Quotes about look
page 9

Anna Freud photo
William Shakespeare photo
Lewis Carroll photo
Cassandra Clare photo
Francesca Lia Block photo
Rainer Maria Rilke photo
Annie Dillard photo
Terry Pratchett photo
Terry Pratchett photo
Cassandra Clare photo
William Shakespeare photo
Dejan Stojanovic photo

“Long ago we conquered our passions
Looking at ourselves in the mirror of eternity.”

Dejan Stojanovic (1959) poet, writer, and businessman

"Prayer," p. 47
The Shape (2000), Sequence: “Pit of the Stone”

Gabriel Iglesias photo
Kanye West photo
W.B. Yeats photo
Françoise Sagan photo
Muhammad photo

“Abu Hurayra reported that the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said, "On the Day of Rising, Allah will not look at anyone who drags his waist-wrapper out of pride."”

Muhammad (570–632) Arabian religious leader and the founder of Islam

Riyadh-as-Saliheen by Imam Al-Nawawi, volume 4, hadith number 616
Sunni Hadith
Variant: Abu Hurayra reported that the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said, "Part of the excellence of a person's Islam is his leaving alone what does not concern him."

Henry Van Dyke photo
Friedrich Nietzsche photo

“There exists no more repulsive and desolate creature in the world than the man who has evaded his genius and who now looks furtively to left and right, behind him and all about him. In the end such a man becomes impossible to get hold of, since he is wholly exterior, without kernel: a tattered, painted bag of clothes; a decked-out ghost that cannot inspire even fear and certainly not pity.”

Es gibt kein öderes und widrigeres Geschöpf in der Natur als den Menschen, welcher seinem Genius ausgewichen ist und nun nach rechts und nach links, nach rückwärts und überallhin schielt. Man darf einen solchen Menschen zuletzt gar nicht mehr angreifen, denn er ist ganz Außenseite ohne Kern, ein anbrüchiges, gemaltes, aufgebauschtes Gewand.
“Schopenhauer as educator,” § 3.1, R. Hollingdale, trans. (1983), p. 128
Untimely Meditations (1876)

Daniel Radcliffe photo
Barack Obama photo
Will Ferrell photo

“I'm actually pretty athletic. I have to work out just to look fat.”

Will Ferrell (1967) American actor, writer, and comedian

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6461604
Jared Jordan
Attributed

Tessa Virtue photo

“Tessa is a perfectionist in all ways. For example, her hair always has to be perfect for an interview or competition, she makes me look goofy next to her.”

Tessa Virtue (1989) Canadian ice dancer

Scott Moir, Interview for Wdish (2013)
Partnership with Scott Moir, Scott Moir about Virtue

Ludwig Wittgenstein photo
Mikhail Kalashnikov photo

“Whenever I look at TV and I see the weapon I invented to defend my motherland in the hands of these bin Ladens, I ask myself the same question: "How did it get into their hands?" I didn't put it in the hands of bandits and terrorists, and it's not my fault that it has mushroomed uncontrollably across the globe. Can I be blamed that they consider it the most reliable weapon?”

Mikhail Kalashnikov (1919–2013) Soviet and Russian small arms designer

"The Man Who Invented The AK-47 Has Died — Here's His Greatest Regret" by Adam Taylor, in Business Insider (23 December 2013) http://www.businessinsider.com/mikhail-kalashnikovs-death-and-his-greatest-regret-2013-12#ixzz2oW7igOTn

Jean Vanier photo

“Adults must remember that they look like insane giants to children.”

Irving Fiske (1908–1990) American writer

Attributed without citation in Isabella Fiske McFarlin, et al., "Free The Kids! and Quarry Hill Community" http://search.proquest.com/openview/e76b1d1a966283049dcf60bcb9386c4d/1, Journal of Psychohistory, Vol. 21 No. 1 (Summer 1993), p. 21

Matthew Perry (actor) photo
Jomo Kenyatta photo

“I have no intention of retaliating or looking backwards. We are going to forget the past and look forward to the future.”

Jomo Kenyatta (1893–1978) First prime minister and first president of Kenya

(1964) Post-election statement. Virginia Morell, Ancestral Passions: The leakey Family and the Quest for Humankind's Beginnings, Copyright 1995, Chapter 19, beginning.

“When lying to someone, look him straight in the eye.”

Mason Cooley (1927–2002) American academic

City Aphorisms, Ninth Selection (1992)

Lewis Carroll photo
Thomas Boston photo
John Lydon photo

“Punk is like looking at a mirror. I already have a mirror so I don't need the Offspring to remind me how gorgeous I am.”

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

The Jimmy Kimmel Show (4th September 2003)

William Shakespeare photo

“Children wish fathers looked but with their eyes; fathers that children with their judgment looked; and either may be wrong.”

William Shakespeare (1564–1616) English playwright and poet

Derived from A Midsummer Night's Dream on p. 269, Aphorisms from Shakespeare (1812), Capel Lofft, Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme and Brown, a book which rewrites in aphoristic form Shakespeare quotations, in this case the exchange between Hermia and Theseus: "I would my father look'd but with my eyes", "Rather your eyes must with his judgment look".
Misattributed

Jiddu Krishnamurti photo

“In oneself lies the whole world and if you know how to look and learn, the door is there and the key is in your hand. Nobody on earth can give you either the key or the door to open, except yourself.”

Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895–1986) Indian spiritual philosopher

As quoted in Perfecting Ourselves : Coordinating Body, Mind, and Spirit (2002) by Aaron Hoopes, p. 64
Posthumous publications

Edvard Munch photo
Eckhart Tolle photo
Mark Twain photo
H.P. Lovecraft photo
Fred Astaire photo

“When I was in the Soviet Union recently I was being interviewed by a newspaperman and he said, "Which dancers influenced you the most?" and I said, "Oh, well, Fred Astaire." He looked very surprised and shocked and I said, "What's the matter?" He said, "Well, Mr. Balanchine just said the same thing."”

Fred Astaire (1899–1987) American dancer, singer, actor, choreographer and television presenter

Jerome Robbins in Heeley, David, producer and director. Fred Astaire: Puttin' on his Top Hat and Fred Astaire: Change Partners and Dance (two television programs written by John L. Miller), PBS, March 1980. (M).

Ludwig Wittgenstein photo

“Frazer's account of the magical and religious views of mankind is unsatisfactory; it makes these views look like errors.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) Austrian-British philosopher

Source: 1930s-1951, Philosophical Occasions 1912-1951 (1993), Ch. 7 : Remarks on Frazer's Golden Bough, p. 119

Auguste Rodin photo
Friedrich Nietzsche photo
Jim Carrey photo

“If you aren’t in the moment, you are either looking forward to uncertainty, or back to pain and regret.”

Jim Carrey (1962) Canadian-American actor, comedian, and producer

Carrey: 'Life Is Too Beautiful': Star Talks About Bouts With Depression And His Spirituality http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/11/18/60minutes/main656547.shtml 60 Minutes (21 November 2004)

Edward Teller photo

“Ladies and gentlemen, I am to talk to you about energy in the future. I will start by telling you why I believe that the energy resources of the past must be supplemented. First of all, these energy resources will run short as we use more and more of the fossil fuels. But I would […] like to mention another reason why we probably have to look for additional fuel supplies. And this, strangely, is the question of contaminating the atmosphere. […. ] Whenever you burn conventional fuel, you create carbon dioxide. […. ] The carbon dioxide is invisible, it is transparent, you can’t smell it, it is not dangerous to health, so why should one worry about it?
Carbon dioxide has a strange property. It transmits visible light but it absorbs the infrared radiation which is emitted from the earth. Its presence in the atmosphere causes a greenhouse effect […. ] It has been calculated that a temperature rise corresponding to a 10 per cent increase in carbon dioxide will be sufficient to melt the icecap and submerge New York. All the coastal cities would be covered, and since a considerable percentage of the human race lives in coastal regions, I think that this chemical contamination is more serious than most people tend to believe.”

Edward Teller (1908–2003) Hungarian-American nuclear physicist

As quoted in Benjamin Franta, "On its 100th birthday in 1959, Edward Teller warned the oil industry about global warming" https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2018/jan/01/on-its-hundredth-birthday-in-1959-edward-teller-warned-the-oil-industry-about-global-warming, The Guardian, 1 January 2018.

Friedrich Schiller photo

“Wouldst thou know thyself, observe the actions of others.
Wouldst thou other men know, look thou within thine own heart.”

Friedrich Schiller (1759–1805) German poet, philosopher, historian, and playwright

Tabulae Votivae (Votive Tablets) (1796), "The Key"; tr. Edgar Alfred Bowring, The Poems of Schiller, Complete (1851)
Variant translation:[citation needed]
If you want to know yourself,
Just look how others do it;
If you want to understand others,
Look into your own heart

Osamu Tezuka photo
Mark Twain photo
Barack Obama photo
Murasaki Shikibu photo
Muhammad photo

“"I and the person who looks after an orphan and provides for him, will be in Paradise like this," — putting his index and middle fingers together.”

Muhammad (570–632) Arabian religious leader and the founder of Islam

Sahih Al-Bukhari Volume 8 Book 73 Number 34
Sunni Hadith

Stefan Zweig photo
Lewis Carroll photo

“The White Knight must not have whiskers; he must not be made to look old.”

Lewis Carroll (1832–1898) English writer, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer

Instructions to Sir John Tenniel c.1864; quoted in Stuart Dodgson Collingwood, The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll (1898) p. 130

Peter Higgs photo

“When you look at a vacuum in a quantum theory of fields, it isn't exactly nothing.”

Peter Higgs (1929) British physicist

in video Meet Peter Higgs http://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/1019670 by CERN (July 2004).

Marcus Garvey photo

“When the war started in Abyssinia all Negro nationalists looked with hope to Haile Selassie. They spoke for him, they prayed for him, they sung for him, they did everything to hold up his hands, as Aaron did for Moses; but whilst the Negro peoples of the world were praying for the success of Abyssinia this little Emperor was undermining the fabric of his own kingdom by playing the fool with white men, having them advising him[, ] having them telling him what to do, how to surrender, how to call off the successful thrusts of his [Race] against the Italian invaders. Yes, they were telling him how to prepare his flight, and like an imbecilic child he followed every advice and then ultimately ran away from his country to England, leaving his people to be massacred by the Italians, and leaving the serious white world to laugh at every Negro and repeat the charge and snare - "he is incompetent," "we told you so." Indeed Haile Selassie has proved the incompetence of the Negro for political authority, but thank God there are Negroes who realise that Haile Selassie did not represent the truest qualities of the Negro race. How could he, when he wanted to play white? How could he, when he surrounded himself with white influence? How could he, when in a modern world, and in a progressive civilization, he preferred a slave State of black men than a free democratic country where the black citizens could rise to the same opportunities as white citizens in their democracies?”

Marcus Garvey (1887–1940) Jamaica-born British political activist, Pan-Africanist, orator, and entrepreneur

The Failure of Haile Selassie as Emperor in The Blackman, April, 1937.

Jordan Peterson photo

“Why do dragons hoard gold? Because the things you most need is always to be found where you least want to look.”

Jordan Peterson (1962) Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology

Slaying the Dragon Within Us. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REjUkEj1O_0
Other

Alejandro Jodorowsky photo
Kamala Surayya photo
Henri Barbusse photo
Peter Weiss photo
Max Planck photo
Hayao Miyazaki photo
Gabriel Iglesias photo

“The first time I came here, I got the chance to meet some people, and they said, "You know what, Gabriel, have you ever been here, have you ever been to Chicago?" I'm like, "No, it's my first time." They said, "Well, you know, we'd like to take you out eat if you're down." And I'm like, "Well, hello!" [Audience laughs] "I'm very down!" They took me to a restaurant called Portillo's." [Audience cheers] You've heard of it? So, we get there, and it was, it was very, very good. The hot dogs were delicious, I had a chicken chopped salad, it was amazing. I had a beef dip, really really good. But it wasn't until the meal was almost over that these new friends of mine said, "We'd like for you to try something you've might not have ever had before." And I'm like, "That's not likely." I said, "So, what is it you want me to try?" And they said, "Well, they sell a thing here at Portillo's called a Chocolate Cake Shake." [Audience cheers] I said, "You had me at 'Chocolate'." They said, "Well, you gotta go to the special window and you gotta order it from the lady." I go, "Okay, cool." So, I get up and walk to the lady, and she's like, "Can I help you?" I said, "Yes, my friends are telling me that I need to try this thing, called a 'Chocolate Cake Shake'." "Okay, what size would you like?" "How good is it?" "You'll want a large." [Audience laughs] "Alright, can I please have a large Chocolate Cake Shake?" "No problem." [Imitates her entering the order in on the cash register] And I pay, and she turns around and walks over to this little refrigerator that's on the counter, and she opens it up, and she pulls out a piece of chocolate cake. And I'm thinking to myself, "She must have misunderstood what I said. I didn't ask for a piece of chocolate cake, I asked for a Chocolate Cake Shake." She must've heard what I was thinking, because she's walking by and she's like, "It's gonna happen." She walks over to the blender, she takes the freaking lid off, she just looks at me and does this. [Mimes the cashier turning her hand over, dropping the chocolate cake in the blender] And I was like, "NO!" And she's like, "Oh, yeah." [Mimes the lady pushing the button and the blender blending the cake] And she pours it, and she hands me this, like, 44-ounce chocolate shake, which is WAY more than anybody should be drinking. The straw was so thick, you could almost put your thumb in it, okay? So, I grab this shake, and I begin to attempt to drink it. So, I'm [Mimics him trying to suck the shake through the straw, making heavy "MMM" sounds], and I can see the shake coming up. [Still makes the "MMM" sounds, while using his finger to show how show the shake's coming up the straw] And it hit, and then, all of a sudden, [Mimics his nipples getting hard] "WOOOOO!"”

Gabriel Iglesias (1976) American actor

I'm Sorry For What I Said When I Was Hungry (2016)

Pink (singer) photo

“Have you ever fed a lover
With just your hands?
Close your eyes and trust it, just trust it.
Have you ever thrown
A fist full of glitter in the air?
Have you ever looked fear in the face,
And said I just don't care?”

Pink (singer) (1979) American singer-songwriter

Glitter in the Air, written by Pink, Billy Mann and Michele Mears
Song lyrics, Funhouse (2008)

Ronald Reagan photo

“George [H. W. Bush] brought his ne'er-do-well son around this morning and asked me to find the kid a job. Not the political one who lives in Florida. The one who hangs around here all the time looking shiftless. This so-called kid is already almost 40 and has never had a real job.”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

Cited to a Reagan diary entry in 1986, but actually from a parody written by Michael Kinsley in June 2007.
Misattributed

Lewis Carroll photo

“He thought he saw an Elephant,
That practised on a fife:
He looked again, and found it was
A letter from his wife.
'At length I realise,' he said,
'The bitterness of Life!”

Variant: He thought he saw a Banker's Clerk
Descending from the bus:
He looked again, and found it was
A Hippopotamus:
'If this should stay to dine,' he said,
'There won't be much for us!
Source: Sylvie and Bruno (1889), Chapter 5 : A Beggar's Palace

Friedrich Nietzsche photo
Henri Barbusse photo
William Wordsworth photo
Pablo Picasso photo

“I treat paintings as I treat objects. If a window in a picture looks wrong, I close it and draw the curtains, just as I would do in my own room.”

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

Quote in "Picasso", Hans L. C. Jaffe, Thames and Hudson Ltd
Attributed from posthumous publications

Barack Obama photo

“Well, I think that you're looking at it from a theological perspective or a scientific perspective. Answering that question with specificity is above my pay grade. But let me just speak more generally about the issue of abortion, because this is something that obviously the country wrestles with.”

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

Answer to the question: "At what point does a baby get human rights in your view?" at the Saddleback Civil Forum http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0808/16/se.02.html with Pastor Rich Warren, (18 August 2008)
2008

T.S. Eliot photo

“Who is the third who walks always beside you
When I count, there are only you and I together
But when I look ahead up the white road
There is always another one walking beside you”

Source: The Waste Land (1922), Line 359 et seq.

Eliot's note: Stimulated by Shackleton's Antarctic expedition where the explorers at the extremity of their strength believed there was another who walked with them across South Georgia!

Voltaire photo

“One hundred years from my day there will not be a Bible in the earth except one that is looked upon by an antiquarian curiosity seeker.”

Voltaire (1694–1778) French writer, historian, and philosopher

As quoted in Hefley What's so great about the Bible (1969), p. 30
George Sweeting Living in a Dying World (1972), p. 59
Related: "...only 50 years after his death the Geneva Bible Society used his press and house to produce stacks of Bibles."
Geisler, Norman L. and Nix, William E., A General Introduction to the Bible (Chicago, Moody Press, 1968), p. 123-124. See also McDowell The New Evidence that Demands a Verdict http://www.gracechapelsomd.org/books/The_New_Evidence_That_Demands_A_Verdict.pdf (1999).
According to The Open Society, Vol. 77 (Autumn 2004) Voltaire's House and The Bible Society http://www.nzarh.org.nz/journal/2004v77n1aut.pdf, p. 14: "The myth seems to have originated from an 1849 Annual Report of the American Bible Society where the relevant section reads: Voltaire... predicted that in the nineteenth century the Bible would be known only as a relic of antiquity. He could say, while on this topic, that the Hotel Gibbon (so-called from that celebrated infidel) is now become the very depository of the Bible Society, and the individual who superintends the building is an agent for the sale and receipt of the books. The very ground this illustrious scoffer often paced, has now become the scene of the operation and success of an institution established for the diffusion of the very book against which his efforts were directed."
Sidney Collett, in The Scripture of Truth (1905), apparently misrepresents this report by stating: "Voltaire, the noted French infidel who died in 1778, said that in one hundred years from his time Christianity would be swept into history. But what has happened? Only twenty-five years after his death the [British & Foreign Bible] Society was founded. His printing press, with which he printed his infidel literature, has since been used to print copies of the Word of God; and the very house in which he lived has been stacked with Bibles of the Geneva Bible Society."
Regarding Bible-printing in Voltaire's homes, Theodore Besterman (former director of the "Institut et Muse Voltaire" in Geneva) stated, "None of Voltaire's homes is or ever has been connected in any way with any Bible Society. This applies to all Voltaire's homes, whether in France, Germany, Switzerland, or anywhere else". http://www.nzarh.org.nz/journal/2004v77n1aut.pdf.
Misattributed
Variant: "Another century and there will not be a Bible on earth!"

Justin Bieber photo

“Anything above 40 is a little too old for me. I just look for a girl who is funny and has nice eyes and a smile.”

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

Quoted in MTV Bieber ‘I Like Older Women’ http://www.mtv.co.uk/news/justin-bieber/219749-bieber-i-like-older-women, April 2010

Thomas Edison photo
Claude Monet photo
Björn Andrésen photo
Georgia O'Keeffe photo
Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach photo

“Nothing is less promising than precociousness; the young thistle looks much more like a future tree than the young oak.”

Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach (1830–1916) Austrian writer

Nichts ist weniger verheißend als Frühreife; die junge Distel sieht einem zukünftigen Baume viel ähnlicher als die junge Eiche.
Source: Aphorisms (1880/1893), p. 27.

Pope Gregory I photo

“The bliss of the elect in heaven would not be perfect unless they were able to look across the abyss and enjoy the agonies of their brethren in eternal fire.”

Pope Gregory I (540–604) Pope from 590 to 604

Homily of St. Gregory as quoted in A History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, Volume 1 by Henry Charles Lea page 241

Benny Andersson photo

“I don't get it… did we look like transvestites or something?”

Benny Andersson (1946) Swedish musician

Regarding: Drag queens often performing ABBA songs
ABBA documentary, "Super Troupers: 30 Years of ABBA"

Barack Obama photo

“But what’s also true is that each of us have to cultivate an attitude of tolerance and mutual respect. And for young people, we have to try to encourage each other to be tolerant and respectful. So in the United States, obviously one of the biggest problems historically has been the issue of racial discrimination. And part of our efforts to overcome racial discrimination involve passing laws like the Civil Rights Law and the Voting Rights Law, and that required marches and protests and Dr. King. But part of the effort was also people changing the hearts and minds, and realizing that just because somebody doesn’t look like me doesn’t mean that they’re not worthy of respect. And when you’re growing up and you saw a friend of yours call somebody by a derogatory name, a rude name because they were different, it’s your job to say to that person, actually, that’s not the right way to think. If you are Christian and you have a friend who says I hate Muslims, then it’s up to you to say to that friend, you know what, I don’t believe in that; I think that’s the wrong attitude, I think we have to be respectful of the Muslim population. If you’re Buddhist and you say -- you hear somebody in your group say I want to treat a Hindu differently, it’s your job to speak out. So the most important thing I think is for you to, in whatever circle of influence you have, speak out on behalf of tolerance and diversity and respect. If you are quiet, then the people who are intolerant, they’ll own the stage and they’ll set the terms of the debate. And one of the things that leadership requires is saying things even when it’s uncomfortable, even when it’s unpopular -- especially when it’s unpopular. So I hope that as you get more influence, you’ll continue to speak out on behalf of these values.”

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

2014, Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative Town Hall Speech (November 2014)

Barack Obama photo
Leonardo Da Vinci photo

“Of several luminous bodies of equal size and brilliancy and at an equal distance, that will look the largest which is surrounded by the darkest background.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), IV Perspective of Disappearance

Jordan Peterson photo
Audrey Hepburn photo
Oliver Wendell Holmes photo
Joseph Joubert photo
Barack Obama photo

“We are joined today by inspiring entrepreneurs from more than 120 countries and many from across Africa. And all of you embody a spirit that we need to take on some of the biggest challenges that we face in the world -- the spirit of entrepreneurship, the idea that there are no limits to the human imagination; that ingenuity can overcome what is and create what needs to be. And everywhere I go, across the United States and around the world, I hear from people, but especially young people, who are ready to start something of their own -- to lift up people’s lives and shape their own destinies. And that’s entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship creates new jobs and new businesses, new ways to deliver basic services, new ways of seeing the world -- it’s the spark of prosperity. It helps citizens stand up for their rights and push back against corruption. Entrepreneurship offers a positive alternative to the ideologies of violence and division that can all too often fill the void when young people don’t see a future for themselves. Entrepreneurship means ownership and self-determination, as opposed to simply being dependent on somebody else for your livelihood and your future. Entrepreneurship brings down barriers between communities and cultures and builds bridges that help us take on common challenges together. Because one thing that entrepreneurs understand is, is that you don't have to look a certain way, or be of a certain faith, or have a certain last name in order to have a good idea.”

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

Remarks by President Obama at the Global Entrepreneurship Summit at United Nations Compound in Nairobi, Kenya (July 25, 2015) https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/07/25/remarks-president-obama-global-entrepreneurship-summit
2015

Neve Campbell photo
Malcolm X photo

“Last but not least, I must say this concerning the great controversy over rifles and shotguns. The only thing that I’ve ever said is that in areas where the government has proven itself either unwilling or unable to defend the lives and the property of Negroes, it’s time for Negroes to defend themselves. Article number two of the constitutional amendments provides you and me the right to own a rifle or a shotgun. It is constitutionally legal to own a shotgun or a rifle. This doesn’t mean you’re going to get a rifle and form battalions and go out looking for white folks, although you’d be within your rights—I mean, you’d be justified; but that would be illegal and we don’t do anything illegal. If the white man doesn’t want the black man buying rifles and shotguns, then let the government do its job. […] If he’s not going to do his job in running the government and providing you and me with the protection that our taxes are supposed to be for, since he spends all those billions for his defense budget, he certainly can’t begrudge you and me spending $12 or $15 for a single-shot, or double-action. I hope you understand. Don’t go out shooting people, but any time—brothers and sisters, and especially the men in this audience; some of you wearing Congressional Medals of Honor, with shoulders this wide, chests this big, muscles that big—any time you and I sit around and read where they bomb a church and murder in cold blood, not some grownups, but four little girls while they were praying to the same God the white man taught them to pray to, and you and I see the government go down and can’t find who did it.”

Malcolm X (1925–1965) American human rights activist

The Ballot or the Bullet (1964), Speech in Cleveland, Ohio (April 3, 1964)

Aleksandr Pushkin photo
W.B. Yeats photo
Barack Obama photo
Boy George photo
José Saramago photo

“In between these four whitewashed walls, on this tiled floor, notice the broken corners, how some tiles have been worn smooth, how many feet have passed this way, and look how interesting this trail of ants is, travelling along the joins as if they were valleys, while up above, projected against the white sky of the ceiling and the sun of the lamp, tall towers are moving, they are men, as the ants well know, having, for generations, experienced the weight of their feet and the long, hot spout of water that falls from a kind of pendulous external intestine, ants all over the world have been drowned or crushed by these, but it seems they will escape this fate now, for the men are occupied with other things. […]
Let's take this ant, or, rather, let's not, because that would involve picking it up, let us merely consider it, because it is one of the larger ones and because it raises its head like a dog, it's walking along very close to the wall, together with its fellow ants it will have time to complete its long journey ten times over between the ants' nest and whatever it is that it finds so interesting, curious or perhaps merely nourishing in this secret room […]. One of the men has fallen to the ground, he's on the same level as the ants now, we don't know if he can see them, but they see him, and he will fall so often that, in the end, they will know by heart his face, the color of his hair and eyes, the shape of his ear, the dark arc of his eyebrow, the faint shadow at the corner of his mouth, and later, back in the ants' nest, they will weave long stories for the enlightenment of future generations, because it is useful for the young to know what happens out there in the world. The man fell and the others dragged him to his feet again, shouting at him, asking two different questions at the same time, how could he possibly answer them even if he wanted to, which is not the case, because the man who fell and was dragged to his feet will die without saying a word. Only moans will issue from his mouth, and in the silence of his soul only deep sighs, and even when his teeth are broken and he has to spit them out, which will prompt the other two men to hit him again for soiling state property, even then the sound will be of spitting and nothing more, that unconscious reflex of the lips, and then the dribble of saliva thickened with blood that falls to the floor, thus stimulating the taste buds of the ants, who telegraph from one to the other news of this singularly red manna fallen from such a white heaven.
The man fell again. It's the same one, said the ants, the same ear shape, the same arc of eyebrow, the same shadow at the corner of the mouth, there's no mistaking him, why is it that it is always the same man who falls, why doesn't he defend himself, fight back. […] The ants are surprised, but only fleetingly. After all, they have their own duties, their own timetables to keep, it is quite enough that they raise their heads like dogs and fix their feeble vision on the fallen man to check that he is the same one and not some new variant in the story. The larger ant walked along the remaining stretch of wall, slipped under the door, and some time will pass before it reappears to find everything changed, well, that's just a manner of speaking, there are still three men there, but the two who do not fall never stop moving, it must be some kind of game, there's no other explanation […]. [T]hey grab him by the shoulders and propel him willy-nilly in the direction of the wall, so that sometimes he hits his back, sometimes his head, or else his poor bruised face smashes into the whitewash and leaves on it a trace of blood, not a lot, just whatever spurts forth from his mouth and right eyebrow. And if they leave him there, he, not his blood, slides down the wall and he ends up kneeling on the ground, beside the little trail of ants, who are startled by the sudden fall from on high of that great mass, which doesn't, in the end, even graze them. And when he stays there for some time, one ant attaches itself to his clothing, wanting to take a closer look, the fool, it will be the first ant to die, because the next blow falls on precisely that spot, the ant doesn't feel the second blow, but the man does.”

Source: Raised from the Ground (1980), pp. 172–174

Abraham Lincoln photo

“We are now a mighty nation, we are thirty — or about thirty millions of people, and we own and inhabit about one‑fifteenth part of the dry land of the whole earth. We run our memory back over the pages of history for about eighty‑two years and we discover that we were then a very small people in point of numbers, vastly inferior to what we are now, with a vastly less extent of country, with vastly less of everything we deem desirable among men, we look upon the change as exceedingly advantageous to us and to our posterity, and we fix upon something that happened away back, as in some way or other being connected with this rise of prosperity. We find a race of men living in that day whom we claim as our fathers and grandfathers; they were iron men, they fought for the principle that they were contending for; and we understood that by what they then did it has followed that the degree of prosperity that we now enjoy has come to us. We hold this annual celebration to remind ourselves of all the good done in this process of time of how it was done and who did it, and how we are historically connected with it; and we go from these meetings in better humor with ourselves — we feel more attached the one to the other, and more firmly bound to the country we inhabit. In every way we are better men in the age, and race, and country in which we live for these celebrations. But after we have done all this we have not yet reached the whole.”

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

1850s, Speech at Chicago (1858)