Quotes about naming
page 41

Mona Charen photo
Ramakrishna photo
Keith Olbermann photo

“(named Player).. did not finish/qualify/win, etc.”

Keith Olbermann (1959) American sports and political commentator

Catch Phrases
Source: http://www.sportscenteraltar.com/phrases/phrases.asp Sports Center Catchphrases

Charlotte Brontë photo
Huldrych Zwingli photo

“Within a few days I will go to the papal Legate [Pucci], and if he shall open a conversation on the subject as he did before, I will urge him to warn the Pope not to issue an excommunication [against Luther], for which I think would be greatly against him [the Pope]. For if it be issued I believe the Germans will equally despise the Pope and the excommunication. But do you be of good cheer, for our day will not lack those who will teach Christ faithfully, and who will give up their lives for Him willingly, even though among men their names shall not be in good repute after this life…So far as I am concerned I look for all evil from all of them: I mean both ecclesiastics and laymen. I beseech Christ for this one thing only, that He will enable me to endure all things courageously, and that He break me as a potter's vessel or make me strong, as it pleased Him. If I be excommunicated I shall think of the learned and holy Hilary, who was exiled from France to Africa, and of Lucius, who though driven from his seat at Rome returned again with great honour. Not that I compare myself with them: for as they were better than i so they suffered what was a greater ignominy. And yet if it were good to flory I would rejoice to suffer insult for the name of Christ. But let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall. Lately I have read scarcely any thing of Luther's; but what I have seen of his hitherto does not seem to me to stray from gospel teaching. You know - if you rememeber - that what I have always spoken of in terms of the highest commendation in him is that he supports his position with authoritative witness.”

Huldrych Zwingli (1484–1531) leader of the Protestant Reformation in Switzerland, and founder of the Swiss Reformed Churches

As cited in Huldreich Zwingli, the Reformer of German Switzerland, 1484-1531 by Samuel Macauley Jackson, John Martin Vincent, Frank Hugh Foster, p.148-149

Fiona Apple photo
Aurangzeb photo

“27 January 1670: During this month of Ramzan abounding in miracles, the Emperor as the promoter of justice and overthrower of mischief, as a knower of truth and destroyer of oppression, as the zephyr of the garden of victory and the reviver of the faith of the Prophet, issued orders for the demolition of the temple situated in Mathura, famous as the Dehra of Kesho Rai. In a short time by the great exertions of his officers, the destruction of this strong foundation of infidelity was accomplished, and on its site a lofty mosque was built at the expenditure of a large sum. This temple of folly was built by that gross idiot Birsingh Deo Bundela. Before his accession to the throne, the Emperor Jahangir was displeased with Shaikh Abul Fazl. This infidel [Birsingh] became a royal favourite by slaying him [Abul Fazl], and after Jahangir’s accession was rewarded for this service with the permission to build the temple, which he did at an expense of thirty-three lakhs of rupees.
Praised be the august God of the faith of Islam, that in the auspicious reign of this destroyer of infidelity and turbulence [Aurangzeb], such a wonderful and seemingly impossible work was successfully accomplished. On seeing this instance of the strength of the Emperor’s faith and the grandeur of his devotion to God, the proud Rajas were stifled, and in amazement they stood like facing the wall. The idols, large and small, set with costly jewels, which had been set up in the temple, were brought to Agra, and buried under the steps of the mosque of the Begam Sahib, in order to be continually trodden upon. The name of Mathura was changed to Islamabad.
17 December 1679: Hafiz Muhammad Amin Khan reported that some of his servants had ascended the hill and found the other side of the pass also deserted; (evidently) the Rana had evacuated Udaipur and fled. On the 4th January/12th Zil. H., the Emperor encamped in the pass. Hasan ‘Ali Khan was sent in pursuit of the infidel. Prince Muhammad ‘Azam and Khan Jahan Bahadur were permitted to view Udaipur. Ruhullah Khan and Ekkataz Khan went to demolish the great temple in front of the Rana’s palace, which was one of the rarest buildings of the age and the chief cause of the destruction of life and property of the despised worshippers. Twenty machator Rajputs [who] were sitting in the temple, vowed to give up their lives; first one of them came out to fight, killed some and was then himself slain, then came out another and so on, until every one of the twenty perished, after killing a large number of the imperialists including the trusted slave, Ikhlas. The temple was found empty. The hewers broke the images.”

Aurangzeb (1618–1707) Sixth Mughal Emperor

Saqi Mustad Khan, Maasir-i-Alamgiri, translated and annotated by Jadunath Sarkar, Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal, Calcutta, 1947, reprinted by Oriental Books Reprint Corporation, Delhi, 1986. quoted in Shourie, Arun (2014). Eminent historians: Their technology, their line, their fraud. Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India : HarperCollins Publishers. Different translation: January, 1670. “In this month of Ramzan, the religious-minded Emperor ordered the demolition of the temple at Mathura known as the Dehra of Keshav Rai. His officers accomplished it in a short time. A grand mosque was built on its site at a vast expenditure. The temple had been built by Bir Singh Dev Bundela, at a cost of 33 lakhs of Rupees. Praised be the God of the great faith of Islam that in the auspicious reign- of this destroyer of infidelity and turbulence, such a marvellous and [seemingly] impossible feat was accomplished. On seeing this [instance of the] strength of the Emperor’s faith and the grandeur of his devotion to God, the Rajahs felt suffocated and they stood in amazement like statues facing the walls. The idols, large and small, set with costly jewels, which had been set up in the temple, were brought to Agra and buried under the steps of the mosque of Jahanara, to be trodden upon continually.”
Quotes from late medieval histories, 1670s

Daniel Tosh photo
Mary Eberstadt photo

“The sheer decibel level of unreason surrounding the issue of abortion in academic writing about animal rights tells us something interesting. It suggests that, contrary to what the utilitarians and feminists working this terrain wish, the dots between sympathy for animals and sympathy for unborn humans are in fact quite easy to connect—so easy, you might say, that a child could do it. … Since ethical vegetarianism as a practice appears commonly rooted in an a priori aversion to violence against living creatures, so does it often appear to begin in the young. … A sudden insight, igniting empathy on a scale that did not exist before and perhaps even a life-transforming realization—this reaction should indeed be thought through with care. It is not only the most commonly cited feature of the decision to become a vegetarian. It is also the most commonly cited denominator of what brings people to their convictions about the desperate need to protect unborn, innocent human life. … Despite those who act and write in their name, actual vegetarians and vegans are far more likely to be motivated by positive feelings for animals than by negative feelings for human beings. As a matter of theory, the line connecting the dots between “we should respect animal life” and “we should respect human life” is far straighter than the line connecting vegetarianism to antilife feminism or antihumanist utilitarianism.”

Mary Eberstadt American writer

"Pro-Animal, Pro-Life" https://www.firstthings.com/article/2009/06/pro-animal-pro-life, in First Things (June 2009).

Henry George photo
Slavoj Žižek photo
Karl Schmidt-Rottluff photo
Walter Scott photo

“My foot is on my native heath, and my name is MacGregor.”

Source: Rob Roy (1817), Chapter 34.

Karlheinz Deschner photo

“Democracy is the art of cheerfully pulling the wool over the eyes of the people, and doing so in their name.”

Karlheinz Deschner (1924–2014) German writer and activist

Demokratie ist die Kunst, dem Volk im Namen des Volkes feierlich das Fell über die Ohren zu ziehn.
Bissige Aphorismen, S. 64

Miriam Makeba photo
William Bateson photo
Walther von der Vogelweide photo

“He was known to his countrymen as the Nightingale, but his own sweet-sounding name of Bird's-meadow (Vogelweide) suggests even more directly the pure, true, flute-like strain which he poured into Europe’s choir of voices.”

Walther von der Vogelweide (1170–1230) Middle High German lyric poet

Laurie Magnus A General Sketch of European Literature in the Centuries of Romance (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., 1918) pp. 27-28.
Praise

Joseph Smith, Jr. photo
Meles Zenawi photo

“Africa's downfall has always been the cult of the personality. And their names always seem to begin with M. We've had Mobutu and Mengistu and I'm not going to add Meles to the list.”

Meles Zenawi (1955–2012) Ethiopian politician; Prime Minister of Ethiopia

Meles Zenawi, as quoted in Jonathan Dimbleby, "Ethiopia proves there can be life after death", The Guardian, 28 July, 2002.

“We have six of the most distinguished people in the field on the committee, but you'll just have to take my word for it because I'm not allowed to disclose their names.”

Richard Mottram (1946) British civil ervant

April 2004, explaining to the Commons committee on public administration who was on the committee that recommended scientists for honours Hoggart, Simon. 'Sir Humphrey reveals his Dusty Springfield side' http://politics.guardian.co.uk/redbox/comment/0,9408,1206669,00.html, The Guardian (30 April 2004).

Stephen Vincent Benét photo
Joseph Massad photo
Willem de Kooning photo

“It is disastrous to name ourselves.”

Willem de Kooning (1904–1997) Dutch painter

Quoted in 'A constant searching of oneself' in Abstract Expressionism, Barbara Hess, Taschen, p. 6
short answer of Willem de Kooning in a panel discussion in 1950 when the former director of the New York museum of modern Art, Alfred H. Barr, Jr. demanded: We should have a name for which we can blame the artists – for once in history!
1950's

Sri Aurobindo photo
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury photo

“Mr Mayor and gentlemen - I have great pleasure in associating myself in how ever humble and transitory manner with this great and splendid undertaking. I am glad to be associated with an enterprise which I hope will carry still further the prosperity and power of Liverpool, and which will carry down the name of Liverpool to posterity as the place where a great mechanical undertaking first found its home. Sir William Forwood has alluded to the share which this city took in the original establishment of railways. My memory does not quite carry me back to the melancholy event by which that opening was signalised, but I can remember that which presents to my mind a strange contrast with the present state of things. Almost the earliest thing I can recollect is being brought down here to my mother's house which is close in the neighbourhood, and we took two days on the road, and had to sleep half way. Comparing that with my journey yesterday I feel what an enormous distance has been traversed in the interval, and perhaps a still larger distance and a still more magnificent rate of progress will be achieved before a similar distance of time has elapsed from the present day. I will not detain you in a room where it is perhaps difficult to hear. Of all my oratorical efforts, the one which I find most difficult to achieve is that of competing with a steam engine. Occasionally you are invited to do it at railway stations, and I know distinguished statesmen who do it with effect, but I think I have never ventured to compete in that line. I will therefore, though with some fear and trembling, fulfil the injunctions of Sir William Forwood, and proceed to handle the electric machinery which is to set this line in motion. I only hope the result will be no different from what he anticipates.”

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) British politician

At the opening of the Liverpool Overhead Railway, 4 February 1893. Quoted in the Liverpool Echo of the same day, p. 3
1890s

Koenraad Elst photo
Robert Charles Wilson photo
Roald Amundsen photo

“Amundsen's name for a dangerous stretch where the ice could give way unexpectedly”

Roald Amundsen (1872–1928) Norwegian polar researcher, who was the first to reach the South Pole

Devil’s Ballroom
Sydpolen (The South Pole) (1912)

Matt Ridley photo
William Ewart Gladstone photo
Pete Doherty photo
George S. Patton IV photo
Gautama Buddha photo
Courtney Love photo
Gavin Douglas photo

“The battellis and the man I will discriue,
Fra Troyis boundis first that fugitiue
By fate to Italie come and coist lauyne,
Ouer land and se cachit with meikill pyne
By force of goddis aboue fra euery stede
Of cruel luno throw auld remembrit feid:
Grete payne in batelles sufferit he also,
Or he his goddis brocht in Latio
And belt the ciete, fra quham of nobil fame
The latyne peopill taken has thare name,
And eke the faderis, princis of Alba,
Come, and the walleris of grete Rome alsua.”

Gavin Douglas (1474–1522) Scottish Churchman, Scholar, Poet

The battles and the man I will describe
From Troy's bounds first that fugitive
By fate to Italy came and coast Lavinia,
Over land and sea driven with great pain
By force of gods above from every stead,
Of cruel Juno through old remembered wrath:
Great pain in battles suffered he also,
Or he his gods brought in Latium
And built the city, from which of noble fame
The Latin people taken have their name,
And also the fathers, princes of Alba,
Came, and the wall-builders of great Rome also.
Bk. 1, line 1.
Eneados

Halldór Laxness photo
Anthony Burgess photo
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi photo
Flower A. Newhouse photo
Count Basie photo
Saint Patrick photo
Thomas Carlyle photo
Johnny Cash photo
Maimónides photo
Pope Pius X photo
Halldór Laxness photo
Patrick Matthew photo
John Gay photo
Robert M. Pirsig photo
Ulysses S. Grant photo
Thomas Carlyle photo
Shahrukh Khan photo
Daniel J. Boorstin photo

“A sign of a celebrity is often that his name is worth more than his services.”

Daniel J. Boorstin (1914–2004) American historian

Source: The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America (1961), p. 220.

Albert Chevalier photo
Matthew Stover photo
Tom Stoppard photo

“When Harold Pinter was lobbying to have London's Comedy Theatre renamed the Pinter Theatre, Stoppard wrote back: "Have you thought, instead, of changing your name to Harold Comedy?"”

Tom Stoppard (1937) British playwright

Interviews and profiles
Source: William Langley, "Profile: Sir Tom Stoppard," The Telegraph (2006-11-06) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml;jsessionid=W4GGMOS2UYBMJQFIQMFSFFWAVCBQ0IV0?xml=/opinion/2006/06/11/do1107.xml

Aurangzeb photo

“Mir Jumla made his way into Kuch Bihar by an obscure and neglected highway' In six days the Mughal army reached the capital (19th December) which had been deserted by the Rajah and his people in terror. The name of the town was changed to Alamgirnagar; the Muslim call to prayer, so long forbidden in the city, was chanted from the lofty roof of the palace, and a mosque was built by demolishing the principal temple.”

Aurangzeb (1618–1707) Sixth Mughal Emperor

1661. Koch Bihar (Bengal) , Fathiyya-i-Ibriyya cited by Sarkar, Jadu Nath, History of Aurangzeb, quoted in Goel, S.R. Hindu temples What Happened to them https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.62677/page/n171
Quotes from late medieval histories, 1660s

Edward Carpenter photo
George W. Bush photo
Torquato Tasso photo

“In what a narrow circuit, among what
abandoned solitudes your fame lies bound!
Amid vast seas your island earth is shut,
though "vast" or "ocean", or what words resound
to name that sea, are idle names and fond,
for what it is: a shallow bog, a pond.”

Torquato Tasso (1544–1595) Italian poet

In che picciolo cerchio, e fra che nude
Solitudini è stretto il vostro fasto!
Lei, come isola, il mare intorno chiude;
E lui, ch'or Ocean chiamate or vasto,
Nulla eguale a tai nomi ha in sè di magno;
Ma è bassa palude, e breve stagno.
Canto XIV, stanza 10 (tr. Wickert)
Gerusalemme Liberata (1581)

Anthony Scaramucci photo

“When I put out a tweet and I put Reince's name in a tweet, they're all making the assumption that it's him because journalists know who the leakers are. So if Reince wants to explain he's not a leaker, let him do that. But let me tell you about myself. I'm a straight shooter and I'll go right to the heart of the matter.”

Anthony Scaramucci (1964) American financier and political figure

Quoted in " Scaramucci: 'If Reince wants to explain he's not a leaker, let him do that' http://www.cnn.com/2017/07/27/politics/anthony-scaramucci-reince-priebus/index.html" by Dan Merica, Elizabeth Landers and Eugene Scott, CNN (July 27, 2017).

Salvador Dalí photo
Matthew Lewis (writer) photo
Taliesin photo
Rajiv Malhotra photo
James Madison photo

“A watchful eye must be kept on ourselves lest while we are building ideal monuments of Renown and Bliss here we neglect to have our names enrolled in the Annals of Heaven.”

James Madison (1751–1836) 4th president of the United States (1809 to 1817)

Letter to William Bradford (9 November 1772)
1770s

Robert Sheckley photo
Harry Turtledove photo
William Stanley Jevons photo

“Property is only another name for monopoly.”

Preface To The Second Edition, p. 29.
The Theory of Political Economy (1871)

Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo

“Out on the heartless creed which nulls the claim
Upon the heart of kindred, birth, and name.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

The Golden Violet - The Child of the Sea
The Golden Violet (1827)

David Dixon Porter photo
Czeslaw Milosz photo
James Madison photo

“"'Isaiah' – what a funny name for a teddy bear!"
"Well, you see one eye's 'igher than the other."”

Donald McGill (1875–1962) British artist

Exhibited as part of the Michael Winner collection of McGill designs at the Chris Beetles Gallery, March 14 to April 8, 2006. http://www.chrisbeetles.com/pictures/artists/McGill_Donald/DMG185.htm

Babe Ruth photo

“They can boo and hoot me all they want. That doesn't matter to me. But when a fan calls insulting names from the grandstand and becomes abusive I don't intend to stand for it. This fellow today, whoever he was, called me a low-down bum and other names that got me mad, and when I went after him he ran. Furthermore, I didn't throw any dust in Hildebrand's face. It didn't go into his face, only on his sleeve. I don't know what they will do to me for this. Maybe I'll be fined or suspended for kicking on the decision, but I don't see why I should get any punishment at all. I would go into the stands again if I had to.”

Babe Ruth (1895–1948) American baseball player

On his temper flaring on May 25, 1922, when he threw dirt at an umpire and chased after a heckler in the stands, as quoted in "Ruth in Row With Umpire and Fan at Polo Grounds" in The New York Times (May 26, 1922), reprinted in Sultans of Swat: The Four Great Sluggers of the New York Yankees (2006) by The New York Times, p. 35 https://books.google.com/books?id=rvsETfrxDacC&pg=PA35

George W. Bush photo

“On board was a crew of seven: Colonel Rick Husband; Lt. Colonel Michael Anderson; Commander Laurel Clark; Captain David Brown; Commander William McCool; Dr. Kalpana Chawla; and Ilan Ramon, a Colonel in the Israeli Air Force. These men and women assumed great risk in the service to all humanity.
In an age when space flight has come to seem almost routine, it is easy to overlook the dangers of travel by rocket, and the difficulties of navigating the fierce outer atmosphere of the Earth. These astronauts knew the dangers, and they faced them willingly, knowing they had a high and noble purpose in life. Because of their courage and daring and idealism, we will miss them all the more.
All Americans today are thinking, as well, of the families of these men and women who have been given this sudden shock and grief. You're not alone. Our entire nation grieves with you. And those you loved will always have the respect and gratitude of this country.
The cause in which they died will continue. Mankind is led into the darkness beyond our world by the inspiration of discovery and the longing to understand. Our journey into space will go on.
In the skies today we saw destruction and tragedy. Yet farther than we can see there is comfort and hope. In the words of the prophet Isaiah, "Lift your eyes and look to the heavens. Who created all these? He who brings out the starry hosts one by one and calls them each by name. Because of His great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing.
The same Creator who names the stars also knows the names of the seven souls we mourn today. The crew of the shuttle Columbia did not return safely to Earth; yet we can pray that all are safely home.
May God bless the grieving families, and may God continue to bless America.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

2000s, 2003, Remarks after Columbia space shuttle disaster (February 2003)

Henry James photo
Jack Vance photo
Will Cuppy photo

“Borrowing has a bad name, but you would be surprised how it helps in a pinch.”

Will Cuppy (1884–1949) American writer

[Scribner's Magazine, 1937, CII, 6, 19-21, I'm Not the Budget Type, Will Cuppy]

Ryan Adams photo
Ian McEwan photo

“Nearby, where the main road forked, stood an iron cross on a stone base. As the English couple watched, a mason was cutting in half a dozen fresh names. On the far side of the street, in the deep shadow of a doorway, a youngish woman in black was also watching. She was so pale they assumed at first she had some sort of wasting disease. She remained perfectly still, with one hand holding an edge of her headscarf so that it obscured her mouth. The mason seemed embarrassed and kept his back to her while he worked. After a quarter of an hour an old man in blue workman's clothes came shuffling along in carpet slippers and took her hand without a word and led her away. When the propriétaire came out he nodded at the other side of the street, at the empty space and murmured, 'Trois. Mari et deux frères,' as he set down their salads.This sombre incident remained with them as they struggled up the hill in the heat, heavy with lunch, towards the Bergerie de Tédenat. They stopped half way up in the shade of a stand of pines before a long stretch of open ground. Bernard was to remember this moment for the rest of his life. As they drank from their water bottles he was struck by the recently concluded war not as a historical, geopolitical fact but as a multiplicity, a near-infinity of private sorrows, as a boundless grief minutely subdivided without diminishment among individuals who covered the continent like dust, like spores whose separate identities would remain unknown, and whose totality showed more sadness than anyone could ever begin to comprehend; a weight borne in silence by hundreds of thousands, millions, like the woman in black for a husband and two brothers, each grief a particular, intricate, keening love story that might have been otherwise. It seemed as though he had never thought about the war before, not about its cost. He had been so busy with the details of his work, of doing it well, and his widest view had been of war aims, of winning, of statistical deaths, statistical destruction, and of post-war reconstruction. For the first time he sensed the scale of the catastrophe in terms of feeling; all those unique and solitary deaths, all that consequent sorrow, unique and solitary too, which had no place in conferences, headlines, history, and which had quietly retired to houses, kitchens, unshared beds, and anguished memories. This came upon Bernard by a pine tree in the Languedoc in 1946 not as an observation he could share with June but as a deep apprehension, a recognition of a truth that dismayed him into silence and, later, a question: what possible good could come of a Europe covered in this dust, these spores, when forgetting would be inhuman and dangerous, and remembering a constant torture?”

Page 164-165.
Black Dogs (1992)

Bhakti Tirtha Swami photo
William Ewart Gladstone photo
Hans Fritzsche photo
River Phoenix photo

“When you see the name 'River Phoenix' everywhere; you gotta, like, joke about it.”

River Phoenix (1970–1993) American actor, musician, and activist

Rolling Stone (1993)

Muhammad of Ghor photo

“The fort of Kalinjar which was celebrated throughout the world for being as strong as the wall of Alexander was taken. 'The temples were converted into mosques and abodes of goodness and the ejaculations of the bead-counters and the voices of the summoners to prayer ascended to the highest heaven, and the very name of idolatry was annihilated.' 'Fifty thousand men came under the collar of slavery, and the plain became black as pitch with Hindus.”

Muhammad of Ghor (1160–1206) Ghurid Sultan

Elephants and cattle, and countless arms also, became the spoil of the victors.
Kalinjar (Uttar Pradesh) . Hasan Nizami: Taju’l-Ma’sir in Elliot and Dowson, Vol. II : Elliot and Dowson, History of India as told by its own Historians, 8 Volumes, Allahabad Reprint, 1964. pp. 231 Also quoted in Jain, Meenakshi (2011). The India they saw: Foreign accounts.

Douglas Coupland photo
François Gautier photo
Friedrich Hayek photo
P.G. Wodehouse photo