Quotes about likeness (10000 quotes, page 34)

“When I began there was an expectation that I play like Abbaji, but over the years luckily for me music lovers got around to accepting me for what I play… Look at others like Ustad Bismillah Khan’s son who has lost his way in trying to play shehnai like his father. Copying his father is one thing but taking his music forward is quite another.”

Zakir Hussain (musician) (1951) Indian tabla player, musical producer, film actor and composer

Quote, I've never wanted to fit in Abbaji's shoes: Ustad Zakir Hussain

Music , Way , Lovers

“And then I realized I was being checked out by GUYS! And I know they were checking me out, because they were looking at me like I look at tacos. And I thought to myself, "Oh my god, I can turn on a man! [Grins and struts] Shoot!" And I called my girlfriend, and I said, "Baby, you better not mess this up; I have options!"”

Gabriel Iglesias (1976) American actor

I'm Not Fat, I'm Fluffy (2009)

God , Guy , Baby

“The shelves of books we haven't written, like those of books we haven't read, stretches out into the darkness of the universal library's farthest space. We are always at the beginning of the beginning of the letter A.”

Alberto Manguel (1948) writer

Endpaper Pages, p. 309.
A History of Reading (1996)

Books , Universe , Reading

“One may certainly admire man as a mighty genius of construction, who succeeds in piling an infinitely complicated dome of concepts upon an unstable foundation, and, as it were, on running water. Of course, in order to be supported by such a foundation, his construction must be like one constructed of spiders' webs: delicate enough to be carried along by the waves, strong enough not to be blown apart by every wind.”

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

On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense (1873)

Support , Strong , Water

“The Spirit is like new wine, see the disciples all,
Like men inebriate, swept away and enthralled
By both its heat and strength; thus it remains true still
That the disciples had of sweetest wine their fill”

Angelus Silesius (1624–1677) German writer

The Cherubinic Wanderer

Men , Wine

“If somebody asks them, Why, what evil does he practice or teach? they do not know, and cannot tell; but in order that they do not appear to be at a loss, they repeat the ready-made charges which are used against all philosophers about teaching things up in the clouds and under the earth, and having no gods, and making the worse appear the better cause; for they do not like to confess that their pretense of knowledge has been detected — which is the truth…”

Socrates (-470–-399 BC) classical Greek Athenian philosopher

23d
Plato, Apology

God , Truth , Knowledge , Appearance

“Well then, I will tell you. Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne and I myself have founded great empires; but upon what did these creations of our genius depend? Upon force. Jesus alone founded His empire upon love, and to this very day millions will die for Him. I think I understand something of human nature; and I tell you, all these were men, and I am a man: none else is like Him; Jesus Christ was more than a man. I have inspired multitudes with such an enthusiastic devotion that they would have died for me but to do this it was necessary that I should be visibly present with the electric influence of my looks, my words, of my voice. When I saw men and spoke to them, I lighted up the flame of self-devotion in their hearts. Christ alone has succeeded in so raising the mind of man toward the unseen, that it becomes insensible to the barriers of time and space. Across a chasm of eighteen hundred years, Jesus Christ makes a demand which is beyond all others difficult to satisfy; He asks for that which a philosopher may often seek in vain at the hands of his friends, or a father of his children, or a bride of her spouse, or a man of his brother. He asks for the human heart; He will have it entirely to Himself. He demands it unconditionally; and forthwith His demand is granted. Wonderful! In defiance of time and space, the soul of man, with all its powers and faculties, becomes an annexation to the empire of Christ. All who sincerely believe in Him, experience that remarkable, supernatural love toward Him. This phenomenon is unaccountable; it is altogether beyond the scope of man's creative powers. Time, the great destroyer, is powerless to extinguish this sacred flame; time can neither exhaust its strength nor put a limit to its range. This is it, which strikes me most; I have often thought of it. This it is which proves to me quite convincingly the Divinity of Jesus Christ.”

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

In a statement about Jesus Christ. While exiled on the rock of St. Helena, Napoleon called Count Montholon to his side and asked him, "Can you tell me who Jesus Christ was?" Upon the Count declining to respond Napoleon countered. Ravi Zacharias, Jesus Among Other Gods http://books.google.com/books?id=jSI9HnMHdPsC&pg=PA149&lpg=PA149&dq=napoleon+jesus+among+gods&source=bl&ots=CdsDSjamnm&sig=K3l7Ek972r7pyEFT681lbf3PVSQ&hl=en&sa=X&ei=nBqhUf3RL4au9AS37ICwCQ&ved=0CBYQ6AEwAA, p. 149, in Henry Parry Liddon (1868) The Divinity of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ; Eight Lectures. New edition. https://books.google.com/books?id=IcINAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA148&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false pp. 147-148, and in Henry Parry Liddon (1869) The Divinity of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ; Eight Lectures. Fourth edition. https://ia800203.us.archive.org/15/items/divinityofourlord00libbrich/divinityofourlord00libbrich.pdf pp. 147-148.
Attributed

Love , Men , Children , Soul

“I would like to manage to prevent people from ever seeing how a picture of mine has been done. What can it possibly matter? What I want is that the only thing emanating from my pictures should be emotion.”

Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer

Boisgeloup, winter 1934
Richard Friendenthal (1963, p. 256).
Quotes, 1930's, "Conversations avec Picasso," 1934–35

People , Winter

“I've done a lot worse than jump off piers, son. Like throw a television out the window.”

Ozzy Osbourne (1948) English heavy metal vocalist and songwriter

The Osbournes television show

“Some people think that - excuse my expression here - that in order to be good Catholics we have to be like rabbits. No. Parenthood is about being responsible. This is clear.”

Pope Francis (1936) 266th Pope of the Catholic Church

Said to the press on the flight back from the 2018 Papal visit to the Philippines in response to a question about what he would say to families who had more children than they could afford because the Church forbids artificial contraception. As reported on BBC news http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-30890989 and other outlets. (19 January 2018)
2010s, 2018

People , Thinking

“She was not an easy woman to categorize or to explain. If I´ve ever known anyone in my life, man or woman, who was unique, it was she. There was nobody like her before or since. Never will be. In every way. In talent, in looks, in character, in temperament. Everything. There sure wasn't anybody who didn't fall under her spell.”

Henry Fonda (1905–1982) American actor

About first wife Margaret Sullavan. Haywire (1977) by Brooke Hayward. Jonathan Cape Ltd., pp. 162-63. ISBN 0224014269.

Life , Way

“The first thing that we are calling you to is Islam. The religion of the Unification of God; of freedom from associating partners with Him, and rejection of this; of complete love of Him, the Exalted; of complete submission to His Laws; and of the discarding of all the opinions, orders, theories and religions which contradict with the religion He sent down to His Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). Islam is the religion of all the prophets, and makes no distinction between them - peace be upon them all. It is to this religion that we call you; the seal of all the previous religions. It is the religion of Unification of God, sincerity, the best of manners, righteousness, mercy, honour, purity, and piety. It is the religion of showing kindness to others, establishing justice between them, granting them their rights, and defending the oppressed and the persecuted. It is the religion of enjoining the good and forbidding the evil with the hand, tongue and heart. It is the religion of Jihad in the way of Allah so that Allah's Word and religion reign Supreme. And it is the religion of unity and agreement on the obedience to Allah, and total equality between all people, without regarding their colour, sex, or language. It is the religion whose book - the Quran - will remained preserved and unchanged, after the other Divine books and messages have been changed. The Quran is the miracle until the Day of Judgment. Allah has challenged anyone to bring a book like the Quran or even ten verses like it.”

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

2000s, 2002, Letter to the American people (2002)

Love , God , People , Books

“Here's what any skeptic will find hard to swallow. The Lord Jesus Christ owned that donkey. He created every hair on its little head (see John 1:3 and Colossians 1:16), and you can't steal what you own. The temporal 'owner' was in reality just taking care of it for Him. How incredible that the Lord had need of a little donkey. But He did. He chose to be carried into Jerusalem on a lowly donkey. God has also chosen lowly creatures like us to carry the Savior to this sinful world. How incredible.”

Ray Comfort (1949) New Zealand-born Christian minister and evangelist

You Can Lead an Atheist to Evidence, But You Can't Make Him Think (2009)

God , World , Reality , Christ

“I'm beginning to know myself. I don't exist.
I'm the gap between what I'd like to be and what others have made me.”

Fernando Pessoa (1888–1935) Portuguese poet, writer, literary critic, translator, publisher and philosopher

Começo a conhecer-me. Não existo.
Sou o intervalo entre o que desejo ser e os outros me fizeram.
Álvaro de Campos (heteronym), "Começo a conhecer-me. Não existo.", in Fernando Pessoa & Co: Selected Poems, trans. Richard Zenith (Grove Press, 1998)

“[What her career looks like] "It looks like a marathon. And I'm proud that I'm not a DNF (did not finish). I'm not a DNF yet. I just kept going. I think that's been the key is just to keep going and really try to get better and try to be as truthful as I can and hope that good things come my way."”

Jennifer Beals (1963) American actress and a former teen model

Chicago Tribune (21 March 2011) http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/ct-live-0321-jennifer-beals-20110320,0,3798764.column,

Truth , Hope , Way , Thinking

“The law of causality, I believe, like much that passes muster among philosophers, is a relic of a bygone age, surviving, like the monarchy, only because it is erroneously supposed to do no harm.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

Source: 1910s, Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays http://archive.org/stream/mysticism00russuoft/mysticism00russuoft_djvu.txt (1918), Ch. 9: On the Notion of Cause

Age , Law

“Time, flowing like a river
Time, beckoning me
Who knows when we shall meet again
If ever
But time
Keeps flowing like a river
To the sea”

Alan Parsons (1948) audio engineer, musician, and record producer from England

"Time", from the album The Turn Of A Friendly Card. (Written by Alan Parsons and Eric Woolfson.)
Quotes from songs

Time , Sea

“The origin of our passions, the root and spring of all the rest, the only one which is born with man, which never leaves him as long as he lives, is self-love; this passion is primitive, instinctive, it precedes all the rest, which are in a sense only modifications of it. In this sense, if you like, they are all natural. But most of these modifications are the result of external influences, without which they would never occur, and such modifications, far from being advantageous to us, are harmful. They change the original purpose and work against its end; then it is that man finds himself outside nature and at strife with himself.”

Jean Jacques Rousseau book Emile, or On Education

Emile, or On Education (1762), Book IV

Love , Spring , Nature , Sense

“Bright as the sun, her eyes the gazers strike,
And, like the sun, they shine on all alike.”

Alexander Pope The Rape of the Lock

Canto II, line 13.
The Rape of the Lock (1712, revised 1714 and 1717)

Sun

“Work like a slave; command like a king; create like a god.”

Constantin Brâncuși (1876–1957) French-Romanian artist

Original in Romanian:
Muncește ca un sclav, poruncește ca un rege, creează ca un zeu.
Brancusi - De la Maiastra la Pasare in Vazduh (II), Observator Cultural, 2011-03-13, Matei Stircea-Craciun http://www.observatorcultural.ro/Brancusi-de-la-Maiastra-la-Pasare-in-vazduh-(II)*articleID_18619-articles_details.html,

God

“I like to think
(it has to be!)
of a cybernetic ecology
where we are free of our labors
and joined back to nature,
returned to our mammal
brothers and sisters,
and all watched over
by machines of loving grace.”

Richard Brautigan (1935–1984) American novelist, poet, and short story writer

"All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace"
The Pill Versus the Springhill Mining Disaster

Love , Nature , Thinking , Sister

“I like the name Atomic Kitten. It's so great.”

Bryan Ferry (1945) English musician

Source: http://www.nyrock.com/interviews/2002/ferry2_int.asp, An interview with Bryan Ferry, nyrock, December 2002

“That the atmosphere attracts to itself, like a lodestone, all the images of the objects that exist in it, and not their forms merely but their nature may be clearly seen by the sun, which is a hot and luminous body. All the atmosphere, which is the all-pervading matter, absorbs light and heat, and reflects in itself the image of the source of that heat and splendor and, in each minutest portion, does the same. The north pole does the same as the lode stone shows; and the moon and the other planets, without suffering any diminution, do the same.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), II Linear Perspective

Nature , Light , Suffering , Sun

“I have put my arm round her waist, and I am shaken by the sorrow which agitates her chest and throat, and sometimes shakes her rudely, the sorrow which does not belong to me, which belongs to no one, and is like a divinity.”

Henri Barbusse (1873–1935) French novelist

Light (1919), Ch. XIX - Ghosts

“But in my homeboys' high school, it's not like that. They don't have trips to go see this Broadway play, they don't read things we read. They didn't know when I was like: "Yo, Shakespeare's dope."”

Tupac Shakur (1971–1996) rapper and actor

Posthumous attributions, Tupac: Resurrection (2003)

School , Reading

“Today is a chance for Americans, especially our young people, to say thank you for all the things we love from Japan. Like karate and karaoke. Manga and anime. And, of course, emojis.”

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

As quoted in Comicbook.com http://comicbook.com/2015/04/29/president-barack-obama-thanks-japan-for-anime-and-manga/ (2015/04/29)
2015

Love , People , Chance , Animals

“In the course of thousands of years of mechanical development, the mechanistic concept, from generation to generation, has anchored itself deeply in man's biological system. In so doing, it actually has altered human functioning in the sense of the machine-like. In the process of killing his genital function, man has become biologically rigid. He has armored himself against that which is natural and spontaneous within him, he has lost contact with the biological function of self-regulation and is filled with a strong fear of that which is alive and free.”

Wilhelm Reich book The Mass Psychology of Fascism

Section 2 : The Biological Miscalculation in the Human Struggle for Freedom
The Mass Psychology of Fascism (1933), Ch. 10 : Work Democracy

Fear , Nature , Sense , Strong

“I’ve said this before -- when human rights are denied and citizens have no opportunity to redress their grievances peacefully, it feeds terrorist propaganda that justifies violence. Likewise, when political opponents are treated like terrorists and thrown in jail, it can be a self-fulfilling prophecy. So the real path to lasting stability and progress is not less democracy; I believe it is more democracy in terms of free speech, and freedom of religion, rule of law, strong civil societies. All that has to play a part in countering violent extremism.”

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

2015, Leaders' Summit on Countering ISIL and Violent Extremism speech (September 2015)

Religion , Law , Democracy , Freedom

“One-sixth, and a little more, of the population of the United States are slaves, looked upon as property, as nothing but property. The cash value of these slaves, at a moderate estimate, is $2,000,000,000. This amount of property value has a vast influence on the minds of its owners, very naturally. The same amount of property would have an equal influence upon us if owned in the north. Human nature is the same, people at the south are the same as those at the north, barring the difference in circumstances. Public opinion is founded, to a great extent, on a property basis. What lessons the value of property is opposed, what enhances its value is favored. Public opinion at the south regards slaves as property and insists upon treating them like other property.”

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

1860s, Speech at Hartford (1860)

People , Nature

“Turkey, like every country, has a right to defend its territory and its airspace.”

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

Remarks by President Obama and President Hollande of France in Joint Press Conference https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/11/24/remarks-president-obama-and-president-hollande-france-joint-press (November 24, 2015)
2015

Country

“Jewel-Like the immortal
does not boast of its length of years
but of the scintillating point of the moment.”

Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) Bengali polymath

29
Fireflies (1928)

“Are there any paranoids in the audience tonight? (the crowd cheers) Is there anyone who worries about things? (the crowd cheers again) Pathetic. This is for all the weak people in the audience! Is there anyone here who's weak? (the crowd cheers once more) This is for you, it's called Run Like Hell! (the song starts)”

Roger Waters (1943) English songwriter, bassist, and lyricist of Pink Floyd

During the Los Angeles performance of "The Wall" at the Los Angeles Arena, California, February 1980
Miscellaneous

People , Hell

“We said there warn't no home like a raft, after all. Other places do seem so cramped up and smothery, but a raft don't. You feel mighty free and easy and comfortable on a raft.”

Mark Twain book Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Source: Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), Ch. 18

Feeling , Home

“Bel canto does not mean beautiful singing alone. It is, rather, the technique demanded by the composers of this style — Donizetti, Rossini, and Bellini. It is the same attitudes and demands of Mozart and Beethoven, for example, the same approach and the same technical difficulties faced by instrumentalists. You see, a musician is a musician. A singer is no different from an instrumentalist except that we have words. You don't excuse things in a singer you would not dream of excusing in a violinist or pianist. There is no excuse for not having a trill, for not doing the acciaccatura, for not having good scales. Look at your scores! There are technical things written there to be performed, and they must be performed whether you like it or not. How will you get out of a trill? How will you get out of scales when they are written there, staring you in the face? It is not enough to have a beautiful voice. What does that mean? When you interpret a role, you have to have a thousand colors to portray happiness, joy, sorrow, fear. How can you do this with only a beautiful voice? Even if you sing harshly sometimes, as I have frequently done, it is a necessity of expression. You have to do it, even if people will not understand. But in the long run they will, because you must persuade them of what you're doing.”

Maria Callas (1923–1977) American-born Greek operatic soprano

Callas : The Art and the Life (1974)

People , Fear , Beauty , Dreams

“We know that our economies attract more trade and investment when citizens are free to start a new business without paying a bribe. We know that our societies are more likely to succeed when all our people -- regardless of color, or class, or creed, or sexual orientation, or gender -- are free to live and pray and love as they choose. […] And, increasingly, civil society is a source of ideas -- about everything from promoting transparency and free expression, to reversing inequality and rescuing our environment.”

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

2015, Remarks at Panama Civil Society Forum (April 2015)

Love , People , Color , Idea

“A philosophical frame of mind. Generally we strive to acquire one emotional stance, one viewpoint for all life situations and events: we usually call that being of a philosophical frame of mind. But rather than making oneself uniform, we may find greater value for the enrichment of knowledge by listening to the soft voice of different life situations; each brings its own views with it. Thus we acknowledge and share the life and nature of many by not treating ourselves like rigid, invariable, single individuals.”

Friedrich Nietzsche book Human, All Too Human

Section IX, "Man Alone with Himself" / aphorism 618
Human, All Too Human (1878), Helen Zimmern translation

Life , Nature , Knowledge

“I'd like to stand up for the rights of people who put everything on their burger -- chutney, mustard, pickle, mustard pickle, tomato sauce… It is common knowledge in my family that I can't tell the difference between a veggie burger and a meat one, because the ratio of burger to pickles is so high. [either misquoted or mis-thought, since not to be able to tell would mean the burger:pickles ratio is so low]”

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author

Usenet

People , Family , Knowledge

“This American system of ours … call it Americanism, call it capitalism, call it what you like, gives to each and every one of us a great opportunity if we only seize it with both hands and make the most of it.”

Al Capone (1899–1947) American gangster

Interview with Claud Cockburn, as quoted in “Mr. Capone, Philosopher,” Cockburn Sums Up (1981)

“It is something like fire working on wood; the heat draws out all the moisture, the greenness and the heaviness. It grows warm, begins to glow, becomes more like the fire itself. As the wood slowly takes on the likeness of fire, the dissimilarity between the two grows less until finally, in a rapid movement, the fire takes from the wood its own substance; the wood becomes fire and loses at the same time its separateness and inequality, since it has become fire. No longer merely like fire, it has become one substance with the fire. Likeness is lost in union.”

Johannes Tauler (1300–1361) German theologian

Sermons, From Our Daily Bread

Time , Drawing

“When I play on my fiddle in Dooney,
Folk dance like a wave of the sea.”

W.B. Yeats (1865–1939) Irish poet and playwright

The Fiddler Of Dooney http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1620/, st. 1
The Wind Among the Reeds (1899)

Dance , Sea

““Whatever is, is not,” is the maxim of the anarchist, as often as anything comes across him in the shape of a law which he happens not to like.”

Richard Bentley (1662–1742) English classical scholar and Master of Trinity College, Cambridge

Declaration of Rights. Compare: "Whatever is, is in its causes just", John Dryden, Œdipus, Act iii. Sc. 1.

Law

“I think to look in the future, to plan another one, it's not realistic right now. But I don't close any doors. I'm very open for what comes up. At the moment, we are so happy with this one. I really hope people will like it as much as we do.”

Agnetha Fältskog (1950) Swedish recording artist and entertainer

On planning her next album after 'A'; her thoughts on her 2013 solo album, 'A'
BBC interview (March 2013)

People , Hope , Thinking , Future

“I am alone with rickety materials,
the rain falls on me, and it is like me,
it is like me in its raving, alone in the dead world,
repulsed as it falls, and with no persistent form.”

Pablo Neruda (1904–1973) Chilean poet

Estoy solo entre materias desvencijadas,
la lluvia cae sobre mí, y se me parece,
se me parece con su desvarío,solitaria en el mundo muerto,
rechazada al caer, y sin forma obstinada.
Débil del Alba (Weak with the Dawn or The Dawn's Debility), Residencia I (Residence I), I, stanza 5.
Alternate translation by Donald D. Walsh:
I am alone among rickety substances,
the rain falls upon me and it seems like me,
like me with its madness, alone in the dead world,
rejected as it falls, and without persistent shape.
Residencia en la Tierra (Residence on Earth) (1933)

World , Dead

“I don't have a technique. I've never been a believer in having one set technique on how to act. There are no rules and there is no rulebook. At the end of the day, it all comes down to my instincts. That's the one thing that guides me through every decision professionally. Socially, also. That's my technique. Yeah, you read through the script 100 times. I guess I have little characteristics about myself. Sometimes, most often than not, once we start shooting I won't look at the script at all until we finished shooting. It's kind of like it's been imprinted in my head during rehearsals. You just let it go.”

Heath Ledger (1979–2008) Australian actor

As quoted by Reel.com (May 2001).

Decision , Time , Reading

“Is it not excessively ridiculous to seek the good opinion of those whom you would never wish to be like?”

John Chrysostom (349–407) important Early Church Father

Homilies on the Gospel of Saint John http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/240103.htm, Homily III

“In order to do a good job a person must like what he or she is doing… If you do things just because you have to, then you will never enjoy work. Nor will you do a good job if you do it simply out of a sense of duty. Stress is often a by-product of such passive or negative attitudes toward work. Paradoxically as it may sound, love of work can be the best medicine for workaholism.”

Matsushita Konosuke (1894–1989) Japanese businessman

Kōnosuke Matsushita in: The Mirror, (1989), Vol. 25, p. 18

Love , Sense , Personality

“Nor is it any longer possible for you to give up this empire … Your empire is now like a tyranny: it may have been wrong to take it; it is certainly dangerous to let it go.”

Pericles (-494–-429 BC) Greek statesman, orator, and general of Athens

Book 2, chapter 63: Pericles' third speech
History of the Peloponnesian War

“Now, in the Manu-samhita it is clearly stated that a woman should not be given freedom. That does not mean that women are to be kept as slaves, but they are like children. The demons have now neglected such injunctions, and they think that women should be given as much freedom as men.”

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada (1896–1977) Indian guru

Bhagavad-Gita As It Is, Bhaktivedanta Book Trust, 1972. Chapter 16, verse 7, purport. Vedabase http://www.vedabase.com/en/bg/16/7
Quotes from Books: Loving God, Quotes from Books: Regression of Women's Rights

Women , Men , Children , Thinking

“I was reading even before I could spell properly, even though I couldn't necessarily understand what I was reading. Being able to identify a word I knew was like finding a signpost on the road telling me I was on the right path, heading in the right direction. And so it was, in this rather unusual way, Diário by Diário, month by month, pretending not to hear the jokey comments made by the adults in the house, who were amused by the way I would stare at the newspaper as if at a wall, that my moment to astonish them finally came, when, one day, nervous but triumphant, I read out loud, in one go, without hesitation, several consecutive lines of print.”

José Saramago (1922–2010) Portuguese writer and recipient of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Literature

Mal sabendo ainda soletrar, já lia, sem perceber que estava lendo. Identificar na escrita do jornal uma palavra que eu conhecesse era como encontrar um marco na estrada a dizer-me que ia bem, que seguia na boa direcção. E foi assim, desta maneira algo invulgar, Diário após Diário, mês após mês, fazendo de conta que não ouvia as piadas dos adultos da casa, que se divertiam por estar eu a olhar para o jornal como se fosse um muro, que a minha hora de os deixar sem fala chegou, quando, um dia, de um fôlego, li em voz alta, sem titubear, nervoso mas triunfante, umas quantas linhas seguidas.
Source: Small Memories (2006), pp. 87–88

Way , Understanding , Reading , Housing

“I don't fear death. But I don't like being dangled out there like a piece of meat on a fishing rod to it either. If I'm going to die, take me out now. Don't let me suffer. That's not exactly the way I wanted to go. I don't want to be in limbo, I don't want to know that I might die. The mights don't work with me. I'm too literal.”

Anastacia (1968) American singer-songwriter

"I don't fear death" http://www.theguardian.com/music/2004/mar/15/popandrock1, The Guardian.com, March 15, 2004.
General Quotes

Death , Fear , Way , Fish

“Psychoanalysis pretends to investigate the Unconscious. The Unconscious by definition is what you are not conscious of. But the Analysts already know what’s in it. They should, because they put it all in beforehand. It's like an Easter Egg hunt.”

Saul Bellow book The Dean's December

The Dean's December (1982), ch. 18, p. 298
General sources

“I think I had it in the back of my mind that I wanted to sound like a dry martini.”

Paul Desmond (1924–1977) American jazz musician

About his distinctive light sound
Unsourced

Thinking

“Charm was a scheme for making strangers like and trust a person immediately, no matter what the charmer had in mind.”

Kurt Vonnegut book Breakfast of Champions

page 19
Breakfast of Champions (1973)

Personality

“Melody and harmony are like lines and colors in pictures. A simple linear picture may be completely beautiful; the introduction of color may make it vague and insignificant. Yet color may, by combination with lines, create great pictures, so long as it does not smother and destroy their value.”

Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) Bengali polymath

Interview with Einstein (1930)

Beauty , Color

“Three times I rushed toward her, desperate to hold her,
three times she fluttered through my fingers, sifting away
like a shadow, dissolving like a dream.”

Homér The Odyssey (Cowper)

XI. 206–208 (tr. Robert Fagles); Odysseus attempting to embrace his mother's spirit in the Underworld.
Compare Virgil, Aeneid, II. 792–793 (tr. C. Pitt):
: Thrice round her neck my eager arms I threw;
Thrice from my empty arms the phantom flew.
Odyssey (c. 725 BC)

Dreams , Time

“We keep countless men from being good citizens by the conditions of life by which we surround them. We need comprehensive workman’s compensation acts, both State and national laws to regulate child labor and work for women, and, especially, we need in our common schools not merely education in book-learning, but also practical training for daily life and work. We need to enforce better sanitary conditions for our workers and to extend the use of safety appliances for workers in industry and commerce, both within and between the States. Also, friends, in the interest of the working man himself, we need to set our faces like flint against mob-violence just as against corporate greed; against violence and injustice and lawlessness by wage-workers just as much as against lawless cunning and greed and selfish arrogance of employers.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

1910s, The New Nationalism (1910)

Life , Women , Men , Books

“It is not altogether true that persuasion is one thing and force is another. Many forms of persuasion – even many of which everybody approves – are really a kind of force. Consider what we do to our children. We do not say to them: "Some people think the earth is round, and others think it is flat; when you grow up, you can, if you like, examine the evidence and form your own conclusion." Instead of this we say: "The earth is round."”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

By the time our children are old enough to examine the evidence, our propaganda has closed their minds.
Source: 1930s, Power: A New Social Analysis (1938), Ch. 17: The Ethics of Power

Children , People , Thinking , Time

“I was still a kid when I gave up modeling and moved to London to devote myself to music. At the time, I had a band. Two years later, broke, I was forced to return to New York to go back to modeling and earn my living. But, when I’d call my agent, she replied to me: "You are now an old-fashioned model, you have a 'has-been' look." In fact, I could not even manage to get castings. Can you imagine what it’s like when you’re told that you’re over at the age of 18?”

Milla Jovovich (1975) Ukrainian-born american model and actress

Interview 1

Age , Music , Imagination , Fashion

“It took a man like Madiba to free not just the prisoner, but the jailer as well to show that you must trust others so that they may trust you; to teach that reconciliation is not a matter of ignoring a cruel past, but a means of confronting it with inclusion and generosity and truth.”

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

2013, Eulogy of Nelson Mandela (December 2013)

Truth , Past

“I was the all-American boy, the Eagle Scout. I remember I was at my girlfriend's apartment, and there were these strange publications like The Nation and The New Republic. I started looking at them and thought, "Gee, this is weird; people saying things against America?" It was an awakening. On the East Coast, I'd never even heard of conscientious objectors.”

Lawrence Ferlinghetti (1919) American artist, writer and activist

San Francisco Chronicle, September 24, 2012 http://www.sfgate.com/books/article/Lawrence-Ferlinghetti-s-indelible-image-3886925.php#page-2

People , Boy , Scouting

“Today is a big step in our march toward equality. Gay and lesbian couples now have the right to marry, just like anyone else. #LoveWins.”

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

President Barack Obama on Twitter at June 26, 2015 https://twitter.com/POTUS/status/614435467120001024
2015

“What has philosophy got to do with measuring anything? It's the mathematicians you have to trust, and they measure the skies like we measure a field.”

Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) Italian mathematician, physicist, philosopher and astronomer

"Matteo" in Concerning the New Star (1606)
Other quotes

“Fear death?—to feel the fog in my throat,
The mist in my face.
.......
No! let me taste the whole of it, fare like my peers,
The heroes of old;
Bear the brunt, in a minute pay glad life's arrears”

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

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

Life , Death , Fear , Feeling

“God became man in order to make me God; The soul becomes like gold that becomes purer as it is fired, all dross being cast out. Having come to the point of twenty-four carats, gold cannot be purified any further; and this is what happens to the soul in the fire of God’s lovetherefore I want to be changed completely into pure God”

Catherine of Genoa (1447–1510) Italian author and nurse

Ibid., P.109.

God , Soul , Change

“On turning 30: "I kind of feel like the same person except more time has gone by. I hate to say that I feel like an adult now. I have to admit I wish I was still 18. After all, even through the time while I was representing that wild kid, I really wasn't. I was just living my life. I was just not making movies at the time.”

Leonardo DiCaprio (1974) American actor and film producer

http://www.flixster.com/actor/leonardo-di-caprio/leonardo-dicaprio-quotes

Life , Hate , Feeling , Time

“What would you suggest I do? Give everything away and walk the streets? The Buddhist says, "Get rid of the possessions of the mind." Walking away from all the money would not accomplish that. It's like the Beatles. I couldn't walk away from the Beatles. That's one possession that's still tagging along, right?”

John Lennon (1940–1980) English singer and songwriter

Playboy interview (1980)

Money

“I celebrated my 21st birthday here, and that was the last time I drank in El Paso. [Audience cheers] You folks don't mess around, you know? Everyone was going, "It's your birthday," I was like, "It's my birthday!" "Do you want a drink?" "SUUURRREE!" And I kept drinking and drinking and drinking, and then the staff asked me, "Do you want to party?" I was like, [Slurring]"I want to party." "Do you want to dance?" [Slurring] "I wanna dance!" I passed out, you guys, and woke up at a place called the O. P. [Audience laughs and cheers] Yeah, the reason you people in El Paso are laughing is because you KNOW! I had no idea it was an "Alternative" night club. I'm from L. A., I thought O. P. stood for: Orale pues! That is a bad way to sober up, you guys. I'm just dancing, you know [Imitates beat-box music] Boom, boom, boom, hey! Boom, boom, boom, hey! Boom, boom, boom- [Jumps like something's behind him] HEY! [Audience laughs] And behind me was this little guy going, [Little effeminate voice] "Pikachu!"”

Gabriel Iglesias (1976) American actor

I'm Not Fat, I'm Fluffy (2009)

People , Music , Way , Guy

“Death isn't online. If he was, there would be a sudden drop in the death rate. Although it'd be interesting to see if he'd post things like: DON'T YOU THINK I SOUND LIKE JAMES EARL JONES?”

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author

Usenet

Death , Thinking

“Can we be honest for a moment. You didn't have a good Christmas, did you? Your turkey was too dry, your kids spent all day glued to their internets, and you didn't bother watching the Big Christmas Film because you've owned it for years on DVD. What you should have had to liven things up was my mother. She arrived at my house with a steely resolve that the Christmas holidays would be exactly like the Christmas holidays she enjoyed when she was a child. Only without the diphtheria or the bombing raids.”

Jeremy Clarkson (1960) English broadcaster, journalist and writer

Source: For Crying Out Loud! The World According to Clarkson Volume Three (2008), p. 1

Holiday , Christmas , Housing

“I'm the Gap like Banana Republic and Old Navy”

Kanye West (1977) American rapper, singer and songwriter

Last Call
Lyrics, The College Dropout (2004)

“[On the lyrics of his songs] They meant a lot to my generation. And it's nice to know you've written songs that mean something to someone rather than some trivial pop dirge. I'm not thriving off a career slagging off the Queen. I think I have something valid to say. My words are my bullets. I like to brag that somehow I got it right.”

John Lydon (1956) English singer, songwriter, and musician

Interview: Seven Magazine in the London Telegraph (6 January 2008)

Thinking

“Last night Alexis got his script for Angel. I was like, "Oh, I would have been getting a Buffy script right now."”

Alyson Hannigan (1974) American actress

About.com, "American Wedding's" Bride and Groom Discuss the Third "Pie" Movie http://movies.about.com/cs/americanwedding/a/amwedjbah.htm.

Angels , Night

“I saw this wino, he was eating grapes. I was like "Dude, you have to wait."”

Mitch Hedberg (1968–2005) American stand-up comedian

track 3, "Not Track Five, Not Chainsaw Juggler"
Mitch All Together (2003)

Waiting

“Though I had success in my research both when I was mad and when I was not, eventually I felt that my work would be better respected if I thought and acted like a 'normal' person.”

John Nash (1928–2015) American mathematician and Nobel Prize laureate

As quoted in A Beautiful Mind, (2001); also cited in Quantum Phaith (2011), by Jeffrey Strickland, p. 197
2000s

Success , Personality , Madness

“I'd like to be remembered as a guy who tried — tried to be part of his times, tried to help people communicate with one another, tried to find some decency in his own life, tried to extend himself as a human being. Someone who isn't complacent, who doesn't cop out.”

Paul Newman (1925–2008) American actor and film director

Quoted in The Films of Paul Newman (1971) by Lawrence J. Quirk (Citadel Press), ISBN 0-806-50385-8), p. 36

Life , People , Guy , Communication

“Denying the existence of God the Creator is like an artificial intelligent machine doubting the existence of human inventors.”

Newton Lee American computer scientist

Google It: Total Information Awareness, 2016

God , Intelligence

“One possibility in this direction is to regard, classically, an electron as the end of a single Faraday line of force. The electric field in this picture from discrete Faraday lines of force, which are to be treated as physical things, like strings. One has then to develop a dynamics for such a string like structure, and quantize it…. In such a theory a bare electron would be inconceivable, since one cannot imagine the end of a piece of string without having the string.”

Paul Dirac (1902–1984) theoretical physicist

Bombay Lectures (1955)

Imagination

“Human beings will find a balanced situation when they do good things not because God says it, but because they feel like doing them.”

Olof Palme (1927–1986) Swedish 20th century prime minister

Quoted in: V. Thomas (2009) The God Dilemma: To Believe Or Not to Believe,.

God , Feeling

“I have never met a man like my father. He is so mad, terrible and vehement at the same time. Because of him, I never knew anything other than passion. When I began to meet other people I saw that it wasn’t normal.”

Nastassja Kinski (1961) German actress

Georgina Howell, The Demanding Nastassia Kinski http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1309&dat=19860102&id=MQROAAAAIBAJ&sjid=MJwDAAAAIBAJ&pg=6682,494045, New Straits Times, January 2, 1986

People , Passion , Time , Madness

“Asking a tyrant for justice is just like asking a crazy being for sanity, a crazy person considers himself the only sane being among all people”

Ali Al-Wardi (1913–1995) Iraqi sociologist

People , Justice , Personality

“By happy fraternity amongst themselves, the embodied beings get the supreme peace. Then all this earth shines like one house. When the men, the embodied beings treat each other with equal respect and have good brotherly feelings amongst themselves, great peace and harmony abound. Then all this earth shines like one house. The whole world shines like the one dwelling house of the entire human family.”

Ramana Maharshi (1879–1950) Indian religious leader

Sri Ramana Gita

Men , World , Family , Peace

“So when the universe was quickened with soul, God was well pleased; and he bethought him to make it yet more like its type. And whereas the type is eternal and nought that is created can be eternal, he devised for it a moving image of abiding eternity, which we call time. And he made days and months and years, which are portions of time; and past and future are forms of time, though we wrongly attribute them also to eternity. For of eternal Being we ought not to say 'it was', 'it shall be', but 'it is' alone: and in like manner we are wrong in saying 'it is' of sensible things which become and perish; for these are ever fleeting and changing, having their existence in time.”

Plato book Timaeus

37c–38b, as quoted by R. D. Archer-Hind, The Timaeus of Plato https://books.google.com/books?id=q2YMAAAAIAAJ (1888)
Timaeus

God , Soul , Universe , Change

“When in the spring the withered gray of the pastures gives place to green, this is due to the millions of young shoots which sprout up freshly from the old roots. In like manner the revival of thought which is essential for our time can only come through a transformation of the opinions and ideals of the many brought about by individual and universal reflection about the meaning of life and of the world.”

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

Source: The Spiritual Life (1947), p. 10

Life , World , Spring , Universe

“We also know that centuries of racial discrimination -- of slavery, and subjugation, and Jim Crow -- they didn’t simply vanish with the end of lawful segregation. They didn’t just stop when Dr. King made a speech, or the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act were signed. Race relations have improved dramatically in my lifetime. Those who deny it are dishonoring the struggles that helped us achieve that progress. But we know -- but, America, we know that bias remains. We know it. Whether you are black or white or Hispanic or Asian or Native American or of Middle Eastern descent, we have all seen this bigotry in our own lives at some point. […] Although most of us do our best to guard against it and teach our children better, none of us is entirely innocent. No institution is entirely immune. And so when African Americans from all walks of life, from different communities across the country, voice a growing despair over what they perceive to be unequal treatment; when study after study shows that whites and people of color experience the criminal justice system differently, so that if you’re black you’re more likely to be pulled over or searched or arrested, more likely to get longer sentences, more likely to get the death penalty for the same crime; when mothers and fathers raise their kids right and have “the talk” about how to respond if stopped by a police officer -- “yes, sir,” “no, sir” -- but still fear that something terrible may happen when their child walks out the door, still fear that kids being stupid and not quite doing things right might end in tragedy -- when all this takes place more than 50 years after the passage of the Civil Rights Act, we cannot simply turn away and dismiss those in peaceful protest as troublemakers or paranoid. We can’t simply dismiss it as a symptom of political correctness or reverse racism. To have your experience denied like that, dismissed by those in authority, dismissed perhaps even by your white friends and coworkers and fellow church members again and again and again -- it hurts. Surely we can see that, all of us.”

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

2016, Memorial Service for Fallen Dallas Police Officers (July 2016)

Life , Death , Children , People

“An uneasy rhythm of life
is more life like than an easy death.”

Suman Pokhrel (1967) Nepali poet, lyricist, playwright, translator and artist

<span class="plainlinks"> Khorampa https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/khorampa/</span>
From Poetry

Life , Death

“Why can't I be different and original, like everybody else?”

Vivian Stanshall (1943–1995) English musician, artist and author

Men Opening Umbrellas Ahead
Others

“From that instant I had not to take another step; the ground moved forward under my feet in that garden where, for so long, my actions had ceased to require any control, or even attention, from my will. Custom came to take me in her arms, carried me all the way up to my bed, and laid me down there like a little child.”

Marcel Proust book In Search of Lost Time

À partir de cet instant, je n’avais plus un seul pas à faire, le sol marchait pour moi dans ce jardin où depuis si longtemps mes actes avaient cessé d’être accompagnés d’attention volontaire: l’Habitude venait de me prendre dans ses bras et me portait jusqu’à mon lit comme un petit enfant.
"Combray"
In Search of Lost Time, Remembrance of Things Past (1913-1927), Vol I: Swann's Way (1913)

Way

“I myself am part of the youth movement. However, after a long discussion, it appears that many of the youth demands and needs, like access to education, jobs, and equitable growth, have been addressed under different goals and targets and youth enjoy the benefits of everything else in the report.”

Tawakkol Karman (1979) Yemeni journalist, politician, human rights activist, and Nobel Peace Prize recipient

2000s, Youth Q&A on the U.N. High-Level Panel on the Post-2015 Agenda Report (2009)

Youth , Education , Appearance , Parting

“Like a heartbeat. Something inside me. Some dream. I think it's being a dreamer as a child. Dreamy kids become actors, don't they?”

Michael Gambon (1940) British actor

Quoted in Dominic Wills, "Michael Gambon Biography" http://www.tiscali.co.uk/entertainment/film/biographies/michael_gambon_biog.html, tiscali.co.uk (undated)

Dreams , Thinking

“I should not ask anything better, but when it is a question of several painters living in community life, I stipulate before everything that there must be an abbot to keep order, and that would naturally be Gauguin. That is why I would like Gauguin to be here [in Arles ] first... If I can get back the money already spent which you [Theo] have lent me for several years, we will launch out, and try to found a studio for a renaissance and not for a decadence.”

Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890) Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890)

Quote in his letter to brother Theo, from Arles, Autumn 1888; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935 https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_1996_300061887.pdf, (letter 544), p. 37
1880s, 1888

Life , Money , Communication , Question

“I like it not that Mr. Parris should lay his hand upon my baby. I see no light of God in that man. I'll not conceal it.”

Arthur Miller The Crucible

John Proctor
The Crucible (1953)

God , Light , Baby

“The exchange of one fear or pleasure or pain for another fear or pleasure or pain, which are measured like coins, the greater with the less, is not the exchange of virtue. O, my dear Simmias, is there not one true coin, for which all things ought to exchange?—and that is wisdom; and only in exchange for this, and in company with this, is anything truly bought or sold, whether courage or temperance or justice. …in the true exchange, there is a purging away of all these things, and temperance, and justice, and courage, and wisdom herself are a purgation of them.”

Socrates (-470–-399 BC) classical Greek Athenian philosopher

Plato, Phaedo

Wisdom , Pain , Pleasure , Fear

“I want my world to be fun. No parents, no rules, no nothing. Like, no one can stop me. No one can stop me.”

Justin Bieber (1994) Canadian singer-songwriter, record producer, and actor

Interview Magazine, as quoted in "Justin Bieber: No One Can Stop Me" http://www.justjared.com/2010/04/07/justin-bieber-no-one-can-stop-me/, April 2010

World , Parent

“If we cannot live entirely like human beings, at least let us do everything in our power not to live entirely like animals.”

José Saramago book Blindness

Se não formos capazes de viver inteiramente como pessoas, ao menos façamos tudo para não viver inteiramente como animais.
Source: Blindness (1995), p. 116

Animals

“Socialism itself can hope to exist only for brief periods here and there, and then only through the exercise of the extremest terrorism. For this reason it is secretly preparing itself for rule through fear and is driving the word 'justice' into the heads of the half-educated masses like a nail so as to rob them of their reason… and to create in them a good conscience for the evil game they are to play.”

Friedrich Nietzsche book Human, All Too Human

Cambridge University Press, 1996, pp. 173-174
Human, All Too Human (1878)

Education , Fear , Justice , Hope

“Silence is like a flame, you see?”

Marcel Marceau (1923–2007) French mime and actor

Interview Charlie Rose (27 September 2000)

Silence

“God has some areas where he likes to be supplicated in, and the prayer of the supplicator is accepted (in those areas); the sanctuary of Husayn (a. s.) is one of these.”

Ali al-Hadi (829–868) imam

Ibn Shu’ba al-Harrani, Tuhaf al-'Uqul, p. 510.
Religious Wisdom

God

“This dogma had first to be shattered before men could once more go out in quest of the historical Jesus, before they could even grasp the thought of His existence. That the historic Jesus is something different from the Jesus Christ of the doctrine of the Two Natures seems to us now self-evident. We can, at the present day, scarcely imagine the long agony in which the historical view of the life of Jesus came to birth. And even when He was once more recalled to life. He was still, like Lazarus of old, bound hand and foot with grave-clothes — the grave-clothes of the dogma of the Dual Nature.”

Albert Schweitzer book The Quest of the Historical Jesus

Source: The Quest of the Historical Jesus (1906), p. 3

Life , Men , Imagination , Birth

“Morphy and Capablanca had enormous talent, they are two of my favorites. Steinitz was very great too. Alekhine was great, but I am not a big fan of his. Maybe it’s just my taste. I’ve studied his games a lot, but I much prefer Capablanca and Morphy. Alekhine had a rather heavy style, Capablanca was much more brilliant and talented, he had a real light touch. Everyone I’ve spoken to who saw Capablanca play still speak of him with awe. If you showed him any position he would instantly tell you the right move. When I used to go to the Manhattan Chess Club back in the fifties, I met a lot of old-timers there who knew Capablanca, because he used to come around to the Manhattan club in the forties – before he died in the early forties. They spoke about Capablanca with awe. I have never seen people speak about any chess player like that, before or since. Capablanca really was fantastic. But even he had his weaknesses, especially when you play over his games with his notes he would make idiotic statements like 'I played the rest of the game perfectly.”

Bobby Fischer (1943–2008) American chess prodigy, chess player, and chess writer

But then you play through the moves and it is not true at all. But the thing that was great about Capablanca was that he really spoke his mind, he said what he believed was true, he said what he felt.
Radio Interview, October 16 2006 http://www.geocities.jp/bobbby_b/mp3/F_35_3.MP3

People , Game , Study , Light

“What's Bagism? It's like… a tag for what we all do, we're all in a bag ya know, and we realised that we came from two bags, I was in this pop bag going round and round in my little clique, and she was in her little avant-garde clique going round and round, and you're in your little tele clique and they're in their…ya know? and we all sort of come out and look at each other every now and then, but we don't communicate. And we all intellectualise about how there is no barrier between art, music, poetry… but we're still all "I'm a rock and roller, he's a poet" … so we just came up with the word so you would ask us what bagism is, and we'd say "WE'RE ALL IN A BAG BABY!"”

John Lennon (1940–1980) English singer and songwriter

Interview on The David Frost Show (14 June 1969) http://web.archive.org/web/20010719003543/http://homepage.ntlworld.com/carousel/pob07.html

Art , Music , Communication , Baby

Quotes about likeness page 34

Quotes about likeness
page 34