Quotes about mouth

A collection of quotes on the topic of mouth, likeness, doing, opening.

Quotes about mouth

“It's like I've got a shotgun in my mouth with my finger on the trigger, and I like the taste of the gun metal.”

Robert Downey Jr. (1965) American actor

Source: explaining his drug addiction in 1999 to a judge

“Why not just tell people I'm an alien from Mars. Tell them I eat live chickens and do a voodoo dance at midnight. They'll believe anything you say, because you're a reporter. But if I, Michael Jackson, were to say, "I'm an alien from Mars and I eat live chickens and do a voodoo dance at midnight," people would say, "Oh, man, that Michael Jackson is nuts. He's cracked up. You can't believe a damn word that comes out of his mouth."”

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

http://rocknrollworldmagazine.com/2015/08/82915-rock-history/

People, Dance

“Don't use the same mouth to lie and pray to God at the same time.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

God, Time, Lie

“People can tell you to keep your mouth shut, but that doesn't stop you from having your own opinion.”

Anne Frank (1929–1945) victim of the Holocaust and author of a diary

Source: The Diary of a Young Girl

People

“I didn't lie! I just created fiction with my mouth!”

Homér Ancient Greek epic poet, author of the Iliad and the Odyssey

Lie

“Im giving you
On a count three
Just show your stuff
Or let it be
Im telling you
Just watch your mouth
I know your game
What you're about!
Well, they say the sky's the limit,
And to me that's really true,
But, my friend you have seen nothing,
Just wait 'til I get through.”

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

Bad (1987)

Game, Waiting

“You're short on ears and long on mouth.”

John Wayne (1907–1979) American film actor

“The fruits of victory are tumbling into our mouths too quickly.”

Hirohito (1901–1989) Emperor of Japan from 1926 until 1989

To an aide, 29 April 1942, as quoted in Pearl Harbor: From Infamy to Greatness.

Victory

“The smell of her hair, the taste of her mouth, the feeling of her skin seemed to have got inside him, or into the air all round him. She had become a physical necessity.”

George Orwell book 1984

Source: 1984

Feeling

“It is better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than to open it and remove all doubt.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Cited as an example of "What Mark Twain Didn't Say" in Mark Twain by Geoffrey C. Ward, et al.
Misattributed
Variant: It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.

Stupidity, Appearance

“Wine enters through the mouth,
Love, the eyes.
I raise the glass to my mouth,
I look at you,
I sigh.”

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

Love, Wine

“You know how easily things grow out of nothing, when they pass through a mouth that smears them all over and makes something else out of them”

Frédéric Chopin (1810–1849) Polish composer

Source: Chopin's Letters

“When you love someone, you say their name different. Like it's safe inside your mouth.”

Jodi Picoult book Handle With Care

Variant: When you love someone you let them take care of you.
Source: Handle with Care

Love

“Half of seeming clever is keeping your mouth shut at the right times.”

Patrick Rothfuss book The Wise Man's Fear

Source: The Wise Man's Fear

Time

“I gotta big mouth, I can't help it, I talk from my heart, I'm real you know what I'm sayin whatever comes comes. But my controverse problems, It's not my fault, I try to find my way in the world you know, I try to be somebody instead of just, make money off of everybody. You know what im saying, so I go down paths that haven't been traveled before and I usually mess up, but I learn, you know what I'm saying, I come back stronger, I'm not talking ignorant, you know what I'm saying. So obviously put thought into what I do. So I think my mouth, my controverse, I have not been out of the paper since I joined Digital Underground, I've been in all, you know what I'm saying, my name has not been not uttered, you know what I'm saying, and that's good for me because I don't wanna be forgotten. If I'm forgotten then that means I'm comfortable and that means I think everything is okay.”

Tupac Shakur (1971–1996) rapper and actor

1990s, MTV interview (1994)

Money, World, Way, Travel

“One day, to pass the time away, we read
of Lancelot—how love had overcome him.
We were alone, and we suspected nothing.
And time and time again that reading led
our eyes to meet, and made our faces pale,
and yet one point alone defeated us.
When we had read how the desired smile
was kissed by one who was so true a lover,
this one, who never shall be parted from me,
while all his body trembled, kissed my mouth.
A Gallehault indeed, that book and he
who wrote it, too; that day we read no more.”

Dante Alighieri book Inferno

Canto V, lines 127–138 (tr. Mandelbaum).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Inferno

Love, Books, Smile, Lovers

“We have two ears and one mouth, so we should listen more than we say.”

Zeno of Citium (-334–-263 BC) ancient Greek philosopher

As quoted in Diogenes Laërtius Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, vii. 23.
Variant translation: The reason why we have two ears and only one mouth is that we may listen the more and talk the less.

Peaceful

“God the Father is a person separate from the Holy Ghost. Totally separate. …Do you know that the Holy Spirit has a soul and a body separate from that of Jesus and the Father? …God the Father then is a triune being within Himself. He's a person, He has a soul. …A soul is an intellect. …God thinks …separate from the Son and separate from the Holy Ghost. …God the Father is a separate individual from the Son and the Holy Ghost, who is a triune being who walks in a spirit body and He has hair…has eyes…has a mouth…has hands.”

Benny Hinn (1952) American-Canadian evangelist

Orlando Christian Centre, October 13 1990

God, Soul, Thinking, Personality

“Who says words in my mouth?
who sees through my eyes?
who hears my voice?
Our soul is from elsewhere,
between going and staying
the moment scatters,
between the appearance
and disappearance of things,
the silent and mysterious force,
we will forever remain an enigma.”

Alexis Karpouzos (1967)

Source: An ocean of souls

“You,” Damon said somewhat indistinctly through the blood in his mouth, “have been a naughty boy, boy.”

L.J. Smith (1965) American author

Source: Nightfall

Boy

“That is all very senseless, but this senselessness has a pretty mouth, and it smiles.”

Robert Walser book Jakob von Gunten

Source: Jakob von Gunten

Smile

“I can't think of anything to write about, I'm just walking around here between the lines, under the light of your eyes, in the breadth of your mouth as in a beautiful happy day, which remains beautiful and happy, even when the head is sick and tired.”

Franz Kafka book Letters to Milena

Source: Letters to Milena

Beauty, Thinking, Light, Happiness

“Watch out for intellect,
because it knows so much it knows nothing
and leaves you hanging upside down,
mouthing knowledge as your heart
falls out of your mouth.”

Anne Sexton (1928–1974) poet from the United States

Source: The Complete Poems

Knowledge, Heart

“Sorry about the blood in your mouth. I wish it was mine.

I couldn't get the boy to kill me, but I wore his jacket for the longest time.”

Richard Siken (1967) American poet

Source: Crush

Boy, Time

“People can tell you to keep your mouth shut, but it doesn't stop you having your own opinions. Even if people are still very young, they shouldn't be prevented from saying what they think.”

Anne Frank (1929–1945) victim of the Holocaust and author of a diary

2 March 1944
(1942 - 1944)
Source: The Diary of a Young Girl

People, Thinking

“[Ibn Battuta’s description of the preparation of samosa would make one’s mouth water even today:] “Minced meat cooked with almond, walnut, pistachios, onion and spices placed inside a thin bread and fried in ghee.””

Ibn Battuta (1304–1377) Moroccan explorer

Quoted from Lal, K. S. (1992). The legacy of Muslim rule in India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 1
Travels in Asia and Africa (Rehalã of Ibn Battûta)

Water, Cooking

“Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me,
Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ on my right, Christ on my left
Christ where I lie, Christ where I sit, Christ where I arise
Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of every man who speaks of me,
Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me.”

Saint Patrick (385–461) 5th-century Romano-British Christian missionary and bishop in Ireland

Variant:
Christ for my guardianship today: against poison, against burning, against drowning, against wounding, that there may come to me a multitude of rewards;
Christ with me,
Christ before me,
Christ behind me,
Christ in me,
Christ over me,
Christ to right of me,
Christ to left of me,
Christ in lying down,
Christ in sitting,
Christ in rising up,
Christ in the heart of every person who may think of me,
Christ in the mouth of every person who may speak of me,
Christ in every eye, which may look on me!
Christ in every ear, which may hear me!
The Lorica of Patrick

Lie, Thinking, Heart, Christ

“What kind of food did we drop on Afghanistan? Pop-Tarts, peanut butter…just add a Honey Baked Ham and you've got a redneck Christmas. Why are we dropping this food on Afghanistan? Tastes a shit load better than dirt, #1. #2, difficult to have a call to jihad with a mouth full of peanut butter. Thirdly, Afghanistan is a hashish-smoking culture, and anyone who's ever been a friend of the hookah will go, (intense, stoned stare) "Pop-Tarts!"”

Robin Williams (1951–2014) American actor and stand-up comedian

Robin Williams: Live on Broadway (2002)

Food, Hell, Christmas

“It is the example of the rider who wishes to become an expert horseman: "None of your soft-mouthed, docile animals for me," he says; "the horse for me to own must show some spirit" in the belief, no doubt, if he can manage such an animal, it will be easy enough to deal with every other horse besides. And that is just my case. I wish to deal with human beings, to associate with man in general; hence my choice of wife. I know full well, if I can tolerate her spirit, I can with ease attach myself to every human being else.”

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

Symposium 17–19 [= 2.10]
Xenophon

Animals, Horse

“People think God is a man. People think God has got ears, nose, teeth and he rises daily in the morning, brushes his teeth and washes his mouth. And he is an old man and he has a beard. All these things people think. But no, God is energy. God is perfect and pure energy.”

Prem Rawat (1957) controversial spiritual leader

Central Hall, Westminster, London, UK, November 2, 1971
1970s

God, People, Thinking, Perfection

“The city, that monster with a hundred mouths and a thousand ears, a monster that knows nothing but says everything, had written me off.”

Jean-Dominique Bauby book The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

Le scaphandre et le papillon (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly: A Memoir of Life in Death), trans. Jeremy Leggatt (Vintage, 1998, ISBN 0-375-70121-4), p. 82

“There is no doubt a difference in the right hon. gentleman's demeanour as leader of the Opposition and as Minister of the Crown. But that's the old story; you must not contrast too strongly the hours of courtship with the years of possession. 'Tis very true that the right hon. gentleman's conduct is different. I remember him making his protection speeches. They were the best speeches I ever heard. It was a great thing to hear the right hon. gentleman say: "I would rather be the leader of the gentlemen of England than possess the confidence of Sovereigns". That was a grand thing. We don't hear much of "the gentlemen of England" now. But what of that? They have the pleasures of memory—the charms of reminiscence. They were his first love, and, though he may not kneel to them now as in the hour of passion, still they can recall the past; and nothing is more useless or unwise than these scenes of crimination and reproach, for we know that in all these cases, when the beloved object has ceased to charm, it is in vain to appeal to the feelings. You know that this is true. Every man almost has gone through it. My hon. gentleman does what he can to keep them quiet; he sometimes takes refuge in arrogant silence, and sometimes he treats them with haughty frigidity; and if they knew anything of human nature they would take the hint and shut their mouths. But they won't. And what then happens? What happens under all such circumstances? The right hon. gentleman, being compelled to interfere, sends down his valet, who says in the genteelest manner: "We can have no whining here". And that, sir, is exactly the case of the great agricultural interest—that beauty which everybody wooed and one deluded. There is a fatality in such charms, and we now seem to approach the catastrophe of her career. Protection appears to be in about the same condition that Protestantism was in 1828. The country will draw its moral. For my part, if we are to have free trade, I, who honour genius, prefer that such measures should be proposed by the hon. member for Stockport than by one who through skilful Parliamentary manoeuvres has tampered with the generous confidence of a great people and a great party. For myself, I care not what may be the result. Dissolve, if you please, the Parliament you have betrayed. For me there remains this at least—the opportunity of expressing thus publicly my belief that a Conservative Government is an organised hypocrisy.”

Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1845/mar/17/agricultural-interest in the House of Commons (17 March 1845). <br class="br">1840s

Love, People, Pleasure, Beauty

“Dialogue should simply be a sound among other sounds, just something that comes out of the mouths of people whose eyes tell the story in visual terms.”

Alfred Hitchcock (1899–1980) British filmmaker

As quoted in Hitchcock (1967) by François Truffaut.

People

“I wanted man to become a master! So he wouldn't have to live from hand to mouth! I didn't want to see another soul grow numb slaving over someone else's machines! I wanted there to be nothing, nothing, nothing left of that damned social mess! I abhorred degradation and suffering! I was fighting against poverty! I wanted a new generation of mankind! … I wanted to transform all of humanity into a world-wide aristocracy. Unrestricted, free, and supreme people. Something even greater than people.”

Karel Čapek R.U.R.

R.U.R. (1920)

People, World, Soul, Suffering

“A God who could make good children as easily as bad, yet preferred to make bad ones; who could have made every one of them happy, yet never made a single happy one; who made them prize their bitter life, yet stingily cut it short; who gave his angels eternal happiness unearned, yet required his other children to earn it; who gave his angels painless lives, yet cursed his other children with biting miseries and maladies of mind and body; who mouths justice, and invented hell — mouths mercy, and invented hell — mouths Golden Rules and forgiveness multiplied by seventy times seven, and invented hell; who mouths morals to other people, and has none himself; who frowns upon crimes, yet commits them all; who created man without invitation, then tries to shuffle the responsibility for man's acts upon man, instead of honorably placing it where it belongs, upon himself; and finally, with altogether divine obtuseness, invites his poor abused slave to worship him!”

Mark Twain book The Mysterious Stranger

The Mysterious Stranger (1916)

Life, God, Children, People

“Oysters open completely when the moon is full; and when the crab sees one it throws a piece of stone or seaweed into it and the oyster cannot close again so that it serves the crab for meat. Such is the fate of him who opens his mouth too much and thereby puts himself at the mercy of the listener.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

As quoted in The 48 Laws of Power (2000) by Robert Greene, p. 33

Fate

“For every struggle that Joe survived,
For every dispute he endured, to rise,
Joe will go down in history
as a model for champions to come. While Frazier was a man of few words, Ali was a world of mouth, but he found his place in history. Now his heart can express him well. Joe Frazier was a silent warrior, whom Ali silently admired. One could not rise without the other.”

Muhammad Ali book The Soul of a Butterfly

"The Silent Warrior", p. 114
The Soul of a Butterfly (2004)

World, History, Heart

“The Rock: And I quote: You know your damn role and Shut Your Damn Mouth!”

Dwayne Johnson (1972) American actor and professional wrestler

The Rock's return to WWE Raw as host of WrestleMania XXVII (14 February, 2011) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8ejiG5-BtA&feature=related.

Quotes

“Swords flashed like lightning amid the blackness of clouds, and fountains of blood flowed like the fall of setting stars. The friends of God defeated their obstinate opponents, and quickly put them to a complete rout. Noon had not arrived when the Musulmans had wreaked their vengeance on the infidel enemies of Allah, killing 15,000 of them, spreading them like a carpet over the ground, and making them food for beasts and birds of prey… The enemy of God, Jaipal, and his children and grandchildren,… were taken prisoners, and being strongly bound with ropes, were carried before the Sultan, like as evildoers, on whose faces the fumes of infidelity are evident, who are covered with the vapours of misfortune, will be bound and carried to Hell. Some had their arms forcibly tied behind their backs, some were seized by the cheek, some were driven by blows on the neck. The necklace was taken off the neck of Jaipal, - composed of large pearls and shining gems and rubies set in gold, of which the value was two hundred thousand dinars; and twice that value was obtained from necks of those of his relatives who were taken prisoners, or slain, and had become the food of the mouths of hyenas and vultures. Allah also bestowed upon his friends such an amount of booty as was beyond all bounds and all calculation, including five hundred thousand slaves, beautiful men and women. The Sultan returned with his followers to his camp, having plundered immensely, by Allah's aid, having obtained the victory, and thankful to Allah… This splendid and celebrated action took place on Thursday, the 8th of Muharram, 392 H., 27th November, 1001 AD.”

Mahmud of Ghazni (971–1030) Sultan of Ghazni

About the defeat of Jaipal. Tarikh Yamini (Kitabu-l Yamini) by Al Utbi, in Elliot and Dowson, Vol. II : Elliot and Dowson, History of India as told by its own Historians, 8 Volumes, Allahabad Reprint, 1964. p. 27 Also quoted (in part) in Jain, Meenakshi (2011). The India they saw: Foreign accounts.
Quotes from Tarikh Yamini (Kitabu-l Yamini) by Al Utbi

Women, Men, God, Children

“O God, that men should put an enemy in their mouths to steal away their brains!" - Cassio (Act II, Scene iii)”

William Shakespeare Othello

Source: Othello

Men, God

“You look at me, you look at me closely, each time closer and then we play cyclops, we look at each other closer each time and our eyes grow, they grow closer, they overlap and the cyclops look at each other, breathing confusion, their mouths find each other and fight warmly, biting with their lips, resting their tongues lightly on their teeth, playing in their caverns where the heavy air comes and goes with the scent of an old perfume and silence. Then my hands want to hide in your hair, slowly stroke the depth of your hair while we kiss with mouths full of flowers or fish, of living movements, of dark fragrance. And if we bite each other, the pain is sweet, and if we drown in a short and terrible surge of breath, that instant death is beauty. And there is a single saliva and a single flavour of ripe fruit, and I can feel you shiver against me like a moon on the water.”

Julio Cortázar (1914–1984) Argentinian writer

Death, Pain, Beauty, Feeling

“Aristotle maintained that women have fewer teeth than men; although he was twice married, it never occurred to him to verify this statement by examining his wives' mouths.”

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

Source: The Impact of Science on Society

Women, Men

“there they laugh: they do not understand me; I am not the mouth for these ears.”

Friedrich Nietzsche book Thus Spoke Zarathustra

Source: Thus Spoke Zarathustra

Understanding

“I would not put a thief in my mouth to steal my brains.”

Charles Portis book True Grit

Source: True Grit (1968), Chapter 3, p. 59 : 'Mattie Ross,' refusing 'Rooster Cogburn's' offer of a drink of whiskey

“Let's be in awe
which doesn't mean
anything but the courage
to gape like fish at the surface
breaking around our mouths
as we meet the air.”

Mark Nepo (1951) American writer

Courage, Fish

“Your mouth was made to suck my kiss.”

Anthony Kiedis (1962) American singer

Kiss

“So, open your mouth, lad! For every voice counts!”

Dr. Seuss book One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish

Horton Hears a Who! (1954)
Source: One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish
Context: "This", cried the Mayor, "is your town's darkest hour!
The time for all Whos who have blood that is red
To come to the aid of their country!", he said.
"We've GOT to make noises in greater amounts!
So, open your mouth, lad! For every voice counts!"

“Whenever the literary German dives into a sentence, that is the last you are going to see of him till he emerges on the other side of his Atlantic with his verb in his mouth.”

Mark Twain book A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

Source: A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889), Ch. 22

“I would not put a thief in my mouth to steal my brains.”

William Shakespeare Othello

Source: Othello

“To have her here in bed with me, breathing on me, her hair in my mouth—I count that something of a miracle.”

Henry Miller book Tropic of Cancer

Source: Tropic of Cancer

“Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut!”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist

From a set of "rules for life" sent to publisher Charles Scribner IV; quoted in Scribner's memoir In the Company of Writers (New York: Scribner, 1991), p. 64 https://books.google.com/books?id=yYdHGtlgIsYC&pg=PA64&dq=hemingway+%22rules+for+life%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj-zvyfgNDMAhUJ_mMKHU6zDrYQ6AEIIzAB#v=onepage&q=%20%22rules%20for%20life%22&f=false

“You may go over the world and you will find that every form of religion which has breathed upon this earth has degraded woman… I have been traveling over the old world during the last few years and have found new food for thought. What power is it that makes the Hindoo woman burn herself upon the funeral pyre of her husband? Her religion. What holds the Turkish woman in the harem? Her religion. By what power do the Mormons perpetuate their system of polygamy? By their religion/ Man, of himself, could not do this; but when he declares, 'Thus saith the Lord,' of course he can do it. So long as ministers stand up and tell us Christ is the head of the church, so is man the head of woman, how are we to break the chains which have held women down through the ages? You Christian women look at the Hindoo, the Turkish, the Mormon women, and wonder how they can be held in such bondage…

Now I ask you if our religion teaches the dignity of woman? It teaches us the abominable idea of the sixth century--Augustine's idea--that motherhood is a curse; that woman is the author of sin, and is most corrupt. Can we ever cultivate any proper sense of self-respect as long as women take such sentiments from the mouths of the priesthood?”

Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902) Suffragist and Women's Rights activist

Women, Age, World, Religion

“She let out a laugh, and then she put her hand over her mouth, like she was angry at herself for forgetting her sadness.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Sadness, Forgetting

“The Girl With Many Eyes
One day in the park
I had quite a surprise.
I met a girl
who had many eyes.

She was really quite pretty
(and also quite shocking!)
and I noticed she had a mouth,
so we ended up talking.

We talked about flowers,
and her poetry classes,
and the problems she'd have
if she ever wore glasses.

It's great to know a girl
who has so many eyes,
but you really get wet
when she breaks down and cries.”

Tim Burton (1958) American filmmaker

Girl, Flowers, Problem

“It is true that words have power, and one of the things they are able to do is get out of someone’s mouth before the speaker has the chance to stop them.”

Terry Pratchett book Wyrd Sisters

Source: Wyrd Sisters

Chance

“History knew the truth. History was the most inhuman product of humanity. It scooped up the whole of human will and, like the goddess Kali in Calcutta, dripped blood from its mouth as it bit and crunched.”

Yukio Mishima book The Decay of the Angel

Source: The Decay of the Angel

Truth, History

“The author must keep his mouth shut when his work starts to speak.”

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

“Wine comes in at the mouth
And love comes in at the eye;
That's all we shall know for truth
Before we grow old and die.
I lift the glass to my mouth,
I look at you, and I sigh.”

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

A Drinking Song http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1399/ <br class="br">The Green Helmet and Other Poems (1910)

Love, Truth, Wine

“A Klee painting named ‘Angelus Novus’ shows an angel looking as though he is about to move away from something he is fixedly contemplating. His eyes are staring, his mouth is open, his wings are spread. This is how one pictures the angel of history. His face is turned toward the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage upon wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing in from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such violence that the angel can no longer close them. This storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we call progress.”

Walter Benjamin book Theses on the Philosophy of History

Source: Theses on the Philosophy of History (1940), IX

Angels, History, Past, Future

“We have a large public that is very ignorant about world affairs and very susceptible to simplistic slogans by candidates who appear out of nowhere, have no track record, but mouth appealing slogans.”

Zbigniew Brzeziński (1928–2017) Polish-American political scientist

Morning Joe (July 13, 2011).

World, Appearance

“The number one cause of atheism is Christians. Those who proclaim Him with their mouths and deny Him with their actions is what an unbelieving world finds unbelievable.”

Karl Rahner (1904–1984) German Catholic theologian

World

“A person who has good thoughts cannot ever be ugly. You can have a wonky nose and a crooked mouth and a double chin and stick-out teeth, but if you have good thoughts they will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely.”

Roald Dahl book The Twits

Source: The Twits

Love, Personality

“Open your mind before your mouth”

Aristophanés (-448–-386 BC) Athenian playwright of Old Comedy

“Lothaire is very much alive.”
“You swear?”
“Often. Though not as much as foul-mouthed Regin. I try not to in front of Bertil.” She petted the bat.
“I meant—will Lothaire live?”
“He will.”

Kresley Cole American writer

Source: Lothaire

“Our fantastic civilization has fallen out of touch with many aspects of nature, and with none more completely than with night. Primitive folk, gathered at a cave mouth round a fire, do not fear night; they fear, rather, the energies and creatures to whom night gives power; we of the age of the machines, having delivered ourselves of nocturnal enemies, now have a dislike of night itself. With lights and ever more lights, we drive the holiness and beauty of night back to the forests and the sea; the little villages, the crossroads even, will have none of it. Are modern folk, perhaps, afraid of night? Do they fear that vast serenity, the mystery of infinite space, the austerity of stars? Having made themselves at home in a civilization obsessed with power, which explains its whole world in terms of energy, do they fear at night for their dull acquiescence and the pattern of their beliefs? Be the answer what it will, to-day's civilization is full of people who have not the slightest notion of the character or the poetry of night, who have never even seen night. Yet to live thus, to know only artificial night, is as absurd and evil as to know only artificial day.”

Henry Beston (1888–1968) American writer

Source: The Outermost House: A Year of Life On The Great Beach of Cape Cod

People, Age, World, Fear

“Nobody asks you to love the whole world, only to be honest, ehrlich. Don't have a loud mouth. The more you love people the more they'll mix you up. A child loves, a person respects. Respect is better than love.”

Saul Bellow book The Adventures of Augie March

Source: The Adventures of Augie March

Love, People, World, Personality

“You may lie with your mouth, but with the mouth you make as you do so you none the less tell the truth.”

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

Truth, Lie

“Tis better people think you a fool, then open your mouth and erase all doubt.”

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

Variously attributed to Lincoln, Elbert Hubbard, Mark Twain, Benjamin Franklin and Socrates
Misattributed
Variant: It is better to be silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt.

People, Fools, Thinking

“They're so cold, these scholars!
May lightning strike their food
so that their mouths learn how
to eat fire!”

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

Food, Learning

“I rested my hand on Will's shoulder. 'Don't worry. We'll be back by dawn.'
His mouth trembled ever so slightly. 'How can you be sure?'
'I'm the sun god,' I said, trying to muster more confidence than I felt. 'I always return at dawn.”

Rick Riordan book The Hidden Oracle

Source: The Hidden Oracle

God, Confidence, Sun

“The Caterpillar and Alice looked at each other for some time in silence: at last the Caterpillar took the hookah out of its mouth”

Lewis Carroll book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Source: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Silence, Time

“Speech perpetuates vision. We carry no light; we are things of shadow, for night closes our eyes, and we put out our hands to find our way when the light is gone; we only shine in speech; truth is made by the mouths of men. The wind of words — what is it? It is our breath — not all words, for there are artificial and copied ones which are not part of the speaker; but the profound words, the cries. In the human cry you feel the effort of the spring. The cry comes out of us, it is as living as a child. The cry goes on, and makes the appeal of truth wherever it may be, the cry gathers cries.”

Henri Barbusse (1873–1935) French novelist

Light (1919), Ch. XXII - Light

Men, Truth, Way, Feeling

“Lovers … when you raise yourselves and press
your mouths together—drink upon drink:
strange how each of you drinks your way past the other.”

Rainer Maria Rilke book Duino Elegies

Liebende … [w]enn ihr einer dem andern
euch an den Mund hebt und ansetzt –: Getränk an Getränk:
o wie entgeht dann der Trinkende seltsam der Handlung.
Second Elegy (as translated by Lee Siegel)
Duino Elegies (1922)

Way, Lovers, Drink, Past

“On the other hand, the free states carry on their government on the principle of the equality of men. We think slavery is morally wrong, and a direct violation of that principle. We all think it wrong. It is clearly proved, I think, by natural theology, apart from revelation. Every man, black, white or yellow, has a mouth to be fed and two hands with which to feed it, and that bread should be allowed to go to that mouth without controversy.”

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

1860s, Speech at Hartford (1860)

Men, Nature, Thinking

“Hey, Jimmie! The Chimney Sweeps. Talk to the Sword. Shut up, you got a big mouth! Please come help me up, Henny. Max come over here. French Canadian bean soup. I want to pay. Let them leave me alone.”

Dutch Schultz (1902–1935) American mobster

From police transcripts of incoherent deathbed confession

Help

“Abu Hurayra said, "The Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, was asked about the things most likely to bring people into the Garden (heaven). He said, 'Fearful awareness of Allah and good character.' He was asked about the things most likely to bring people into the Fire. He said, 'The mouth and the genitals.'"”

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

Riyadh-as-Saliheen by Imam Al-Nawawi, volume 4, hadith number 627
Sunni Hadith

People, Fear, Peace

“I'm not a biter, I'm a writer for myself and others / I say a B. I. G. verse, I'm only biggin' up my brother / Biggin' up my borough, I'm big enough to do it / I'm that thorough, plus I know my own flow is foolish / So them rings and things you sing about, bring 'em out / It's hard to yell when the bar-rell's in your mouth”

Jay-Z (1969) American rapper, businessman, entrepreneur, record executive, songwriter, record producer and investor

w:What More Can I Say'What more Can I Say
The Black Album (2003)

Singing

“The upper classes really shouldn't open their mouths on television. Whatever it is they're saying, all your brain actually hears is "Tra la la, I live in a bubble, tra la la, murder a fox, tra la la, Conde Nast Traveller, tra la la, Kensington High Street, tra la la."”

Charlie Brooker (1971) journalist, broadcaster and writer from England

They should know their place and keep quiet.
On Trinny Woodall and Susannah Constantine in What Not to Wear
[Screen Burn, The Guardian, 8 December 2001]
Guardian columns, Screen Burn

Travel

“And raw in fields the rude militia swarms,
Mouths without hands; maintain'd at vast expense,
In peace a charge, in war a weak defence;
Stout once a month they march, a blustering band,
And ever but in times of need at hand.”

John Dryden book Fables, Ancient and Modern

Source: Fables, Ancient and Modern (1700), Cymon and Iphigenia, Line 400.

War, Peace, Time

“Nature has given us two ears but only one mouth.”

Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister

Book 6, chapter 24.
Books, Coningsby (1844), Henrietta Temple (1837)

Nature

“This was the method which I adopted: I first assumed some principle which I judged to be the strongest, and then I affirmed as true whatever seemed to agree with this, whether relating to the cause or to anything else; and that which disagreed I regarded as untrue. …I want to show you the nature of that cause which has occupied my thoughts, and I shall have to go back to those familiar words which are in the mouth of everyone, and first of all assume that there is an absolute beauty and goodness and greatness, and the like; grant me this, and I hope to be able to show you the nature of the cause, and to prove the immortality of the soul.”

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

Plato, Phaedo

Beauty, Hope, Soul, Nature

“It is the glory and good of Art
That Art remains the one way possible
Of speaking truth,—to mouths like mine, at least.”

Robert Browning The Ring and the Book

Book XII: The Book and the Ring, line 842.
The Ring and the Book (1868-69)

Truth, Art, Way

“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.”

José Saramago book Raised from the Ground

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

Men, Fate, Secret, World

“Some drivers have already got out of their cars, prepared to push the stranded vehicle to a spot where it will not hold up the traffic, they beat furiously on the closed windows, the man inside turns his head in their direction, first to one side then to the other, he is clearly shouting something, to judge by the movements of his mouth he appears to be repeating some words, no one word but three, as turns out to be the case when someone finally manages to open the door, I am blind.”

José Saramago book Blindness

Source: Blindness (1995), p. 2

Cars, Appearance

“In Art, the public accept what has been, because they cannot alter it, not because they appreciate it. They swallow their classics whole, and never taste them. They endure them as the inevitable, and, as they cannot mar them, they mouth about them…A fresh mode of Beauty is absolutely distasteful to them, and whenever it appears they get so angry and bewildered that they always use two stupid expressions - one is that the work of art is grossly unintelligible; the other, that the work of art is grossly immoral.”

Oscar Wilde book The Soul of Man under Socialism

The Soul of Man Under Socialism (1891)

Stupidity, Beauty, Art, Appearance

“Let no one pay me honor with tears, nor celebrate my funeral rites with weeping. Why? I fly, living, through the mouths of men.”
Nemo me lacrumis decoret neque funera fletu faxit. Cur? volito vivos per ora virum.

Ennius (-239–-169 BC) Roman writer

As quoted by Cicero in Tusculanae Disputationes, Book I, chapter XV, section 34

Men, Tear, Flying

“I can say with truth that I have never, even in times of greatest preoccupation with carnal, worldly and egotistic pursuits, seriously doubted that our existence here is related in some mysterious way to a more comprehensive and lasting existence elsewhere; that somehow or other we belong to a larger scene than our earthly life provides, and to a wider reach of time than our earthly allotment of three score years and ten…It has never been possible for me to persuade myself that the universe could have been created, and we, homo sapiens, so-called, have, generation after generation, somehow made our appearance to sojourn briefly on our tiny earth, solely in order to mount the interminable soap opera, with the same characters and situations endlessly recurring, that we call history. It would be like building a great stadium for a display of tiddly-winks, or a vast opera house for a mouth-organ recital. There must, in other words, be another reason for our existence and that of the universe than just getting through the days of our life as best we may; some other destiny than merely using up such physical, intellectual and spiritual creativity as has been vouchsafed us. This, anyway, has been the strongly held conviction of the greatest artists, saints, philosophers and, until quite recent times, scientists, through the Christian centuries, who have all assumed that the New Testament promise of eternal life is valid, and that the great drama of the Incarnation which embodies it, is indeed the master drama of our existence. To suppose that these distinguished believers were all credulous fools whose folly and credulity in holding such beliefs has now been finally exposed, would seem to me to be untenable; and anyway I'd rather be wrong with Dante and Shakespeare and Milton, with Augustine of Hippo and Francis of Assisi, with Dr. Johnson, Blake and Dostoevsky, than right with Voltaire, Rousseau, Darwin, the Huxleys, Herbert Spencer, H. G. Wells and Bernard Shaw.”

Malcolm Muggeridge (1903–1990) English journalist, author, media personality, and satirist

Confessions of a Twentieth-Century Pilgrim (1988)

Life, Truth, Fools, Way

“Let us rejoice and give thanks. Not only are we become Christians, but we are become Christ. My brothers, do you understand the grace of God that is given us? Wonder, rejoice, for we are made Christ! If He is the Head, and we the members, then together He and we are the whole man…. This would be foolish pride on our part, were it not a gift of his bounty. But this is what He promised by the mouth of the Apostle: “You are the body of Christ, and severally His members””

Aurelius Augustinus (354–430) early Christian theologian and philosopher

1 Cor. 12:27
Source: On the Mystical Body of Christ, p. 415

God, Understanding, Christ, Parting

“I wanted to have a water jet in my garden: Euler calculated the force of the wheels necessary to raise the water to a reservoir, from where it should fall back through channels, finally spurting out in Sans Souci. My mill was carried out geometrically and could not raise a mouthful of water closer than fifty paces from the reservoir. Vanity of vanities! Vanity of geometry!”

Frederick II of Prussia (1712–1786) king of Prussia

Je voulus faire un jet d’eau dans mon jardin; Euler calcula l’effort des roues pour faire monter l’eau dans un bassin, d’où elle devait retomber par des canaux, afin de jaillir à Sans-Souci. Mon moulin a été exécuté géométriquement, et il n’a pu élever une goutte d’eau à cinquante pas du bassin. Vanité des vanités! vanité de la géométrie!
Letter H 7434 from Frederick to Voltaire (1778-01-25)

Water

“Tormented by spiritual thirst,
I dragged myself through a somber desert.
And a six-winged seraph
Appeared to meet me at the crossing of the ways.
He touched my eyes
With fingers as light as a dream:
And my prophetic eyes opened
Like those of a frightened eagle.
He touched my ears
And they were filled with noise and ringing:
And I heard the shuddering of the heavens,
And the flight of the angels in the heights,
And the movement of the beasts of the sea under the waters,
And the sound of the vine growing in the valley.
He bent down to my mouth
And tore out my tongue,
Sinful, decitful, and given to idle talk;
with the right hand steeped in blood
He inserted the tongue of a wise serpent,
Into my benumbed mouth.
He clove my breast with a sword,
And plucked out my quivering heart,
And thrust a coal of live fire
Into my gaping breast.
Like a corpse I lay in the desert.
And the voice of God called out to me:
'Arise, O prophet, see and hear,
Be filled with my will,
Go forth over land and sea,
And set the hearts of men on fire with your Word.”

Aleksandr Pushkin The Prophet

English translation found in New Society, Volume 8, (1966). New Society Limited. p. 413.
Also quoted by Kahn, Andrew (2006). The Cambridge Companion to Pushkin. Cambridge University Press, p. 84.
The Prophet (1826)

Men, God, Dreams, Angels

“Since the working-class lives from hand to mouth, it buys as long as it has the means to buy.”

Karl Marx book Das Kapital

Vol. II, Ch. XX, p. 449.
Das Kapital (Buch II) (1893)

“It is the mark of a mean, vulgar and ignoble spirit to dwell on the thought of food before meal times or worse to dwell on it afterwards, to discuss it and wallow in the remembered pleasures of every mouthful. Those whose minds dwell before dinner on the spit, and after on the dishes, are fit only to be scullions.”

Francis de Sales book Introduction to the Devout Life

Pt. 3, ch. 39
Introduction to the Devout Life (1609)

Pleasure, Food, Time

“And what has been hidden from the wise and the prudent been revealed in the mouth of the toddlers.”

Bob Marley (1945–1981) Jamaican singer, songwriter, musician

Forever Loving Jah
Uprising (1979)

“This writing distinctly about the kite seems to be my destiny, because among the first recollections of my infancy, it seemed to me that, as I was in my cradle, a kite came to me and opened my mouth with its tail, and struck me several times with its tail inside my lips.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), XXI Letters. Personal Records. Dated Notes.

Time

“Even if the things are against his faith and religion, it's not to be said: don't speak and shut up your mouth, for thus there won't be clearing of the religion. Vice Versa, in this case we say: speak as you want.”

Judah Loew ben Bezalel (1512–1609) Czech rabbi

Beer Hagola, Ch. 7

Faith, Religion

“Human nature is, by definition, a talkative one, imprudent, indiscreet, gossipy, incapable of closing its mouth and keeping it closed.”

José Saramago book The Cave

Source: The Cave (2000), p. 117(vintage 2003)

Nature

“There's been a trend around the country of trying to get college to disinvite speakers with a different point of view or disrupt a politician's rally. Don't do that, no matter how ridiculous or offensive you might find the things that come out of their mouths… If the other side has a point, learn from them! If they're wrong, rebut them, teach them, beat them on the battlefield of ideas!”

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

Commencement speech at Howard University, as quoted in "Obama: Students Need to Stop Shutting Down Speech of People They Disagree With" http://www.mediaite.com/tv/obama-students-need-to-stop-shutting-down-speech-of-people-they-disagree-with/ by Josh Feldman, Mediaite (7 May 2016) <br class="br">2016

Idea, Learning, Country

“To be generous is to say yes before the man even opens his mouth.”

Henry Miller (1891–1980) American novelist

Henry Miller on Writing (1964)