23, 2007)

Hariprasad Chaurasia photo
Chris Hedges photo

“There ain't no leaves to turn to gold—
There ain't a tree in sight—
In other ways the herder's told
October's come, all right.”

Arthur Chapman (poet) (1873–1935) American poet and newspaper columnist

October on the Sheep Range http://www.cowboypoetry.com/ac.htm#October, st. 1.
Cactus Center http://www.cowboypoetry.com/ac.htm#ccbk (1921)

Nat Turner photo
George Herbert photo

“248. Marry a widdow before she leave mourning.”

George Herbert (1593–1633) Welsh-born English poet, orator and Anglican priest

Jacula Prudentum (1651)

William S. Burroughs photo
Arthur Hugh Clough photo
John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester photo

“Reason, an Ignis fatuus of the Mind,
Which leaves the light of Nature, Sense, behind.”

John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester (1647–1680) English poet, and peer of the realm

ll. 12-13.
A Satire Against Mankind (1679)

Vitruvius photo
Ulysses S. Grant photo
Peter M. Senge photo
George Meredith photo
George C. Lorimer photo
Orson Scott Card photo
Imre Kertész photo
Fulke Greville, 1st Baron Brooke photo
Gustave Courbet photo

“We finally saw the sea, the horizonless sea – how odd for a mountaindweller. We saw the beautiful boats that sail on it. It is too inviting, one feels carried away, one would leave to see the whole world.”

Gustave Courbet (1819–1877) French painter

Quote from Courbet's letter to his parents (1841); as quoted in Image of the Sea: Oceanic Consciousness in the Romantic Century, Howard F. Isham, publisher: Peter Lang, 2004, Chapter 'Waterworlds', p. 307
reporting his experiences of a boat-trip with a friend over the Seine to the port of Le Havre; he made also a sketchbook of this trip in the Summer of 1841
1840s - 1850s

Peter Hitchens photo
Saeb Erekat photo
Nonie Darwish photo