Quotes about noise
page 3

Luigi Russolo photo

“In antiquity, life was nothing but silence. Noise was really not born before the 19th century, with the advent of machinery. Today noise reigns supreme over human sensibility.”

Luigi Russolo (1885–1947) Electronic music pioneer and Futurist painter

Source: 1910's, The Art of Noise', 1913, p. 4

“A Reasonable Guide to Horrible Noise”

Lester Bangs (1948–1982) American music critic and journalist

Title of Village Voice article (September/October 1980), p. 301
Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung (1988)

Conor Oberst photo
Alexander Pope photo

“It is with narrow-souled people as with narrow necked bottles: the less they have in them, the more noise they make in pouring it out.”

Alexander Pope (1688–1744) eighteenth century English poet

Thoughts on Various Subjects (1727)

Paul A. Samuelson photo
Ray Kurzweil photo

“Neither noise nor information is predictable.”

Ray Kurzweil (1948) Author, scientist, inventor, and futurist

The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence (1999)

Philip K. Dick photo
Abby Sunderland photo

“Against reason, I thought that the next swell would be it: another rogue wave would roll me again... At that moment, a noise from above caught my attention. And I looked up just in time to see a gigantic white airplane fly by.”

Abby Sunderland (1993) Camera Assistant, Inspirational Speaker and Sailor

Source: Unsinkable: A Young Woman's Courageous Battle on the High Seas (2011), p. 176

S. I. Hayakawa photo
Margaret Mead photo
Phil Brooks photo

“So all you people here, despite evidence to the contrary, still choose to support a man that for all intents and purposes can't even support himself? OK, OK, so if you're a Jeff Hardy fan, if you're wearing a Jeff Hardy t-shirt, if you're wearing one of his diabolical little handsleeves, God forbid if you have your face painted, I want to see you stand up right now. I want to hear you make some noise! Go ahead, if you love and support Jeff Hardy, let the world know! (Crowd cheers, stands up.) Cameraman, cameraman get a good shot, get a real good shot at all these people. The truth is ladies and gentlemen, I don't blame you. I don't blame anybody here for supporting Jeff Hardy. The people I blame, are their parents. Or let's be realistic here, I said parents, what I should have said was parent. Because it's obviously a single parent situation, just like the way Jeff Hardy grew up. See you people are so concerned with the relationship with your children failing, just like your marriage did, that you acquiesce to their every whim and their every desire. I hate to tell you, this doesn't make you a good parent, Philadelphia, it makes you an enabler. (Crowd boos. Starts chanting for Hardy.) And the fact that you even let your children look up to a guy like Jeff Hardy, just shows that you really don't care what happens to them to begin with. It's a sad situation. So I don't blame anybody here or sitting at home watching this, that supports Jeff Hardy if they're under 17, because they're young and they're, well, they're impressionable. The real problem lies with the parents, it's the parents who don't make a conscious effort to sit their children down and teach them the proper way to live! (Crowd boos.) You see it starts with a Jeff Hardy t-shirt, next thing you know they're smoking a pack of cigarettes, after that, they're drinking a bottle of beer. Right after that they move on to shots of Jack Daniels, which is a gateway drug for marijuana…(Crowd pops for marijuana.) And the fact that you people sit here and cheer that goes to show that I'm telling the truth! How about some old fashioned street drugs? And before you know it they're digging through Mom's purse because they're addicted, they're addicted to prescription medication. (Crowd cheers, Punk mouths,"That's not cool!" to fans.) All of this can be stopped before it's too late! Parents, all you have to do is talk to your children. Sit them down and show them the way, tell them the words that can save their lives, show them that sometimes it's what you don't do that makes you who you are! For weeks, for weeks I've been saying to people like you, just say no. But today I think we should just say yes. Yes to the future of a straight edge, drug free America! Just say yes to the winner of tonight's match, just say yes, to the World Heavyweight Champion! Thank you!”

Phil Brooks (1978) American professional wrestler and mixed martial artist

At Night of Champions 2009
Friday Night SmackDown

Mark Twain photo

“If the statistics are right, the Jews constitute but one percent of the human race. It suggests a nebulous dim puff of star dust lost in the blaze of the Milky Way. Properly the Jew ought hardly to be heard of, but he is heard of, has always been heard of. He is as prominent on the planet as any other people, and his commercial importance is extravagantly out of proportion to the smallness of his bulk. His contributions to the world's list of great names in literature, science, art, music, finance, medicine, and abstruse learning are also away out of proportion to the weakness of his numbers. He has made a marvellous fight in the world, in all the ages; and has done it with his hands tied behind him. He could be vain of himself, and be excused for it. The Egyptian, the Babylonian, and the Persian rose, filled the planet with sound and splendor, then faded to dream-stuff and passed away; the Greek and the Roman followed, and made a vast noise, and they are gone; other peoples have sprung up and held their torch high for a time, but it burned out, and they sit in twilight now, or have vanished. The Jew saw them all, beat them all, and is now what he always was, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmities of age, no weakening of his parts, no slowing of his energies, no dulling of his alert and aggressive mind. All things are mortal but the Jew; all other forces pass, but he remains. What is the secret of his immortality?”

Concerning the Jews (Harper's Magazine, Sept. 1899)

Alexander Pope photo
Aldo Capitini photo

“I wanted to go away, in the midst of something entirely different,
I had been there, in the house of torture,
I have seen people being kicked, men’s bodies scorched,
nails pulled out with pliers.
Armed with flame and cudgels, grinning men in shirt sleeves.
Where I could hear my friends being thrown headlong
down the stairs.
Night was as day, and long shrieks wounded me.
In vain I tried to think of wooded lanes and flowers,
a serene life and human words.
The thought seized up, it was as if a wound were opened up
again and again and endlessly searched.
From the mouth struck, teeth and blood came out,
and lamenting moans from the deep throat.
Away, away from that house, from that street and town,
from anything similar to it.
I must save myself, keep up my mind,
that I should not be led to madness by these memories.
Oh, if we could go back to a void, from which a new order,
a maternal opening could come forth,
if I hear a certain tone of voice even in jest, I shudder.
My unhappiness is that I avoid the sight of suffering,
hospitals and prisons.
I have yearned for high solitudes, lands of still sunshine
and sweet shadows,
but I would always be pursued by the ghosts of human beings.
All of a sudden I feel the need of distraction and play,
to lose myself in the noise of the fairground.
I remain with you, but forgive me
if you see me sometimes act like a madman.
I try to heal myself by myself, as an animal,
trusting that the wounds will close.
I stop to listen to the simple conversations of the women
in the marketplace, with their dialectical lilt.
I rejoice at the footsteps of running children,
their overpowering calls.
Because you do not know the absurdity of my dreams,
the fixed expressions, the incomprehensible gestures.
There is turmoil inside me, which seems to ridicule me.
And I cannot cry out, not to be like them.
Tomorrow I will go towards some music, now I am getting ready.”

Aldo Capitini (1899–1968) Italian philosopher and political activist
Tanith Lee photo

“Spells are words, and words are merely noises. You are the sorceress, not your instruction. Don’t limit yourself.”

Tanith Lee (1947–2015) British writer

Source: Short fiction, The Winter Players (1976), Chapter 5, “Black Room, Black Road” (p. 157)

Craig Ferguson photo

“[bends over] *errgh* Sorry for making that noise, but … that's what happens when you get older. One day what happens is that you bend over, and you never come back.”

Craig Ferguson (1962) Scottish-born American television host, stand-up comedian, writer, actor, director, author, producer and voice a…

2009-07-24 broadcast
The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson (2005–2014)

Captain Beefheart photo

“Pena
Her little head clinking
Like a barrel of red velvet balls
Full past noise
Treats filled her eyes
Turning them yellow like enamel coated tacks
Soft like butter hard not to pour”

Captain Beefheart (1941–2010) musician

Pena, sung by Jeff Cotton, better known as Antennae Jimmy Semens
Trout Mask Replica (1969)

Tom McCarthy (writer) photo

“People get accustomed to evil like they get accustomed to smog or noise or graffiti! But it doesn’t change what it is.”

Source: The Coyote Kings of the Space-Age Bachelor Pad (2004), Chapter 34 “On Good, Evil, Invisible Hands, and the Wind” (p. 192)

Duke Ellington photo

“Time has been called God's way of making sure that everything doesn't happen at once. In the same spirit, noise is Nature's way of making sure that we don't find out everything that happens. Noise, in short, is the protector of information.”

Hans Christian von Baeyer (1938) American physicist

von Baeyer did not originate the quip about time, which dates back at least as far as the 1929 book "The Man Who Mastered Time" by Ray Cummings, where it appears on p. 1 http://books.google.com/books?id=YdZEAAAAYAAJ&q=%22everything+from+happening+at+once%22#search_anchor.
Source: Information, The New Language of Science (2003), Chapter 14, Noise, Nuisance and necessity, p. 127-128

Bret Easton Ellis photo
James Howard Kunstler photo
Chuck Palahniuk photo
Leo Tolstoy photo

“I longed for activity, instead of an even flow of existence. I wanted excitement and danger and the chance to renounce self for the sake of my love. I was conscious of a superabundance of energy which found no outlet in our quiet life. I had bouts of depression, which I tried to hide, as something to be ashamed of…My mind, even my senses were occupied, but there was another feeling – the feeling of youth and a craving for activity – which found no scope in our quiet life…So time went by, the snow piled higher and higher round the house, and there we remained together, always and for ever alone and just the same in each other’s eyes; while somewhere far away amidst glitter and noise multitudes of people thrilled, suffered and rejoiced, without one thought of us and our existence which was ebbing away. Worst of all, I felt that every day that passed riveted another link to the chain of habit which was binding our life into a fixed shape, that our emotions, ceasing to be spontaneous, were being subordinated to the even, passionless flow of time… ‘It’s all very well … ‘ I thought, ‘it’s all very well to do good and lead upright lives, as he says, but we’ll have plenty of time for that later, and there are other things for which the time is now or never.’ I wanted, not what I had got, but a life of challenge; I wanted feeling to guide us in life, and not life to guide us in feeling.”

Family Happiness (1859)

Sri Aurobindo photo

“It is not by these means [modern humanism and humanitarianism, idealism, etc. ] that humanity can get that radical change of its ways of life which is yet becoming imperative, but only by reaching the bed-rock of Reality behind,… not through mere ideas and mental formations, but by a change of the consciousness, an inner and spiritual conversion. But that is a truth for which it would be difficult to get a hearing in the present noise of all kinds of many-voiced clamour and confusion and catastrophe…. Science has missed something essential; it has seen and scrutinised what has happened and in a way how it has happened, but it has shut its eyes to something that made this impossible possible, something it is there to express. There is no fundamental significance in things if you miss the Divine Reality; for you remain embedded in a huge surface crust of manageable and utilisable appearance. It is the magic of the Magician you are trying to analyse, but only when you enter into the consciousness of the Magician himself can you begin to experience the true origination, significance and circles of the Lila…. Another danger may then arise [once materialism begins to give way]… not of a final denial of the Truth, but the repetition in old or new forms of a past mistake, on one side some revival of blind fanatical obscurantist sectarian religionism, on the other a stumbling into the pits and quagmires of the vitalistic occult and the pseudo-spiritual'mistakes that made the whole real strength of the materialistic attack on the past and its credos. But these are phantasms that meet us always on the border line or in the intervening country between the material darkness and the perfect Splendour. In spite of all, the victory of the supreme Light even in the darkened earth-consciousness stands as the one ultimate certitude….”

Sri Aurobindo (1872–1950) Indian nationalist, freedom fighter, philosopher, yogi, guru and poet

Undated
India's Rebirth

Robert Harris photo
Judith Sheindlin photo

“after someone in audience applauds, causing plaintiff to burst into tears: If there's any more noise from our gallery, you're gonna leave. Got it?”

Judith Sheindlin (1942) American lawyer, judge, television personality, and author

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xn9XiHQBe1k
Quotes from Judge Judy cases, Dress, stand, speak properly

Richard K. Morgan photo
Clive Staples Lewis photo
Oliver Goldsmith photo
Jerry Seinfeld photo
Plutarch photo

“Lysander said that the law spoke too softly to be heard in such a noise of war.”

Plutarch (46–127) ancient Greek historian and philosopher

Life of Caius Marius
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Jean Paul Sartre photo
George S. Patton photo
Nigel Cumberland photo

“The most powerful way of being able to listen to your own intuition is by being silent. Find a quiet space, slow down and calm your mind. Your goal is to eliminate all that noise going through your head – all those thoughts that appear from nowhere.”

Nigel Cumberland (1967) British author and leadership coach

Your Job-Hunt Ltd – Advice from an Award-Winning Asian Headhunter (2003), Successful Recruitment in a Week (2012) https://books.google.ae/books?idp24GkAsgjGEC&printsecfrontcover&dqnigel+cumberland&hlen&saX&ved0ahUKEwjF75Xw0IHNAhULLcAKHazACBMQ6AEIGjAA#vonepage&qnigel%20cumberland&ffalse, 100 Things Successful People Do: Little Exercises for Successful Living (2016) https://books.google.ae/books?idnu0lCwAAQBAJ&dqnigel+cumberland&hlen&saX&ved0ahUKEwjF75Xw0IHNAhULLcAKHazACBMQ6AEIMjAE

John Selden photo

“They that govern the most make the least noise.”

John Selden (1584–1654) English jurist and scholar of England's ancient laws and constitution, and of Jewish law

Power.
Table Talk (1689)

Paul Theroux photo
Guity Novin photo
Mark Akenside photo
Henry Fielding photo

“Depend on me; never fear your enemies. I'll warrant we make more noise than they.”

Henry Fielding (1707–1754) English novelist and dramatist

Eurydice Hissed : or A Word to the Wise (1736) in The Works of Henry Fielding (1775) in Twelve Volumes, Vol. IV, p. 222

Beck photo
Edmund Burke photo

“We must not always judge of the generality of the opinion by the noise of the acclamation.”

Edmund Burke (1729–1797) Anglo-Irish statesman

No. 1
Letters On a Regicide Peace (1796)

Poul Anderson photo
Ken MacLeod photo
Frederick Douglass photo
Torquato Tasso photo

“Now spread the night her spangled canopy,
And summoned every restless eye to sleep;
On beds of tender grass the beasts down lie,
The fishes slumbered in the silent deep,
Unheard were serpent's hiss and dragon's cry,
Birds left to sing, and Philomen to weep,
Only that noise heaven's rolling circles kest,
Sung lullaby to bring the world to rest.”

Torquato Tasso (1544–1595) Italian poet

Era la notte allor ch'alto riposo
Han l'onde e i venti, e parea muto il mondo,
Gli animai lassi, e quei che 'l mare ondoso,
O de' liquidi laghi alberga il fondo,
E chi si giace in tana, o in mandra ascoso,
E i pinti augelli nell’oblio giocondo
Sotto il silenzio de' secreti orrori
Sopían gli affanni, e raddolciano i cori.
Canto II, stanza 96 (tr. Fairfax)
Gerusalemme Liberata (1581)

John R. Erickson photo
Umberto Boccioni photo

“.. the moving whirlwind of modernity through its crowds, its cars, its telegraph poles, its bare, working-class neighbourhoods, its noises, its squeals, its violence, its cruelty, its cynicism, and its relentless pushiness.”

Umberto Boccioni (1882–1916) Italian painter and sculptor

In Futurism, ed. Didier Ottinger; Centre Pompidou / 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008.
1914 - 1916, Pittura e scultura futuriste' Milan, 1914

Filippo Tommaso Marinetti photo
Bobby Robson photo
Luigi Russolo photo
Steven Wright photo
Nigel Cumberland photo

“Do you ever consciously try to sense your gut feeling by asking yourself, ‘What do I feel about this person, situation or decision?’ Trusting your gut can help you in the workplace and beyond. The danger is when you let external noise drown out what it’s telling you, letting other people’s views and opinions take priority over your own.”

Nigel Cumberland (1967) British author and leadership coach

Your Job-Hunt Ltd – Advice from an Award-Winning Asian Headhunter (2003), Successful Recruitment in a Week (2012) https://books.google.ae/books?idp24GkAsgjGEC&printsecfrontcover&dqnigel+cumberland&hlen&saX&ved0ahUKEwjF75Xw0IHNAhULLcAKHazACBMQ6AEIGjAA#vonepage&qnigel%20cumberland&ffalse, 100 Things Successful People Do: Little Exercises for Successful Living (2016) https://books.google.ae/books?idnu0lCwAAQBAJ&dqnigel+cumberland&hlen&saX&ved0ahUKEwjF75Xw0IHNAhULLcAKHazACBMQ6AEIMjAE

John Cage photo
John Cage photo
Pierre Schaeffer photo
S. I. Hayakawa photo
Jane Fonda photo

“In this country the only way a minority can get anything done is to make a little noise.”

Jane Fonda (1937) American actress and activist

Quotes from Women in the News, Associated Press/Gadsden Times, 15 March 1970. http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=BhIpAAAAIBAJ&sjid=mNYEAAAAIBAJ&pg=1902,1282871

Don DeLillo photo
Georgia O'Keeffe photo

“Today I walked into the sunset — to mail some letters —... But some way or other I didn't seem to like the redness much so after I mailed the letters I walked home — and kept walking - The Eastern sky was all grey blue — bunches of clouds — different kinds of clouds — sticking around everywhere and the whole thing — lit up — first in one place — then in another with flashes of lightning — sometimes just sheet lightning — and some times sheet lightning with a sharp bright zigzag flashing across it -. I walked out past the last house — past the last locust tree — and sat on the fence for a long time — looking — just looking at — the lightning — you see there was nothing but sky and flat prairie land — land that seems more like the ocean than anything else I know — There was a wonderful moon. Well I just sat there and had a great time by myself — Not even many night noises — just the wind —... I wondered what you were doing - It is absurd the way I love this country — Then when I came back — it was funny — roads just shoot across blocks anywhere — all the houses looked alike — and I almost got lost — I had to laugh at myself — I couldn't tell which house was home - I am loving the plains more than ever it seems — and the SKY — Anita you have never seen SKY — it is wonderful”

Georgia O'Keeffe (1887–1986) American artist

Canyon, Texas (September 11, 1916), pp. 183-184
1915 - 1920, Letters to Anita Pollitzer' (1916)

Iain Banks photo
Ralph Waldo Emerson photo
Daniel Handler photo
Franz Halder photo
Richard Pryor photo

“Rosa Parks showed us all that one little person can make a whole bunch of noise without so much as a whisper. She showed the world that the color of your skin shouldn't determine what part of the bus you sit in… as you ride through life.”

Richard Pryor (1940–2005) American stand-up comedian, actor, social critic, writer, and MC

Post http://www.richardpryor.com/forums/msgs.cfm?msg=38560&forum=6 on US civil rights activist Rosa Parks.
Web-posts

Tim McGraw photo
James Macpherson photo
Neil Gaiman photo
Samuel Beckett photo
Ursula K. Le Guin photo

“If we can take the time to mute the noise we’ve build around ourselves the rhythm of the heartbeats and the purpose may be clear.”

Dawud Wharnsby (1972) Canadian musician

"Why Are The Drums So Silent"
Sunshine, Dust and The Messenger (2002)

Kent Hovind photo

“I never heard a thrown ball make that sound before. The ball seemed to accelerate as it came close; an accelerating, impossibly fast pitch that made the noises of hornets and snakes.”

Roger Kahn (1927–2020) American baseball writer

Source: The Boys Of Summer, Chapter 1, The Trolley Car That Ran By Ebbets Field, p. 55

Paul Graham photo

“Jessica and I have always worked hard to teach our kids not to be mean. We tolerate noise and mess and junk food, but not meanness.”

Paul Graham (1964) English programmer, venture capitalist, and essayist

"Mean People Fail", November 2014

William Wordsworth photo
Jeremy Clarkson photo
William Dean Howells photo
Scott Lynch photo

“Next came the sort of kiss that banished the world to distant background noise and seemed to last a month.”

Source: The Republic of Thieves (2013), Chapter 10 “The Five-Year Game: Final Approaches” section 13 (p. 610)

Morton Feldman photo

“Sound is all our dreams of music. Noise is music's dreams of us.”

Morton Feldman (1926–1987) American avant-garde composer

Sound Noise Varese Boulez, in Audio Culture: Readings in Modern Music http://books.google.pl/books?id=FgDgCOSHPysC&pg=PA16&lpg=PA15&focus=viewport, edited by Christoph Cox, Daniel Warner. A&C Black, 2004. p. 16 http://books.google.pl/books?id=FgDgCOSHPysC&pg=PA16&lpg=PA15&focus=viewport.

Marsilio Ficino photo
Michael Savage photo