Quotes about pitch (267 quotes, page 3)

“He was my favorite hitter. He could do almost anything he wanted to do at bat. He was a scientific hitter. I've seen him deliberately go for the home run late in a game and get it. Even if it meant pulling an outside pitch, he'd pull because he'd made up his mind to do it. Another thing I liked about him was the power he generated when he hit the ball between the infielders. This is a sure sign of a great hitter.”

Hank Aaron (1934) Retired American baseball player

On Stan Musial, as quoted in "The Scoreboard: Braves' Aaron Among Best of Bargains" https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=w8IbAAAAIBAJ&sjid=n08EAAAAIBAJ&pg=7161%2C5971222 by Les Biederman, in The Pittsburgh Press (August 30, 1967)

Home , Game

“The last war simplified the balance of political forces in the world by reducing them to two. For the first time, it made the power of the Communist sector of mankind (embodied in the Soviet Union) roughly equal to the power of the free sector of mankind (embodied in the United States). It made the collision of these powers all but inevitable. For the world wars did not end the crisis. They raised its tensions to a new pitch. They raised the crisis to a new stage. All the politics of our time, including the politics of war, will be the politics of this crisis.”

Whittaker Chambers Witness

Source: Witness (1952), p. 7

War , World , Time

“.. so before I died I wanted to paint a large canvas that I had worked out in my head, and all month long I worked [on Tahiti] day and night at fever pitch... It's all done without a model.”

Paul Gauguin (1848–1903) French Post-Impressionist artist

late quote about the start of his famous large painting 'Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going'
Source: 1890s - 1910s, The Writings of a Savage (1996), pp. 159-160: in a letter from Tahiti to a friend, 1898

Painting , Night

“In Atlantic City, 60 miles from here, you'll find contractors and small businesses who lost everything because Donald Trump refused to pay his bills. Now remember what the President said last night -- don't boo, vote. People who did the work and needed the money, and didn't get it – not because he couldn't pay them, but because he wouldn't pay them. He just stiffed them. That sales pitch he's making to be your president? Put your faith in him – and you'll win big? That's the same sales pitch he made to all those small businesses. Then Trump walked away, and left working people holding the bag.”

Hillary Clinton (1947) American politician, senator, Secretary of State, First Lady

Presidential campaign (April 12, 2015 – 2016), 2016 Democratic National Convention (July 28, 2016)

Money , People , Faith , Business

“We don't have that kind of a club. We've been a relaxed team all season and I expect us to be the same in the Series. Pressure didn't get us down during the National League race. We fought off Milwaukee, St. Louis and Los Angeles without cracking. Now that we have come this far, we aren't going to look back now. As a team I would have to rate the Braves over the Yankees. If the Braves had won the pennant, I believe they would have been good enough to beat the Yankees, too. We have a better field club and better pitching than they do. We'll get our share of runs, too.”

Roberto Clemente (1934–1972) Puerto Rican baseball player

As quoted in "World Series Prediction: 'Pirates in Six Games,' Says Clemente" by Bill Nunn, Jr. in The New Pittsburgh Courier (October 8, 1960), p. 25
Baseball-related, <big><big>1960s</big></big>, <big>1960</big>
Context: "The Yankees aren't going to frighten this club. Except for power, we are a better all-round club than the Yankees and this is going to pay off in a world championship for Pittsburgh in six games." Clemente [... ] isn't worried about the Pirates being affected by Series jitters. "We don't have that kind of a club. We've been a relaxed team all season and I expect us to be the same in the Series. Pressure didn't get us down during the National League race. We fought off Milwaukee, St. Louis and Los Angeles without cracking. Now that we have come this far, we aren't going to look back now. As a team I would have to rate the Braves over the Yankees. If the Braves had won the pennant, I believe they would have been good enough to beat the Yankees, too. We have a better field club and better pitching than they do. We'll get our share of runs, too." Clemente, who played in Yankee Stadium during the All-Star Game, admitted the late afternoon shadows in the New York park could be a disadvantage to the Pirates outfielders. "The ball is hard to follow and it may give us some trouble. I really don't think it will make a difference in the outcome of the Series though."

Angels , Season

““When the blessed canopy had been fixed about a mile from the gate of Arangal, the tents around the fort were pitched together so closely that the head of a needle could not go between them… Orders were issued that every man should erect behind his own tent a kathgar, that is wooden defence. The trees were cut with axes and felled, notwithstanding their groans; and the Hindus, who worship trees, could not at that time come to the rescue of their idols, so that every cursed tree which was in that capital of idolatry was cut down to the roots…”

Amir Khusrow (1253–1325) Indian poet, writer, musician and scholar

About Sultan ‘Alau’d-Din Khalji (AD 1296-1316) and his generals conquests in Warangal (Andhra Pradesh) Elliot and Dowson, History of India as told by its own Historians,Vol. III, p. 81-85
Khazainu’l-Futuh

Tree , Time

“At times, in the scales of misery, society seemed of small account to Leopardi – emperor and beggar alike pitched into the grave. So conceived, philosophical pessimism always risked becoming political defeatism. Timpanaro was not subject to this temptation. He was intensely – even on occasion, he admitted, too vehemently – political. But he was also quite free from the monomania of any ‘pan-politicism’, as he once called it.”

Perry Anderson (1938) British historian

Spectrum: From Right to Left in the World of Ideas (2005), Ch. 9. "Philologist Extraordinary, Sebastiano Timpanaro" (2001)

Time

“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.

Men , World , Strong

“I never threw an illegal pitch. The trouble is, once in a while I toss one that ain't never been seen by this generation.”

Satchel Paige (1906–1982) American baseball player and coach; Negro Leagues

New York Times (June 9, 1982)

“In pitch dark I go walkin' in your landscape
Broken branches trip me as I speak
Just 'cause you feel it doesn’t mean it’s there”

Thom Yorke (1968) English musician, philanthropist and singer-songwriter

Lyrics, Hail to the Thief (2003)

Feeling

“A poem might begin for me from a rhythmical phrase without words but with an an emotional / tonal pitch or colour which will announce itself. Other times I' ll just become obsessed by something.. hoping that eventually it will speak to me in English.”

Jan Zwicky (1955) Canadian philosopher

Interview with Anne Simpson - 'Words from Canadian poets in conversation', 2002
Other

Hope , Time

“Here's the pitch…Swing and a fly ball, you want another winner here? Coleman going to it … YOU GOT IT! That's a winner! 6–0 Cardinals!”

Jack Buck (1924–2002) American sportscaster

Calling the final out of the 1987 National League Championship Series as the Cardinals advanced to the 1987 World Series.
1980s

Flying

“I hit many what you call the "bad bol" pitches, and get good wood. The bol' travel like bullet. That remind me, I hit 565 foote hum-rum in Chicaga last year; the bol' disappear from centerfield, and Raj Hornsby tell me it longest drive he ever saw hit out of Wrigley Field. The bol' feel good on the bat but I feel bad at heart, when no writer with our team play up the big drive. I feel effort not appreciated.”

Roberto Clemente (1934–1972) Puerto Rican baseball player

As quoted by Bill Nunn, Jr. in The New Pittsburgh Courier (June 25, 1960); reproduced in Clemente: The Passion and Grace of Baseball's Last Hero https://books.google.com/books?id=jIhcvFs-k1cC&pg=PA98 (2006) by David Maraniss, p. 98
Comment: Clemente is not entirely correct. At least nationally (via TSN's weekly Pirates report), one veteran Pirates beat writer did do his part to publicize the blast. See Les Biederman (5/27/59 and 6/6/66) in Media, as well as Ernie Banks in Opponents.
Baseball-related, <big><big>1960s</big></big>, <big>1960</big>

Travel , Feeling , Effort , Heart

“Here's the pitch to Mookie Wilson. Winning run at second. Ground ball to first, it is a run…an error! An error by Buckner! The winning run scores! The Mets win it 6 to 5 with three in the 10th! The ball went right through the legs of Buckner and the Mets with 2 men out and nobody on have scored three times to bring about a seventh game, which will be played here tomorrow night. Folks, it was unbelievable. An error, right through the legs of Buckner. There were two outs, nobody on, a single by Carter, a single by Mitchell, a single by Ray Knight, a wild pitch, an error by Buckner. Three in the 9th for the Mets. They've won the game 6-5 and we shall play here … tomorrow night! Well, open up the history book, folks, we've got an entry for you.”

Jack Buck (1924–2002) American sportscaster

Calling the final moments of Game 6 of the 1986 World Series.
1980s

Men , Books , Error , History

“That's easy. The new rules have made these pitchers turn square, and their offerings have been clouted. I know some pitchers who used the old emery and the shiner and all the rest, and they were bearcats. Now they have to get by on their natural ability and they don't rate so high. I can think of one pitcher who was a wonder last year. They took the old sail ball away from him, and now he hasn't enough to get by in a good class AA league. So it goes. They say that the ball is livelier. I think that is the old bunk. The pitchers are not pitching as they used to and the batters have a better chance.”

Babe Ruth (1895–1948) American baseball player

As quoted in "Ruth Has One Great Fear: May Drive Ball Back At Pitcher Some Day and Injure Him"

Nature , Thinking , Chance

“Doctors is all swabs…and that doctor there, why, what do he know about seafaring men? I been in places hot as pitch, and mates dropping round with Yellow Jack, and the blessed land a-heaving like the sea with earthquakes — what do the doctor know of lands like that?”

Robert Louis Stevenson book Treasure Island

and I lived on rum, I tell you.
Source: Treasure Island (1883), Ch. 3, The Black Spot.

Men , Sea

“I trained with the lad last season at Southampton for two or three weeks. In all the years I played there was never anything I saw on a training pitch that took my breath away, but he was doing things on the pitch that made me stand up and say 'Wow'. He could go on and make a better player than Wayne Rooney.”

Theo Walcott (1989) English association football player

Matt Le Tissier, former England footballer, 2006 ( Source http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/sport/football.html?in_article_id=400107&in_page_id=1779)
About

Training , Season

“I hear people say I swing at bad pitches. What is a bad pitch? If I can hit it, it's not a bad pitch.”

Roberto Clemente (1934–1972) Puerto Rican baseball player

As quoted in "SPORTS BEAT: Bucco Ship Needs Clemente's Big Bat" by Wendell Smith in The New Pittsburgh Courier (April 10, 1965), p. 15
Baseball-related, <big><big>1960s</big></big>, <big>1965</big>

People

“Today I was on the Rue Laffette where the art dealers are. There is so much of interest to see here. You know the things that you call 'the artistic' in art. The French possess to a high degree this sense of not having to bring everything to a pitch of perfection. The mobility in their nature really comes to their aid there. We Germans always obediently paint our pictures from top till bottom, and are much to ponderous to do the little oil-sketches and improvisations which so often say more than a finished painting.”

Paula Modersohn-Becker (1876–1907) German artist

In a letter to her husband Otto Modersohn, from Boulevard Raspail 203, Paris, 14 February 1903; as quoted in Paula Modersohn-Becker – The Letters and Journals, ed: Günther Busch & Lotten von Reinken; (transl, A. Wensinger & C. Hoey; Taplinger); Publishing Company, New York, 1983, p. 292
1900 - 1905

Art , Nature , Sense , Painting

“We need a player who will be a fox in the box and on the pitch. We need a player like Owen is for Liverpool.”

Arsène Wenger (1949) French footballer and manager

Thierry Henry, in an interview after the 2001 FA Cup final. (13 May 2001) http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/teams/a/arsenal/1329408.stm
Misattributed

Box

“The children of fighter pilots tell different stories than other kids do. None of our fathers can write a will or sell a life insurance policy or fill out a prescription or administer a flu shot or explain what a poet meant. We tell of fathers who land on aircraft carriers at pitch-black night with the wind howling out of the China Sea. Our fathers wiped out aircraft batteries in the Philippines and set Japanese soldiers on fire when they made the mistake of trying to overwhelm our troops on the ground. Your Dads ran the barber shops and worked at the post office and delivered the packages on time and sold the cars, while our Dads were blowing up fuel depots near Seoul, were providing extraordinarily courageous close air support to the beleaguered Marines at the Chosin Reservoir, and who once turned the Naktong River red with blood of a retreating North Korean battalion. We tell of men who made widows of the wives of our nations' enemies and who made orphans out of all their children. You don't like war or violence? Or napalm? Or rockets? Or cannons or death rained down from the sky? Then let's talk about your fathers, not ours. When we talk about the aviators who raised us and the Marines who loved us, we can look you in the eye and say "you would not like to have been American's enemies when our fathers passed overhead". We were raised by the men who made the United States of America the safest country on earth in the bloodiest century in all recorded history. Our fathers made sacred those strange, singing names of battlefields across the Pacific: Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima, Okinawa, the Chosin Reservoir, Khe Sanh and a thousand more. We grew up attending the funerals of Marines slain in these battles. Your fathers made communities like Beaufort decent and prosperous and functional; our fathers made the world safe for democracy.”

Pat Conroy (1945–2016) American novelist

Eulogy for a Fighter Pilot (1998)

Love , Life , Death , Men

“In that one moment, during an era in which sluggers threatened to take over the sport, Carl Hubbell had restored to pitching its true eminence. The man with skill in his arm, courage in his heart, and craft in his brain, could still set down the brute man with the club. It meant more than a man striking out great hitters; it stood for baseball's interpretation of man's growth. We have come away from men with clubs and dim brains. Hubbell's performance those five outs was baseball's way of representing all this, of representing the contest between brains and brawn. Never was brawn so thoroughly routed.”

Arnold Hano (1922) American writer

From Greatest Giants of Them All (1967), p. 82
Sports-related

Men , Way , Courage , Sport

“Nothing to it. Those Yankees were the best team. Figure it out. After we got going we won twelve straight World Series games—twelve in a row. It was murder. The Red Sox had the greatest outfield with Lewis, Speaker and Hooper. But the Yankees had the greatest punch baseball ever knew. We never even worried five or six runs behind. Ruth—Gehrig—Lazerri—Combs—Dickey—wham, wham, and wham—no matter who was pitching.”

Babe Ruth (1895–1948) American baseball player

As quoted in "Babe Ruth, Idle First time In 23 Years, Blames His Legs"

World , Game

“Off the stretch, Orosco, here's the pitch…swing and a long one into left field! Way back in the corner…GRAND SLAMMMMMAAHHH! A grand slam home run by Herr! And that's a winner! Twelve to eight!”

Jack Buck (1924–2002) American sportscaster

Calling Tom Herr's game-winning grand slam home run on Seat Cushion Night against the New York Mets in April 1987.
1980s

Way , Home

“Z-relation, or rather, "that certain pitch-class collections share the same 'interval vector' even though they are neither transpositionally nor inversionally equivalent was first pointed out by Howard Hanson in Harmonic Materials of Modern Music (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1960), p. 22, and by David Lewin in "Re: The Intervallic Content of a Collection of Notes," Journal of Music Theory 4:1 (1960). For a general criticism of Forte's concepts of pitch-class set equivalence see Perle, "Pitch-Class Set Analysis: An Evaluation," Journal of Musicology 8:2”

George Perle (1915–2009) American composer

1990
Page 67, note 8
See: Musical set theory
The Listening Composer

Music

“The victorious army on the right and on the left departed towards Ajmer… When the crow-faced Hindus began to sound their white shells on the backs of the elephants, you would have said that a river of pitch was flowing impetuously down the face of a mountain of blue… The army of Islam was completely victorious, and a hundred thousand grovelling Hindus swiftly departed to the fire of hell… He destroyed (at Ajmer) the pillars and foundations of the idol temples, and built in their stead mosques and colleges, and the precepts of Islam, and the customs of the law were divulged and established.”

Muhammad of Ghor (1160–1206) Ghurid Sultan

Hasan Nizami, Taj-ul-Maasir,about the conquest of Ajmer by Muhammad Ghauri in 1192: E and D, II, pp.214-15. quoted from Lal, K. S. (1992). The legacy of Muslim rule in India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 2

Law , Mountain , Hell , Victory

“Sometimes you see beautiful people with no brains. Sometimes you have ugly people who are intelligent, like scientists. Our pitch is a bit like that. From the top it's a disgrace but the ball rolls at normal speed.”

José Mourinho (1963) Portuguese association football player and manager

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/funny_old_game/7004282.stm
Chelsea FC

People , Beauty , Intelligence , Speed

“It has changed a bit, of course. The speed and all that. But let me tell you something: in the olden times, let's say the year, I don't know, in the Sixties for instance, we would eat a plate of spaghetti and run out onto the pitch. Then people started saying 'they're too full', meaning you'd get bloated like a pig if you ate spaghetti. But this shows you those guys were clever because nowadays all the medical experts recommend pasta for athletes and footballers because you digest it slowly.”

Alfredo Di Stéfano (1926–2014) Argentine association football player

The Guardian interview (2008)

People , Guy , Change , Time

“The prejudice for Sir Isaac has been so great, that it has destroyed the intent of his undertaking, and his books have been a means of hindering that knowledge they were intended to promote. It is a notion every child imbibes almost with his mother's milk, that Sir Isaac Newton has carried philosophy to the highest pitch it is capable of being carried, and established a system of physics upon the solid basis of mathematical demonstration.”

George Horne (1730–1792) English churchman, writer and university administrator

George Horne, written anonymously in his A Fair, Candid, and Impartial Statement of the Case between Sir Isaac Newton and Mr. Hutchinson (1753)

Books , Mathematics , Knowledge

“[The Analytical Engine] might act upon other things besides number, were objects found whose mutual fundamental relations could be expressed by those of the abstract science of operations, and which should be also susceptible of adaptations to the action of the operating notation and mechanism of the engine…Supposing, for instance, that the fundamental relations of pitched sounds in the science of harmony and of musical composition were susceptible of such expression and adaptations, the engine might compose elaborate and scientific pieces of music of any degree of complexity or extent.”

Ada Lovelace (1815–1852) English mathematician, considered the first computer programmer

As quoted by Menabrea, Luigi (1842). Sketch of the Analytical Engine invented by Charles Babbage Esq.. Scientific Memoirs (Richard Taylor): 694.

Music , Science

“The pitch for the show, the real pitch, when Larry and I went to NBC in 1988, was we want to show how a comedian gets his material. The show about nothing was just a joke in an episode many years later”

Jerry Seinfeld (1954) American comedian and actor

Statement about the show Seinfeld, in "Jerry Seinfeld here. I will give you an answer." at Reddit (6 January 2014) https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1ujvrg/jerry_seinfeld_here_i_will_give_you_an_answer/ceitvvp
Context: The pitch for the show, the real pitch, when Larry and I went to NBC in 1988, was we want to show how a comedian gets his material. The show about nothing was just a joke in an episode many years later, and Larry and I to this day are surprised that it caught on as a way that people describe the show, because to us it's the opposite of that.

“Certain individual words do possess more pitch, more radiance, more shazam! than others, but it's the way words are juxtaposed with other words in a phrase or sentence that can create magic.”

Tom Robbins (1932) American writer

The Syntax of Sorcery (2012)
Context: Certain individual words do possess more pitch, more radiance, more shazam! than others, but it's the way words are juxtaposed with other words in a phrase or sentence that can create magic. Perhaps literally. The word "grammar," like its sister word "glamour," is actually derived from an old Scottish word that meant "sorcery." When we were made to diagram sentences in high school, we were unwittingly being instructed in syntax sorcery, in wizardry. We were all enrolled at Hogwarts. Who knew?
When a culture is being dumbed down as effectively as ours is, its narrative arts (literature, film, theatre) seem to vacillate between the brutal and the bland, sometimes in the same work. The pervasive brutality in current fiction – the death, disease, dysfunction, depression, dismemberment, drug addiction, dementia, and dreary little dramas of domestic discord – is an obvious example of how language in exploitative, cynical or simply neurotic hands can add to the weariness, the darkness in the world. Less apparent is that bland writing — timid, antiseptic, vanilla writing – is nearly as unhealthy as the brutal and dark. Instead of sipping, say, elixir, nectar, tequila, or champagne, the reader is invited to slurp lumpy milk or choke on the author's dust bunnies.

Way

“Here and Now are needles which
Sew a pattern black as pitch,
Waiting for the rocket's light.”

Philip José Farmer (1918–2009) American science fiction writer

"Imagination" in America Sings (1949)
Context: Miles above the Earth we know,
Fancy's rocket roars. Below,
Here and Now are needles which
Sew a pattern black as pitch,
Waiting for the rocket's light.

Light , Waiting

“Eloquence, when at its highest pitch, leaves little room for reason or reflection; but addressing itself entirely to the fancy or the affections, captivates the willing hearers, and subdues their understanding.”

David Hume book An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

Section 10 : Of Miracles Pt. 2
An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748)
Context: Eloquence, when at its highest pitch, leaves little room for reason or reflection; but addressing itself entirely to the fancy or the affections, captivates the willing hearers, and subdues their understanding. Happily, this pitch it seldom attains. But what a Tully or a Demosthenes could scarcely effect over a Roman or Athenian audience, every Capuchin, every itinerant or stationary teacher can perform over the generality of mankind, and in a higher degree, by touching such gross and vulgar passions.

Understanding

“All day you wait for the pitch you like; then when the fielders are asleep, you step up and hit it.”

Warren Buffett (1930) American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist

Interview in Forbes magazine (1 November 1974)
Variant: The stock market is a no-called-strike game. You don't have to swing at everything — you can wait for your pitch. The problem when you're a money manager is that your fans keep yelling, "Swing, you bum!"
1999 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting, as quoted in The Tao of Warren Buffett by Mary Buffett and David Clark p. 145
Context: I call investing the greatest business in the world … because you never have to swing. You stand at the plate, the pitcher throws you General Motors at 47! U. S. Steel at 39! and nobody calls a strike on you. There's no penalty except opportunity lost. All day you wait for the pitch you like; then when the fielders are asleep, you step up and hit it.

Waiting

“In crossing a heath, suppose I pitched my foot against a stone and were asked how the stone came to be there, I might possibly answer that for anything I knew to the contrary it had lain there forever; nor would it, perhaps, be very easy to show the absurdity of this answer.”

William Paley (1743–1805) Christian apologist, natural theologian, utilitarian

Source: Natural Theology (1802), Ch. 1 : State of the Argument.
Context: In crossing a heath, suppose I pitched my foot against a stone and were asked how the stone came to be there, I might possibly answer that for anything I knew to the contrary it had lain there forever; nor would it, perhaps, be very easy to show the absurdity of this answer. But suppose I found a watch upon the ground, and it should be inquired how the watch happened to be in that place, I should hardly think of the answer which I had given, that for anything I knew the watch might have always been there. Yet why should not this answer serve for the watch as well as for the stone; why is it not admissible in that second case as in the first? For this reason, and for no other, namely, that when we come to inspect the watch, we perceive — what we could not discover in the stone — that its several parts are framed and put together for a purpose, e. g., that they are so formed and adjusted as to produce motion, and that motion so regulated as to point out the hour of the day; that if the different parts had been differently shaped from what they are, or placed in any other manner or in any other order than that in which they are placed, either no motion at all would have carried on in the machine, or none which would have answered the use that is now served by it.
This mechanism being observed … the inference we think is inevitable, that the watch must have had a maker — that there must have existed, at some time and at some place or other, an artificer or artificers who formed it for the purpose which we find it actually to answer, who comprehended its construction and designed its use.
Nor would it, I apprehend, weaken the conclusion, that we had never seen a watch made; that we had never known an artist capable of making one; that we were altogether incapable of executing such a piece of workmanship ourselves, or of understanding in what manner it was performed; all this being no more than what is true of some exquisite remains of ancient art, of some lost arts, and, to the generality of mankind, of the more curious productions of modern manufacture.

“I am YES and I am NO,
Black as pitch and white as snow,
Love me, hate me, reconcile
Hate with love, perfect with vile,
So equal justice shall be done
And life shared between moon and sun.”

Robert Graves (1895–1985) English poet and novelist

"The God Called Poetry".
Country Sentiment (1920)
Context: Then speaking from his double head
The glorious fearful monster said
"I am YES and I am NO,
Black as pitch and white as snow,
Love me, hate me, reconcile
Hate with love, perfect with vile,
So equal justice shall be done
And life shared between moon and sun.
Nature for you shall curse or smile:
A poet you shall be, my son."

Love , Life , Hate , Justice

“If we lavishly and boldly push forward in the creation and distribution of our riches, it is hard to over-estimate the pitch of beneficial influence to which we may attain in the present. But the maintenance of such a position is physically impossible. We have to make the momentous choice between brief greatness and longer continued mediocrity.”

William Stanley Jevons book The Coal Question

The Coal Question (1865)
Context: The alternatives before us are simple. Our empire and race already comprise one-fifth of the world's population, and by our plantation of new states, by our guardianship of the seas, by our penetrating commerce, by the example of our just laws and firm constitution, and above all by the dissemination of our new arts, we stimulate the progress of mankind in a degree not to be measured. If we lavishly and boldly push forward in the creation and distribution of our riches, it is hard to over-estimate the pitch of beneficial influence to which we may attain in the present. But the maintenance of such a position is physically impossible. We have to make the momentous choice between brief greatness and longer continued mediocrity.

“This guy should never play football again. What is he doing on the football pitch?”

Arsène Wenger (1949) French footballer and manager

Martin Taylor, who injured Arsenal striker Eduardo. (23 February 2008) http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2008/feb/23/newsstory.birminghamcityfc
Context: This guy should never play football again. What is he doing on the football pitch? I've gone along with the idea for a long time that to stop Arsenal, you have to kick Arsenal. I knew that was coming for a long time now.

Guy , Football

“Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind. And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry. Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded by patriotism, will offer up all of their rights unto the leader and gladly so. How do I know? For this is what I have done. And I am Caesar.”

Julius Caesar (-100–-44 BC) Roman politician and general

This statement by an unknown author has also been wrongly attributed to William Shakespeare, but there are no records of it prior to late 2001. It has been debunked at Snopes.com http://www.snopes.com/quotes/caesar.htm
Misattributed

Hate , War , Fear

“It is proof of the most vital principle of the English Constitution, which no foreigner can understand, that when they are brought together in the public interest, they never get deflected from the main issue before them by the memory of ancient conflict or the impossibility of working together. That is the great secret of the paradox that in this country alone will you see the perfection of Parliamentary Government carried to the pitch it has been.”

Arthur James Balfour (1848–1930) British Conservative politician and statesman

Speech in the Speaker's Courtyard of Parliament for his 80th birthday ceremony (25 July 1928), quoted in The Times (26 July 1928), p. 16
Lord President of the Council

Understanding , Country , Perfection , Secret

“Folks, this here young man deserves to be in the Hall of Fame. Not only because he pitched two no-hitters, but because he got two bonuses from Branch Rickey.”

Branch Rickey (1881–1965) American baseball player and coach

Dizzy Dean, speaking on May 12, 1956 about pitcher Carl Erskine, during a post-game radio interview following Erskine's second career no-hitter; as quoted by Erskine in Tales from the Dodgers' Dugout: A Collection of the Greatest Dodgers Stories Ever Told (2004), p. 70

“The hardest thing about being a black writer in this town is having to pitch your black story to white execs…Also, most of the time when we go into rooms to pitch, there’s one token black executive that sometimes can be a friend and sometimes can be a foe. I wonder if they think it makes me more comfortable, if that makes me think that they’re a woke network or studio because they’ve got that one black exec. It feels patronizing. I’m not against a black exec. I want there to be more of them.”

Lena Waithe (1984) American actress, producer, and screenwriter

On the still existing obstacles to pitching ideas in “Lena Waithe Is Changing the Game” https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2018/03/lena-waithe-cover-story in Vanity Fair (April 2018)

Thinking , Time , Feeling , Making love

“If we would return to the shaggy condition of primitive ages, we need only acquire an environment which will favor from age to age those whose peripheries retain to the intensest extent the hirsute tendency. If the disparities between the sexual tastes of male and female would be leveled or inverted, the conditions which have caused the existing disparity must be reversed. The horse exposed to a fad for dwarfs would, in the course of ages, the length of time depending on the pitch of discrimination, be dwindled to its fox-like proportions of eocene times. In an environment requiring courage, foxes would either disappear or grow heroic. Serpents could be rendered as loving as doves by a procedure no more laborious than that by which they have been made vindictive. And beardless aesthetes may become philosophers as easily as have men.”

J. Howard Moore (1862–1916)

Source: Better-World Philosophy: A Sociological Synthesis (1899), Race Culture, pp. 208–209

Courage , Time , Dependency , Horse

“Her forte was not necessarily the audibility of her music, for she had a defective area where her voice cracked at a high-pitch, with a limited one-octave range, but she turned it into her virtue for she knew how to mould her voice.”

Begum Akhtar (1914–1974) Indian musician

What a life

Music

“Mathewson pitched against Cincinnati yesterday. Another way of putting it is that Cincinnati lost a game of baseball. The first statement means the same as the second.”

Damon Runyon (1880–1946) writer

New York American (July 16, 1911); reproduced in The Greater New York Sports Chronology https://books.google.com/books?id=A2UaAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA76&lpg=PA76&dq=%22first+statement+means+the+same+as+the+second%22+runyon&source=bl&ots=Pp278uraUi&sig=ACfU3U1qsQVI53-UKcPcqaPgJos3wquNPw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiG5NLuh8flAhVtvFkKHbINDMcQ6AEwCnoECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q=%22first%20statement%20means%20the%20same%20as%20the%20second%22%20runyon&f=false (2009)

Way , Game

“My sophomore year, we were in Tallahassee and I ran a reverse very early in the game, and I remember being nailed by Jack Youngblood. I remember watching the ball being pitched to me and thinking, when the ball was about halfway, that it was kind of race to see whether he was going to get to the ball first or me. He was foaming at the mouth. I still have nightmares from the hit he gave me.”

Jack Youngblood (1950) American football player, defensive end, Pro Football Hall of Fame, College Football Hall of Fame

Florida State WR Barry Smith, The Tampa Tribune 2007-11-24

Game , Thinking

“Nuclear power has been a difficult issue for Plaid Cymru. We are opposed to nuclear power but have been forced to weigh concerns against the need to attract well-paid jobs to our rural areas. These concerns have created a compromise position of not opposing the replacement of existing nuclear plants. This has pitched people with concerns about the language and environment against each other.”

Leanne Wood (1971) Welsh Plaid Cymru politician

Plaid's nuclear compromise should change, says Leanne Wood https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-45329200, BBC News, 28 August 2018
2018

People

“Simply the best defender in the world. Whenever he is on the pitch, his presence reassures the others, from the goalkeeper to the attackers.”

Thiago Silva (1984) Brazilian footballer

Raí, 2013 http://rmcsport.bfmtv.com/info/366036/psg-thiago-silva-la-perfection-au-bresilien/
From former and current footballers

World

“Allahee…Allah-hee… Allah-hee…. I continued to raise the pitch. When I opened my eyes I asked them: Is this haraam?”

Bismillah Khan (1916–2006) Indian musician

I am calling the God. I am thinking of him. I am searching for Him. Why do you call my search haraam?
In reply to the Shia Maulvis in Iran who were arguing with him that Music should be banned, he sang the song in Raag Bhairavi and posed a question to them to which they had no answer.
Quote, Power Profiles

“For me, Paul Scholes is on the same level as Ronaldo. The real Ronaldo, not Cristiano. I always thought he was a great player but after I played alongside him I realised he was Manchester United’s greatest player of all time. He did his talking on the pitch which I respected most.”

Paul Scholes (1974) English footballer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkBSmp4IhAE
Fabien Barthez

Time

“Paul Scholes has been the best England midfield player for 30-odd years. You’d probably have to go back to Bobby Charlton to find someone who could do as much as Scholes. When the ball arrives at his feet he could tell you where every player on that pitch is at that moment. His awareness is superb.”

Paul Scholes (1974) English footballer

http://thepeoplesperson.com/2013/11/05/what-made-paul-scholes-so-special-30928/
Gordan Strachan

“I’m star-struck when I see Paul Scholes because you never see him. On the pitch you can’t catch him. Off the pitch he disappears.”

Paul Scholes (1974) English footballer

http://redflagflyinghigh.com/2011/05/blogs/scholes-tribute-the-worlds-top-players-on-the-ginger-prince
Luis Figo

Star

“All screws of a given pitch belonging to a system of the third order are the generators of a certain hyperboloid. There is… a different hyperboloid for each pitch. …all these hyperboloids are concentric.”

Robert Stawell Ball (1840–1913) Irish astronomer

A Treatise on the Theory of Screws https://books.google.com/books?id=ECZ-MkhTdvkC 1900 p. 173

“Cannavaro has that unmistakable presence as a leader and in my impression, is exactly like that tough and cool-headed defense he shows on the pitch.”

Fabio Cannavaro (1973) Italian footballer

Iker Casillas, when asked to describe Cannavaro after joining Real Madrid http://www.cannaddicted.com/English/Fabio/Quotes.htm

“I really enjoy watching Zinedine Zidane. His elegance of movement on the pitch and his skills are uncanny. Apart from being an impressive player, he is also very humble and very likeable as a person. A great man.”

Zinedine Zidane (1972) French association football player and manager

Rivaldo, former Brazilian footballer currently playing for Bunyodkor.( Source http://www.uefa.com/magazine/news/Kind=16/newsId=395064.html).

Personality

“Zidane was from another planet. When Zidane stepped onto the pitch, the 10 other guys just got suddenly better. It is that simple.”

Zinedine Zidane (1972) French association football player and manager

Zlatan Ibrahimovic, 2012 http://blogs.bettor.com/Ibrahimovic-Zidane-is-out-of-this-world-a209913

Guy

“Gerrard has been my idol for 10 years and is one of the best players in the world. He is the example of what all midfield players aspire to. He is always there in the heat of the battle, leading by example. He is everywhere you look - in defence, in the middle of the pitch and in attack. I would love to be close to that level.”

Steven Gerrard (1980) English footballer

Daniele De Rossi, ( Source http://www.liverpoolfc.com/news/first-team/121199-de-rossi-gerrard-is-my-idol) (8th May 2015)

World , Love , Making love

“The admirers of Mr Pitt extol the reverberation he gave to our councils, the despondence he banished, the spirit he infused, the conquests he made, the security he affixed to our trade and plantations, the humiliation of France, the glory of Britain carried under his administration to a pitch at which it never had arrived—and all this is exactly true.”

William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham (1708–1778) British politician

Horace Walpole, Memoirs of King George II: Volume III (Yale University Press, 1985), p. 53.
About William Pitt

“There was no doubt that the man could talk. At the drop of a hat, Mr. Keyes could deliver a grammatically flawless disquisition on virtually any topic. On the stump, he could wind himself up into a fiery intensity, his body rocking, his brow running with sweat, his fingers jabbing the air, his high-pitched voice trembling with emotion as he called the faithful to do battle against the forces of evil.”

Alan Keyes (1950) American politician

Barack Obama. Quoted in The Audacity of Hope - Page 210 - by Barack Obama.

Faith , Evil

“I say...upon this point, what JUDGE BLACKSTONE says; and that is, that the right to resist oppression always exists, but that those who compose the nation at any given time must be left to judge for themselves when oppression has arrived at a pitch to justify the exercise of such right.”

William Cobbett (1763–1835) English pamphleteer, farmer and journalist

‘To the Freemen of Coventry’, Political Register (4 April 1818), p. 404
1810s

Time , Exercises

“After a storm comes a calm.
Even a pitch-dark night is bound to turn into a red dawn.
If we use wisdom and persistence to solve every difficulty we encounter.
A rosy future will be awaiting us.”

Deng Feng-Zhou (1949) Chinese poet, Local history writer, Taoist Neidan academics and Environmentalist.

(zh-TW) 暴雨烏雲久必晴，夜深輾轉是天明。
面臨困境憑心力，度過難關一片清。

"Patience" (忍耐)

Source: Deng Feng-Zhou, "Deng Feng-Zhou Classical Chinese Poetry Anthology". Volume 6, Tainan, 2018: 81.

Future , Wisdom , Night

“Here was my city, immense, overpowering, flooded with energy and light... The world, at that moment , opened before me, challenging me, beckoning me, demanding something of me that it would take more than a lifetime to give, but raising all my energies by its own vivid promise to a higher pitch.”

Lewis Mumford (1895–1990) American historian, sociologist, philosopher of technology, and literary critic

Sketches from Life: The Autobiography of Lewis Mumford (1982), p. 130

World , Light

“The universal hypocrisy has so entered into the flesh and blood of all classes of our modern society, it has reached such a pitch that nothing in that way can rouse indignation. Hypocrisy in the Greek means "acting," and acting—playing a part—is always possible.”

Leo Tolstoy The Kingdom of God Is Within You

Variant Translation: Hypocrisy with good reason means the same as acting, and anybody can pretend — act a part.
Source: The Kingdom of God is Within You (1894), Chapter XII, Conclusion—Repent Ye, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at Hand

Universe , Way , Parting

“The truth is that the connection of Ireland with England has been full of trouble, and I fear there is no remedy. ... It is a chronic disease, and even if it is not to be cured we have proved in the past that we can get on with it and yet carry on our Empire to a vast pitch of prosperity. What has been done in the past can be done in the future. ... [D]o not let us attempt to cure it by a measure which will put this island into a condition which never during 700 years of our history has existed—which will hand over those who have had the courage to defend us to the maltreatment of their worst enemies, and which will establish at our very doors a post—a hostile post—which will be at the pleasure of any foreign power which may sometimes be hostile to us.”

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

Speech to a banquet of the Merchant Taylors' Company, London (10 May 1886), quoted in The Times (11 May 1886), p. 12
1880s

Courage , Hostility , History , Past

“You've got to be lucky to pitch a no-hitter, and if you have good stuff, it's easier to be lucky.”

Sandy Koufax (1935) American baseball player

Speaking on July 1, 1990, at Chavez Ravine, in reference to a no-hitter thrown there just two days before by the Dodgers' Fernando Valuenzela (and, coincidentally, just hours before the Yankees' Andy Hawkins would, thanks to three 8th-inning Bomber miscues, famously record a 4-0, complete-game loss to Chicago, despite giving up no hits ); as quoted in "Notes on a Scorecard" https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-07-02-sp-474-story.html by Allan Malamud, in The Los Angeles Times (July 2, 1990)

“I'll never know. I've never been in a fight. But I doubt whether pitching speed would have any significance. You can't go into a windup in the ring.”

Sandy Koufax (1935) American baseball player

As quoted in "Stuart's Problem; Suppose Sandy Had Become a Boxer" by Sid Ziff, in The Los Angeles Times (July 7, 1966)

Speed , Fight

Quotes about pitch page 3

Quotes about pitch
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