Quotes about oil (501 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

“Being a student is like someone behind bars; only those who burn the midnight oil will get the certificate of freedom.”

Ahmed Omaar

Freedom

“If the Olive Trees knew the hands that planted them, Their Oil would become Tears.”

Mahmoud Darwich (1941–2008) Palestinian writer

Tear , Tree

“the vase once had an extremely common use. Most probably it was used for cooking-oil. It was made by a designer of those times, when art and life went hand in hand and there was no such thing as a work of art to look at and just any old thing to use. I”

Bruno Munari (1907–1998) Italian artist and designer

Source: Design as Art

Life , Art , Time , Cooking

“In deep meditation the flow of concentration is continuous like the flow of oil.”

Patañjali (-200–-150 BC) ancient Indian scholar(s) of grammar and linguistics, of yoga, of medical treatises

The Mahābhāṣya

“If it was up to me, I'd get more oil tanker drivers drunk. I don’t value music much. I like the Beatles, but I hate Paul McCartney. I like Led Zeppelin, but I hate Robert Plant. I like the Who, but I hate Roger Daltrey.”

Kurt Cobain (1967–1994) American musician and artist

As quoted in The NIRVANA Reader: 1988 – 1992 (Published December 2008).
Interviews (1989-1994), Print

Hate , Music

“I smell like vitamin C, rose-oil and old smelly socks.”

Flea (musician) (1962) American musician

Quoted from the 'Off The Map' Dvd (2001)

“Azerbaijan became the Independent Republic […] A new epoch has begun in the life of Azerbaijan. And the history of our oil industry has got a new foundation, that’s to say, the third stage… During the new stage, expressing the will of the Azerbaijani people, we undertake necessary measures to use its natural resources.”

Heydar Aliyev (1923–2003) Soviet and Azerbaijani politician

The speech of President Heydar Aliyev at the signing ceremony of the Contract of the Century (20 September 1994) http://en.president.az/azerbaijan/contract

Life , People , History , Nature

“What did it matter where you lay once you were dead? In a dirty sump or in a marble tower on top of a high hill? You were dead, you were sleeping the big sleep, you were not bothered by things like that. Oil and water were the same as wind and air to you. You just slept the big sleep, not caring about the nastiness of how you died or where you fell. Me, I was part of the nastiness now.”

Raymond Chandler book The Big Sleep

Source: The Big Sleep (1939), Chapter 32, Phillip Marlowe
Context: What did it matter where you lay once you were dead? In a dirty sump or in a marble tower on top of a high hill? You were dead, you were sleeping the big sleep, you were not bothered by things like that. Oil and water were the same as wind and air to you. You just slept the big sleep, not caring about the nastiness of how you died or where you fell. Me, I was part of the nastiness now. Far more a part of it than Rusty Regan was. But the old man didn't have to be. He could lie quiet in his canopied bed, with his bloodless hands folded on the sheet, waiting. His heart was a brief, uncertain murmur. His thoughts were as gray as ashes. And in a little while he too, like Rusty Regan, would be sleeping the big sleep.

Sleep , Water , Parting , Dead

“Right from his early days in the Andamans, Vinayak encouraged people to speak in Hindi....Till then, government records were maintained in Urdu, and even Hindi was written in the Persian script. Vinayak strongly advocated the implementation of the Devanagari script as it was the one in which the oldest language of the subcontinent, Sanskrit, was written. During his interactions with local merchants in his capacity as the foreman of oil collections, Vinayak passed this zeal on to them too. Through his influence, a girls’ school that was started in the Andamans began a compulsory teaching of Hindi in the Devanagari script.”

Vinayak Damodar Savarkar (1883–1966) Indian pro-independence activist,lawyer, politician, poet, writer and playwright

Vikram Sampath - Savarkar, Echoes from a Forgotten Past

Girl , School , People

“Avoid at all costs that vile spew you see rotting in oil in screwtop jars. Too lazy to peel fresh? You don't deserve to eat garlic.”

Anthony Bourdain book Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly

Kitchen Confidential (2000)
Source: Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly

“My interest is in making sure we‘ve got the kind of comprehensive energy policy that can bring down gas prices. If, in order to get that passed, we have to compromise in terms of a careful, well-thought out oil strategy that was carefully circumscribed to avoid significant environmental damage. I don't want to be so rigid that we can't get something done.”

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

Interview in The Palm Beach Post (1 August 2008) http://www.palmbeachpost.com/localnews/content/state/epaper/2008/08/01/0801obama1.html
2008

“The medium is as unimportant as I myself. Essential is only the forming... I take any material whatsoever if the picture demands it. When I adjust materials of different kinds to one another, I have taken a step in advance of mere oil painting, for in addition to playing off color against color, line against line, form against form etc., I play off material against material, wood against sack clothes.”

Kurt Schwitters (1887–1948) German artist

Schwitters (1921) in: Abstract Art, Anna Moszynska, Thames and Hudson, London 1990, p. 68-69.
1920s

Color , Painting , Clothes

“I’ve said many times that there isn’t a country in the world that would find billions of barrels of oil and leave it in the ground while there is a market for it.”

Justin Trudeau (1971) 23rd Prime Minister of Canada; eldest son of Pierre Trudeau

Speaking about the Trans Mountain Pipeline, as quoted by The Guardian, Canada approves controversial Kinder Morgan oil pipeline https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/nov/29/canada-approves-kinder-morgan-oil-pipeline-justin-trudeau (30 November 2016).
2016

World , Time , Country

“Intellectual property is the oil of the 21 century. Look at the richest men a hundred years ago; they all made their money extracting natural resources or moving them around. All today’s richest men have made their money out of intellectual property.”

Mark Getty (1960) British businessman

"Blood and Oil," The Economist (March 4, 2000), p. 68

Men , Money , Nature

“Now we live in the empire of oil and money — the rest is disguise.”

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

ÉPOCA Interview (in Portuguese) http://revistaepoca.globo.com/Epoca/0,6993,EPT1061569-1666-2,00.html, São Paulo, 2005.

Money

“Upon Christmas-day, the people of Rome, who had hitherto elected their Bishop, and reckoned that they and their Senate inherited the rights of the ancient Senate and people of Rome, voted Charles their Emperor, and subjected themselves to him in such manner as the old Roman Empire and their Senate were subjected to the old Roman Emperors. The Pope [Leo III] crowned him, and anointed him with holy oil, and worshiped him on his knees after the manner of adoring the old Roman Emperors… The Emperor, on the other hand, took the following oath to the Pope: In nomine Christi spondeo atque polliceor, Ego Carolus Imperator coram Deo & beato Petro Apostolo, me protectorem ac defensorem fore hujus sanctæ Romanæ Ecclesiæ in omnibus utilitatibus, quatenùs divino fultus fuero adjutorio, prout sciero poteroque. The Emperor was also made Consul of Rome, and his son Pipin crowned King of Italy: and henceforward the Emperor styled himself: Carolus serenissimus, Augustus, à Deo coronatus, magnus, pacificus, Romæ gubernans imperium [Charles, most serene Augustus crowned by God, the great, peaceful emperor ruling the Roman empire], or Imperator Romanorum [Emperor of the Romans]; and was prayed for in the Churches of Rome. His image was henceforward put upon the coins of Rome: while the enemies of the Pope, to the number of three hundred Romans and two or three of the Clergy, were sentenced to death. The three hundred Romans were beheaded in one day in the Lateran fields: but the Clergymen at the intercession of the Pope were pardoned, and banished into France. And thus the title of Roman Emperor, which had hitherto been in the Greek Emperors, was by this act transferred in the West to the Kings of France.”

Isaac Newton (1643–1727) British physicist and mathematician and founder of modern classical physics

Vol. I, Ch. 7: Of the Eleventh Horn of Daniel's Fourth Beast
Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel, and the Apocalypse of St. John (1733)

Death , God , People , Peace

“And in that moment we all thought of the space that her round arms would occupy moving backward and forward with the rolling pin over the dough, her bosom leaning over the great mound of flour and eggs, […] and we thought of the space the flour would occupy, and the wheat for the flour, and the fields to raise the wheat, and the mountains from which the water would flow to irrigate the fields; […] of the space it would take for the Sun to arrive with its rays, to ripen the wheat; of the space for the Sun to condense from the clouds of stellar gases and burn; of the quantities of stars and galaxies and galactic masses in flight through space which would be needed to hold suspended every galaxy, every nebula, every sun, every planet, and at the same time we thought of it, this space was inevitably being formed, at the same time that Mrs. Ph(i)Nk0 was uttering those words: "… ah, what noodles, boys!" the point that contained her and all of us was expanding in a halo of distance in light-years and light-centuries and billions of light-millennia, and we were being hurled to the four corners of the universe, […] and she, dissolved into I don't know what kind of energy-light-heat, she, Mrs. Ph(i)Nk0, she who in the midst of our closed, petty world had been capable of a generous impulse, "Boys, the noodles I would make for you!," a true outburst of general love, initiating at the same moment the concept of space and, properly speaking, space itself, and time, and universal gravitation, and the gravitating universe, making possible billions and billions of suns, and of planets, and fields of wheat, and Mrs. Ph(i)Nk0s, scattered through the continents of the planets, kneading with floury, oil-shiny, generous arms, and she lost at that very moment, and we, mourning her loss.”

Italo Calvino book Cosmicomics

Pages 46-47, "All at One Point".
Cosmicomics (1965)

Love , World , Mountain , Star

“The floating of the planets in the weightless air is due to the inner constitution of the globes, and the modernized drilling of the earth to exploit oil from within is a sort of disturbance by the modern demons and can result in a greatly harmful reaction to the floating condition of the earth.”

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

Srimad Bhagavatam, Bhaktivedanta Book Trust, 1999. Canto 2, Chapter 7, verse 1, purport. Vedabase http://www.vedabase.com/en/sb/2/7/1
Quotes from Books: Loving God, Quotes from Books: Regression of Science

“You know, there’s been a lot of talk in this campaign about what America has lost — people who tell us that our way of life is being undermined by pernicious changes and dark forces beyond our control. They tell voters there’s a “real America” out there that must be restored. This isn’t an idea, by the way, that started with Donald Trump. It’s been peddled by politicians for a long time — probably from the start of our Republic.
And it’s got me thinking about the story I told you 12 years ago tonight, about my Kansas grandparents and the things they taught me when I was growing up. See, my grandparents, they came from the heartland. Their ancestors began settling there about 200 years ago. I don’t know if they have their birth certificates — but they were there. They were Scotch-Irish mostly — farmers, teachers, ranch hands, pharmacists, oil rig workers. Hardy, small town folks. Some were Democrats, but a lot of them — maybe even most of them — were Republicans. Party of Lincoln.
And my grandparents explained that folks in these parts, they didn’t like show-offs. They didn’t admire braggarts or bullies. They didn’t respect mean-spiritedness, or folks who were always looking for shortcuts in life. Instead, what they valued were traits like honesty and hard work, kindness, courtesy, humility, responsibility, helping each other out. That’s what they believed in. True things. Things that last. The things we try to teach our kids.”

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

2016, DNC Address (July 2016)

Life , People , Way , Idea

“Yes, my sin — my greater sin and even my greatest sin is that I nationalized Iran's oil industry and discarded the system of political and economic exploitation by the world's greatest empire. This at the cost to myself, my family; and at the risk of losing my life, my honor and my property. With God's blessing and the will of the people, I fought this savage and dreadful system of international espionage and colonialism.”

Mohammad Mosaddegh (1882–1967) Prime Minister of Iran

Defending himself against a treason charge, on 19 December, 1953

Life , God , People , World

“So, now the Republicans are going around — this is the kind of thing they do. I don't understand it. They are going around. They're sending like little tire gauges, making fun of this idea, as if this is Barack Obama's energy plan. Now, two points. One, they know they're lying about what my energy plan is. But the other thing is, they are making fun of a step that every expert says would absolutely reduce our oil consumption by 3 percent to 4 percent. It's like these guys take pride in being ignorant, you know? I mean, they think it's funny that they're making fun of something that is actually true. They need to do their homework, because this is serious business. Instead of running ads about Paris Hilton and Britney Spears, they should go talk to some energy experts and actually make a difference.”

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

Responding to Republican criticism of his energy policy (5 August 2008) http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0808/05/sitroom.03.html
2008

Guy , Lying , Idea , Understanding

“I wish you would recollect that Painting and Punctuality mix like Oil and Vinegar, and that Genius and regularity are utter Enemies.”

Thomas Gainsborough (1727–1788) English portrait and landscape painter

Quote of Gainsborough in a 'Letter to Edward Stratford' (a patron), 1 May 1772
1770 - 1788

Painting

“I should have sent you news of myself long ago, for I know how much pleasure one derives from a letter during one's first days in the regiment. One needs it to be reminded that one is something more than a registered number and that in the past one's existence was different from that of beast. Anyway that is how I felt about the army. I was unable to connect my present existence with my former life as a civilian.... Here [in Paris in his studio in La Rue Pigalle] I am leading a studious and quite exemplary life... I am working on an important picture which is progressing well and which will be exhibited, I hope, at the [Salon des] 'Indépendants. In addition I am planning to do a screen which will also be shown at the exhibition. Otherwise nothing is happening. I may go with Vuillard to see a music publisher, but I do not expect any success as yet in that direction. I have abandoned chromolithography (ouf!) for the moment, but I shall take it up again whenever I feel impelled to interrupt my oil painting, in order to vary my pleasure's.”

Pierre Bonnard (1867–1947) French painter and printmaker

in his letter to Lugné-Poë, End of 1890; as quoted in Pierre Bonnard, by John Rewald; MoMA - distribution, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1918, p. 17 - note 11
Lugné-Poe was just called then in the French army; Bonnard had left the army already, c. one year ago

Life , Pleasure , Hope , Music

“There is a value called “mind” as there is a value oil, wheat, or gold. … One can invest in that value, one can “follow” it as they say on the stock exchange; one can watch its fluctuations in I know not what price list which is the world’s general opinion of it. … All these rising and falling values constitute the great market of human affairs. And of these the unfortunate value mind does not stop falling.”

Paul Valéry (1871–1945) French poet, essayist, and philosopher

Source: Regards sur le monde actuel [Reflections on the World Today] (1931), p. 161

World

“I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.”

Smedley D. Butler (1881–1940) United States Marine Corps General, 2 time Medal of Honor recipient and activist

War is a racket (1935)
Source: Common Sense, Vol. 4, No. 11 (November, 1935), p. 8. Quoted in 'I Might Have Given Al Capone a Few Hints' https://www.nytimes.com/1987/09/10/opinion/l-i-might-have-given-al-capone-a-few-hints-023587.html, The New York Times, September 10, 1987.

Way , Boy , Business , Light

“It turns out, by the way, that oil rigs today generally don't cause spills. They are technologically very advanced.”

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

Reforms Slow to Arrive at Drilling Agency http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/31/us/politics/31drill.html (April 2, 2010)
2010, 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill (April 2010)

Way

“When you have drawn the same thing so many times that it seems that you know it by heart try to do it without the model; but having a tracing made of the model upon a thin piece of smooth glass and lay this upon the drawing you have made without the model. …where you find that you have erred bear it in mind in order not to make the mistake again. …if you cannot procure smooth glass to make a tracing… take a piece of very fine parchment well oiled and then dried, and when you have used it for for one drawing you can wipe this out with a sponge and do a second.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci (1938), XXIX Precepts of the Painter

Time , Heart , Drawing

“Let me tell you something that we Israelis have against Moses. He took us 40 years through the desert in order to bring us to the one spot in the Middle East that has no oil!”

Golda Meir (1898–1978) former prime minister of Israel

At a dinner honoring West German Chancellor Willy Brandt, as reported in The New York Times (10 June 1973)
Unsourced variants: Moses dragged us for 40 years through the desert to bring us to the one place in the Middle East where there was no oil.
Moses dragged us through the desert for 40 years to bring us to the one place in the Middle East where there was no oil.

“Many if not most of his decisions are thrust upon the president, out of the blue, by events beyond his control: oil spills, financial panics, pandemics, earthquakes, fires, coups, invasions, underwear bombers, movie-theater shooters, and on and on and on. They don’t order themselves neatly for his consideration but come in waves, jumbled on top of each other. “Nothing comes to my desk that is perfectly solvable,” Obama said at one point. “Otherwise, someone else would have solved it. So you wind up dealing with probabilities. Any given decision you make you’ll wind up with a 30 to 40 percent chance that it isn’t going to work. You have to own that and feel comfortable with the way you made the decision. You can’t be paralyzed by the fact that it might not work out.” On top of all of this, after you have made your decision, you need to feign total certainty about it. People being led do not want to think probabilistically.”

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

Michael Lewis, "Obama's Way" https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2012/10/michael-lewis-profile-barack-obama, Vanity Fair, (October 2012).
2012

People , Way , Feeling , Thinking

“One of my chief "crimes" then, was to have wanted Iran to move from the oil age into the atomic age before it was too late. Must I blush for that? The peaceful use of nuclear energy did not create problems for radiation and contamination for us since we have vast stretches of desert…
I was accused of having adopted the plans for nuclear power stations among others for reasons of "personal ambition". Was it not obvious that I would be dead before most of these plans had been carried out? Why speak of personal ambition then? It was rather a question of forseeing Iran's needs. My "personal" ambitions are known to all men of good faith - to preserve national unity, to make the Iranian people as happy as possible and to prepare a more peaceful future.”

Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (1919–1980) Shah of Iran

Page 68
Publications, The Shah's Story (1980), On oil and nuclear energy

Men , People , Age , Peace

“Some of the loudest, most proudly ignorant guessing in the world is going on in Washington today. Our leaders are sick of all the solid information that has been dumped on humanity by research and scholarship and investigative reporting. They think that the whole country is sick of it, and they could be right. It isn't the gold standard that they want to put us back on. They want something even more basic. They want to put us back on the snake-oil standard.”

Kurt Vonnegut book A Man Without a Country

A Man Without a Country (2005)

World , Thinking , Country

“To make a good salad is to be a brilliant diplomatist – the problem is so entirely the same in both cases. To know exactly how much oil one must put with one's vinegar.”

Oscar Wilde Vera; or, The Nihilists

Vera; or, The Nihilists (1880)

Problem

“When I was a naive young recruit in Spain, I used to wonder why soldiers bayoneted oil paintings, shot the noses off statues and defecated into grand pianos. I now understand: it was to teach civilians the deepest sort of respect for men in uniform — uncontrollable fear.”

Kurt Vonnegut Happy Birthday, Wanda June

"Harold Ryan"
Happy Birthday, Wanda June (1970)

Men , Fear , Understanding , Painting

“One night I was walking on the street by a commercial area close to my neighborhood. I passed by a big garbage container. and I stopped, then with an oil stick bar I wrote, “I am CLANDESTINE CULTURE. Welcome to my World.” I didn't know why I did it, but I did it and it worked. I was feeling better after that. I released all my anger and all my frustration in just one phrase: CLANDESTINE CULTURE.”

Clandestine Culture (1970) American artist

http://artdistricts.com/clandestine-culture-between-street-art-and-social-activism/

World , Feeling , Anger , Night

“His feelings for Adam were an oil spill; he'd let them overflow and now there wasn't a damn place in the ocean that wouldn't catch fire if he dropped a match.”

Maggie Stiefvater (1981) American writer

Ronan about Adam
pg 141
The Raven Cycle Series, The Raven King (2016)

Feeling

“I remain skeptical that new offshore drilling will bring down gas prices in the short-term or significantly reduce our oil dependence in the long-term, though I do welcome the establishment of a process that will allow us to make future drilling decisions based on science and fact. But I've always believed that finding consensus will be essential to solving our energy crisis and today's package represents a good faith effort at a new bipartisan beginning.”

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

Press statement as quoted in Countdown with Keith Olbermann (1 August 2008) http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26010596/
2008

Faith , Decision , Effort , Science

“Let the president answer a higher anarchy. Strap him with an AK-47, let him go, fight his own war. Let him impress daddy that way. No more blood for oil, we got our own battles to fight on our own soil.”

Eminem (1972) American rapper and actor

"Mosh"
2000s, Encore (2004)

War , Way , Fight

“Mightier than divisions of infantry and cavalry, more powerful than dynamite and ammonal, more irresistible than poison gas and boiling oil, is the spirit of the cross.”

Kirby Page (1890–1957) American clergyman

Source: The Sword or the Cross, Which Should be the Weapon of the Christian Militant? (1921), Ch.6 p. 105
Context: Mightier than divisions of infantry and cavalry, more powerful than dynamite and ammonal, more irresistible than poison gas and boiling oil, is the spirit of the cross. It is the one thing in the world that cannot be frightened, discouraged or conquered. It is the one sure way of overcoming personal, industrial, and political oppression. Truly it is the greatest thing in the world.

“For Russia, therefore, this building of heavy industries at a tremendous pace meant a very great sacrifice. All this construction, all this machinery that came from outside, had to be paid for, and paid for in gold and cash. How was this to be done? The people of the Soviet Union tightened their belts and starved and deprived themselves of even necessary articles so that payment could be made abroad. They sent their food-stuffs abroad, and with the price obtained for them paid for the machinery. They sent everything they could find a market for: wheat, rye, barley, corn, vegetables, fruits, eggs, butter, meat, fowls, honey, fish, caviare, sugar, oils, confectionery, etc. Sending these food articles outside meant that they themselves did without them. The Russian people had no butter, or very little of it, because it went abroad to pay for machinery. And so with many other goods…”

Jawaharlal Nehru book Glimpses of World History

Glimpses of World History (1949)

Fish , People , Food

“In the gutters lies the black man, dead,
And where oil flows blackest, the streets run red,
And there was He who was born and came to be,
Who lived and died without liberty”

Bobby Sands (1954–1981) Irish volunteer of the Provisional Irish Republican Army

"Modern Times"
Poetry, Miscellaneous poems

Dead

“A story isn't a charcoal sketch, where every stroke lies on the surface to be seen. It's an oil painting, filled with layers that the author must uncover so carefully to show its beauty.”

Amelia Atwater-Rhodes (1984) Novelist

Beauty , Painting

“The use of solar energy has not been opened up because the oil industry does not own the sun.”

Ralph Nader (1934) American consumer rights activist and corporate critic

Sun

“Who cared whether you could change motor oil when you could snap a rottweiler’s neck in 2.8 seconds? Now there was a practical skill.”

Kelley Armstrong book Stolen

Source: Stolen

Change

“Do you know what the difference is between Friendship and Love? Friendship is the photograph, Love is the oil painting.”

Frank Delaney (1942–2017) Irish writer and journalist

Source: The Matchmaker of Kenmare

Love , Friendship , Painting

“If London is a watercolor, New York is an oil painting.”

Peter Shaffer (1926–2016) English playwright and screenwriter

The New York Times, April 13, 1975.

Painting

“Pritkin and Mircea mixed like oil and water, only not so well.”

Karen Chance American writer

Source: Hunt the Moon

Water

“Annushka has already bought the sunflower oil, and has not only bought it, but has already spilled it.”

Mikhail Bulgakov book The Master and Margarita

Source: The Master and Margarita

“And so I'm stupid for thinking they might be useful. Because of something Johanna Mason said while she was oiling her breasts for wrestling.”

Suzanne Collins book Catching Fire

Source: Catching Fire

Stupidity , Thinking

“Religion's just a well-oiled profit-driven denial of the randomness of it all.”

Wally Lamb (1950) american novelist

Religion

“As she brought prospective buyers through, the realtor said it was an oil stain, but it was me, seeping out of the bag.”

Alice Sebold book The Lovely Bones

Source: The Lovely Bones

“Dresden. Am I interrupting something?"

"Well, I was going to settle down with a porn video and a bottle of baby oil, but I really don't have enough for two.”

Jim Butcher book Summer Knight

Source: Summer Knight

Baby

“Intoxicated? The word did not express it by a mile. He was oiled, boiled, fried, plastered, whiffled, sozzled, and blotto.”

P.G. Wodehouse (1881–1975) English author

Source: Meet Mr. Mulliner

“I guess we're oil and water. (Phoebe)

I'd say we're more like gasoline and a blowtorch. (Dan)”

Susan Elizabeth Phillips book It Had to Be You

Source: It Had to Be You

Cute , Water

“What do you do to your hair?"
"Dust, hair gel, and a little gun oil."
"Ever thought of patenting the recipe?"
"No.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Bites

“Beyond the picket fences and the oil wells, the happy endings, and the fairy tales, is the reality of shattered lives and broken dreams. We carry on.”

Tim McGraw (1967) American country singer

Dreams , Reality , Happiness

“I just don't like the word 'fun'--it's like Volkswagen, or bell-bottoms, or patchouli-oil or bean-sprouts… it rubs me up the wrong way.”

Tom Waits (1949) American singer-songwriter and actor

Way

“To the people who are upset about their hard-earned tax money going to things they don’t like: welcome to the f*cking club. Reimburse me for the Iraq war and oil subsidies, and diaphragms are on me!”

Jon Stewart (1962) American political satirist, writer, television host, actor, media critic and stand-up comedian

Money , War , People

“and when he moved it was like watching oil spread across a lake, smooth and fluid, almost vicious”

Madeline Miller book The Song of Achilles

Source: The Song of Achilles

“Harry Dresden: Some things just aren't meant to go together. Things like oil and water. Orange juice and toothpaste. Wizards and television.”

Jim Butcher book Death Masks

Source: The Dresden Files, Death Masks (2003), Chapter 1, Opening Line

Water

“Don't leave yet," he said, his voice hoarse. "Let me do something. Let me feed you. Hold you. Rub your shoulders. Change your oil. Anything, please.”

Robyn Carr American writer

Source: Sunrise Point

Change

“the late afternoon sunlight, warm as oil, sweet as childhood…”

Stephen King book Carrie

Source: Carrie

Childhood

“How inferior the human machine is, compared to man-made machines. They can be decoked, unscrewed, oiled and parts replaced. Decidedly, nature is not a very wonderful thing.”

Joris-Karl Huysmans (1848–1907) French novelist and art critic

Nature , Parting

“I'm a pessimist if I'm not careful, a feminist, a Black,… an oil-and-water combination of ambition, laziness, insecurity, certainty, and drive.”

Octavia E. Butler (1947–2006) American science fiction writer

Water

“The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want for nothing. He makes me lie down in the green pastures. He greases up my head with oil. He gives me kung-fu in the face of my enemies. Amen”

Stephen King book The Stand

Source: The Stand

Lie

“If America leads a blessed life, then why did God put all of our oil under people who hate us?”

Jon Stewart (1962) American political satirist, writer, television host, actor, media critic and stand-up comedian

Life , God , Hate , People

“The greatest service which can be rendered any country is to add an useful plant to its culture; especially, a bread grain; next in value to bread is oil.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

Thomas Jefferson, In Memoir, Correspondence, and Miscellanies from the Papers of T. Jefferson (1829), Vol. 1, 144
Posthumous publications, On botany
Source: The Quotable Jefferson

Country

“Time is more precious than gold, more precious than diamonds, more precious than oil or any valuable treasures. It is time that we do not have enough of; it is time that causes the war within our hearts, and so we must spend it wisely.”

Cecelia Ahern (1981) Irish novelist

Source: The Gift

War , Time , Heart

“Avoid men who call you Baby, and women who have no friends, and dogs that scratch at their bellies and refuse to lie down at your feet. Wear dark glasses; bathe with lavender oil and cool fresh water. Seek shelter from the sun at noon.”

Alice Hoffman book Practical Magic

Source: Practical Magic

Women , Men , Lie , Dogs

“It's not oil that runs the world, it's shame.”

Sherman Alexie (1966) Native American author and filmmaker

Source: War Dances

World

“The stars, that nature hung in heaven, and filled their lamps with everlasting oil, give due light to the misled and lonely traveler".”

John Milton (1608–1674) English epic poet

Travel , Star , Nature , Light

“Just because i know how to change a guys oil doesn't mean i want to spend the rest of my life on my back, staring up his undercarriage.”

Janet Evanovich (1943) Novelist

Source: Metro Girl

Life , Guy , Change

“The secret of happiness is to see all the marvels of the world, and never to forget the drops of oil on the spoon.”

Paulo Coelho book The Alchemist

Source: The Alchemist

Secret , World , Forgetting , Happiness

“Among the Igbo the art of conversation is regarded very highly, and proverbs are the palm-oil with which words are eaten.”

Chinua Achebe book Things Fall Apart

Source: Things Fall Apart

Art

“Leaders and managers do not have to risk lives, profit, or mission failure because they failed to plan for a crisis. Do not allow yourself to be put on the defense by changing circumstances. No one enjoys wasting time, but don't be reluctant to call a meeting just to discuss something that might happen. Remember the oil filter theory. Rather than disobey your instincts and proceed with the status quo or embark on a risky course, invest some planning time in your business. Control your risks. Identify important decision points. Forecast potential crisis. Apply the six hour model. A little time spent discussing your business is never wasted.”

Wheeler L. Baker (1938) President of Hargrave Military Academy

Source: Crisis Management: A Model For Managers (1993), p. 74

Failure , Business , Decision , Change

“The decline in natural-gas revenues has been dramatic and the degree to which we are dependent on oil revenues, it is time for us to consider an increase in corporate and personal tax.”

Peter Lougheed (1928–2012) Canadian politician

NDP releases "extremist of the Day" number 1 http://www.albertandp.ca/ndp_releases_extremist_of_the_day_number_1, quoted in the Edmonton Journal on May 11, 2011, Alberta's NDP (April 9, 2015)

Nature , Time , Dependency , Personality

“Because I "needed" them for school I had previously extorted a chemistry set, a soldering iron a magnifining glass, a tape recorder, a fountain pen, a Stanley knife, a compass, a torch, a set of oil paints, a speedometer for my bike, some sea monkeys, an Electra set, a halliwell's, a subscription to weapons and warfare and a ticket to the opening night of the Hamilton film festival. I'm sure if I'd claimed I needed one for biology she'd have hooked me up with a prostitute.”

Tony Martin (comedian) (1964) New Zealand comedian and writer

a nest of occasionals (book).

School , Painting , Sea , Night

“You that would last long, list to my song,
Make no more coil, but buy of this oil.
Would you be ever fair and young?
Stout of teeth and strong of tongue?
Tart of palate, quick of ear?
Sharp of sight, of nostril clear?
Moist of hand and light of foot?
(Or, I will come nearer to it)
Would you live free from all diseases,
Do the act your mistress pleases;
Yet fright all aches from your bones?
Here's a medicine for the nones.”

Ben Jonson Volpone

Volpone (1606), Act II, scene ii

Disease , Light , Strong

“Found two packages of crackers. Broke into a place. … Took rice, Ramen and oil. Lord have mercy. Christ have mercy.”

Eric Frein (1983) American fugitive

Diary entries (25 October 2014 and 29 October 2014), as quoted in "‘Literally hunting humans’: Eric Frein, sniper who killed Pa. trooper, sentenced to death" https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/04/27/murder-in-his-heart-eric-frein-sniper-killer-of-pa-trooper-sentenced-to-death/?utm_term=.1fa45b04fbf7 (27 April 2017), by Fred Barbash, The Washington Post
Diary (October 2014)

Christ

“Whence thy learning? Hath thy toil
O'er books consumed the midnight oil?”

John Gay (1685–1732) English poet and playwright

Introduction, "The Shepherd and the Philosopher"; "Midnight oil" was a common phrase, used by Quarles, Shenstone, Cowper, Lloyd, and others.
Fables (1727)

Books , Learning

“Every year, of course, our opponents who are well-oiled, and very popular, and who have access to a lot of prestigious support, every year, they say this is over, and the pro-lifers are the extremists. It’s becoming more and more clear that the real extremists are the pro-abortionists. They are the ones that will not allow any dialogue at all. They are the ones who will not allow absolutely any consideration of any restriction on the abortion license, even something as hideous and nauseating as partial-birth abortion. Absolutely not. We do not talk about it. We will not consider it. This is the kind of dug-in, close-minded extremist party, namely the pro-abortionists.”

Timothy M. Dolan (1950) American Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church

Cardinal Dolan on the ‘Culture of Death’: ‘Isolated, Chic Left’ in Denial About Growing Pro-Life Support in America http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/01/26/cardinal-dolan-culture-death-isolated-chic-left-denial-growing-pro-life-support-america/ (January 26 2017)

Birth , Support

Josef Albers (1888–1976) German-American artist and educator

4 quotes from: 'The Color in my Painting'
Homage to the square' (1964)

Color , Painting , Dependency

“You're going to be roped!
And you're going to be caged!
And, as for your dust speck – hah!
That we shall boil in a hot steaming kettle of Beezle-Nut Oil!”

Dr. Seuss Horton Hears a Who!

Horton Hears a Who! (1954)

“Made me a ripper, deliver like a river, content a little more thicker, slicker…and they said
oil and water don't mix, now they all down at the beach washing off the fish.”

Lupe Fiasco (1982) rapper

"Pressure"
Albums, Lupe Fiasco's Food & Liquor (2006)

Fish , Water

“As soon as one of the anti-American presidents is elected, one of us goes in and says, “Hey, congratulations Mr. President. Now that you are president, I just want to tell you that I can make you very, very rich, you and your family. It’s several million dollars in this pocket, if you play the game our way. If you decide not to, over in this pocket, I’ve got a gun with a bullet with your name on it, in case you decide to keep your campaign promises and throw us out. Sell our oil companies your oil real cheap, or vote with us at the next UN vote, or send troops in support of ours to some place in the world such as Iraq”, and in that way, we have managed to build a world empire with very few people actually knowing that we have done this.”

John Perkins (1945) American author

Zeitgeist Addendum (2008)

People , World , Family , Way

“This poet is now, most of the time, an elder statesman like Baruch or Smuts, full of complacent wisdom and cast-iron whimsy. But of course there was always a good deal of this in the official rôle that Frost created for himself; one imagines Yeats saying about Frost, as Sarah Bernhardt said about Nijinsky: “I fear, I greatly fear, that I have just seen the greatest actor in the world.”
Sometimes it is this public figure, this official rôle — the Only Genuine Robert Frost in Captivity — that writes the poems, and not the poet himself; and then one gets a self-made man’s political editorials, full of cracker-box philosophizing, almanac joke-cracking — of a snake-oil salesman’s mysticism; one gets the public figure’s relishing consciousness of himself, an astonishing constriction of imagination and sympathy; one gets sentimentality and whimsicality; an arch complacency, a complacent archness; and one gets Homely Wisdom till the cows come home.”

Randall Jarrell (1914–1965) poet, critic, novelist, essayist

“The Other Frost”, pp. 30–31
Poetry and the Age (1953)

Wisdom , World , Fear , Home

“To burn oil!.. You can fuel with money as well.”

Dmitri Mendeleev (1834–1907) Russian chemist and inventor

Money

“In 1915 Sophie Taeuber and I carried out our first works in the simplest forms, using painting, embroidery and pasted paper [without using oil colors to avoid any reference with usual painting]. These were probably the first manifestations of their kind, pictures that were their own reality, without meaning or cerebral intention. We rejected everything in the nature of a copy or a description, in order to give free flow to what was elemental and spontaneous.”

Hans Arp (1886–1966) Alsatian, sculptor, painter, poet and abstract artist

on creating art without using oil colors to avoid any reference with usual painting, in The Art of Jean Arp, Herbert Read, Abrams, New York 1968, p. p. 34, 38
1960s

Color , Nature , Reality , Past

“It is, in other words, time for a national oil change. That is apparent to anyone who has looked at our national dipstick.”

Al Gore (1948) 45th Vice President of the United States

Quotes, NYU Law School speech (2006)

Change , Time

“What picture of American society is likely to be imprinted on the consciousness of average Europeans? Given what they read or hear every day from intellectuals and politicians, they can hardly have any choice in the unpleasant particulars, especially if they happen to be French. The picture repeatedly sketched for them is as follows: American society is entirely ruled by money. No other value, whether familial, moral, religious, civic, cultural, professional, or ethical has any potency in itself. Everything in America is a commodity, regarded and used exclusively for its material value. A person is judged solely by the worth of his bank account. Every U. S. President has been in the pockets of the oil companies, the military-industrial complex, the agricultural lobby, or the financial manipulators of Wall Street. America is the "jungle" par excellence of out-of-control, "savage" capitalism, where the rich are always becoming richer and fewer, while the poor are becoming poorer and more numerous. Poverty is the dominant social reality in America. Hordes of famished indigents are everywhere, while luxurious chauffeured limousines with darkened windows glide through the urban wilderness.”

Jean-François Revel (1924–2006) French writer and philosopher

2000s, Europe's Anti-American Obsession (2003)

Money , Family , Reality , Reading

“You find people ready enough to do the Samaritan, without the oil and twopence.”

Sydney Smith (1771–1845) English writer and clergyman

Vol. I, p. 261
Lady Holland's Memoir (1855), Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

People

“When we use the term pig, for example, we are referring to the people who systematically violate the peoples' constitutional rights- whether they be monopoly capitalists or police. The term is now being adopted by radicals, hippies, and minority peoples. Even the workers, when the pigs supported strike-breakers like they did as Union Oil where 100 local police came in a cracked strikers' heads, began to call them by their true name.”

Bobby Seale (1936) American activist

Interview with The Guardian (February 1970)

People , Support

“Keeping America competitive requires affordable energy. Here we have a serious problem. America is addicted to oil, which is often imported from unstable parts of the world.”

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

2000s, 2006, State of the Union (January 2006)

World , Problem , Parting

“It may indeed be doubted, whether butcher's meat is any where a necessary of life. Grain and other vegetables, with the help of milk, cheese, and butter, or oil, where butter is not to be had, it is known from experience, can, without any butcher's meat, afford the most plentiful, the most wholesome, the most nourishing, and the most invigorating diet.”

Adam Smith (1723–1790) Scottish moral philosopher and political economist

Source: (1776), Book V, Chapter II, Part II, Appendix to Articles I and II.

Life , Help

“I took down my portfolio, to select a drawing to copy in oil. He had never seen my works before, and appeared astonished as his eyes ranged over the sheets. He expressed the warmest admiration, and said, "How hopeless must be the task of my giving any instruction to one who can draw like this?" I pointed out to him that nature is the great study for the artist, and assured him that the reason why my works pleased him was because they are all exact copies of the works of God, — who is the great Architect and perfect Artist; and impressed on his mind this fact, that nature indifferently copied is far superior to the best idealities.”

John James Audubon (1785–1851) American ornithologist, naturalist, and painter

On a meeting with a young artist, Mr. J. B. Kidd, Ch. X, p. 140
The Life and Adventures of John James Audubon, the Naturalist (1868)

God , Nature , Study , Appearance

“One guy said, "I'm from Saudi Arabia and I'm proud of my country." Well, good for you, but forgive me for asking why. If you live in Saudi Arabia, what on Earth have you got to be proud of? If you couldn't dig money straight out of the ground, you'd all be starving. The only thing your country has to offer the world is oil. Well, it's not the only thing, but we don't need any sand, and we're all up to here with Jihad, thanks very much.”

Pat Condell (1949) Stand-up comedian, writer, and Internet personality

"Hello Saudi Arabia" (2 May 2012) https://youtube.com/watch?v=RnLTHHpKl60
2012

Money , World , Guy , Forgiveness

“China is the center of the Asian energy security grid, which includes the Central Asian states and Russia. India is also hovering around the edge, South Korea is involved, and Iran is an associate member of some kind. If the Middle East oil resources around the Gulf, which are the main ones in the world, if they link up to the Asian grid, the United States is really a second-rate power. A lot is at stake in not withdrawing from Iraq.”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

Interview by Michael Shank in Foreign Policy In Focus, February 16, 2007 https://web.archive.org/web/20070227224657/https://fpif.org/fpiftxt/3999
Quotes 2000s, 2007-09

World

“Nothing would please me more, but who else would pump the oil that we need? God damn America.”

Muammar Gaddafi (1942–2011) Libyan revolutionary, politician and political theorist

Response to a question on expelling Americans from Libya (March 1973), quoted in Time (2 April 1973) " The Arab World: Oil, Power, Violence http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,907040-6,00.html"

God

“Even the oil companies don't need an incentive of $4 billion to go out and explore. As my grandpop would say, 'They’re doing just fine, thank you.”

Joe Biden (1942) 47th Vice President of the United States (in office from 2009 to 2017)

Speech to national conference of the National Association of Black Journalists, Washington, D.C. (June 20, 2012), quoted in * 2012-06-20 Biden: 'A gaffe is when you tell the truth' Talia Buford Politico

https://www.politico.com/blogs/politico44/2012/06/biden-a-gaffe-is-when-you-tell-the-truth-126866

Ref: en.wikiquote.org - Joe Biden / Quotes / 2010s / 2012
2012

“Now, if you [his sister, Suzanne Duchamp ] have been up to my place, you will have seen, in the studio, [his former studio in France, probably in Paris] a 'Bicycle Wheel' and a 'Bottle Rack'. [both art-works became later famous ready-mades of Duchamp] – I bought this as a ready-made sculpture [sculpture tout faite]. And I h have a plan concerning this so-called bottle rack. Listen to this. Here in N. Y., I have bought various objects in the same taste and I treat them as 'ready-mades'. You know enough English to understand the meaning of 'ready-made' [tour fait] that I give these objects. – I sign them and think of an inscription for them in English. I'll give you a few examples. I have, for example, a large snow shovel on which I have inscribed at the bottom: In advance of the broken arm, French translation: 'En avance dus bras cassé' – (Don't tear your hair out) trying to understand this in the Romantic or impressionist or Cubist sense – it has nothing to do with all that. Another 'readymade' is called: Emergency in favour of twice possible French translation: Danger \Crise \en favour de 2 fois. This long preamble just to say: Take this bottle rack for yourself. I'm making it a 'readymade' remotely. You are to inscribe it at the bottom and on the inside of the bottom circle, in small letters painted with a brush in oil, silver white colour, with an inscription which I will give you herewith, and then sign it, in the same handwriting, as follows: [after] Marcel Duchamp.”

Marcel Duchamp (1887–1968) French painter and sculptor

long quote from Duchamp's letter to his sister Suzanne Duchamp, New York, c. 15 Jan. 1916; as quoted in The Duchamp Book, ed. Gavin Parkinson, Tate Publishing, London 2008 pp. 157-158
1915 - 1925

Art , Understanding , Thinking , Sense

“More than a decade after the Shah's death it is no longer necessary to be for or against him on all matters. How could one be for or against everything that happened during a reign of nearly thirty-eight years? How could Iranians not be for him when he fought over Azerbaijan or when he gave the royal assent to the bill that nationalised Iran's oil? How could one be against the principle of land reform or the enhancement of women's status? And did he not deserve support when he fought for a more just system of production and pricing for oil, which he called 'a noble substance'? But how could anyone be for him when he closed all doors on discussion and debate and effectively drove many intelligent and patriotic Iranians into the arms of reactionary mullahs? And how could one approve of the unchecked intervention of the SAVAK secret police in virtually all aspects of life, especially in the 1970s? Last but not least, it would be difficult to understand, much less to justify, his almost pathological belief that only the major powers were capable of either protecting or destabilising his regime.”

Amir Taheri (1942) Iranian journalist

The Unknown Life of the Shah (1991)

Life , Death , Women , Secret