Quotes about put
page 36

Neil Gaiman photo
Phil Brooks photo

“Punk: Well, I've had six days to watch that scene over and over and over, and as painful as it was to watch, as painful it was to experience, I saw something more painful. Something caught my eye that was ten times more painful than my arm being mangled inside of a ladder while Alberto wrenched on it with his cross-armbreaker; it was more painful than Alberto butchering the English language; it was more painful than watching Miz [demonstrates] make his own bad-guy face, and his pathetic attempts to sound like a tough guy—"really? really?"—it was more painful than sitting through two hours of Michael Cole commentary as he struggles to sound relevant. No, I continued to watch Monday Night Raw, and what I saw was old clown shoes himself, the Executive Vice President of Talent Relations and Interim Raw General Manager, John Laurinaitis accept an award on my behalf. This wasn't just any award, it was the Slammy Award for Superstar of the Year, being accepted by a guy who's never been a superstar of thirty seconds. I mean, who's he ever beat? And I'm not a hard guy to find, I've yet to receive said Slammy. So what…[turns around and notices] oh. Speak of the devil. No, no, no, don't apologize. Where's my Slammy at?
Laurinaitis: Punk, I mailed your Slammy to you, but with the holiday season, it may take a while to get to you. But if I were you, I'd be more worried about your championship match tonight than your Slammy.
Punk: Well, if I were you, I'd wish myself best of luck in my future endeavors. But I don't expect you to do that; in fact, you wouldn't do that, just like I'm not gonna lose the Title tonight. So when TLC is over with, you're still gonna have to put up with CM Punk as your WWE Champion.
Laurinaitis: You know what, Punk? I'm gonna be the bigger man right now, okay? I mean, after all, I am taller than you. Good luck tonight, and merry Christmas.
Punk: Johnny, luck's for losers.”

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

TLC 2011
WWE Raw

Heather Brooke photo
Murasaki Shikibu photo
Edward O. Wilson photo
Michael Bloomberg photo
Glenn Beck photo

“And it was from America. Progressive movement in America. Eugenics. In case you don't know what Eugenics led us to: the Final Solution. A master race! A perfect person. …. The stuff that we are facing is absolutely frightening. So I guess I have to put my name on yes, I hope Barack Obama fails. But I just want his policies to fail; I want America to wake up.”

Glenn Beck (1964) U.S. talk radio and television host

Powers
Ryan
Beck: Stem-cell research will lead directly to the search for a new ‘master race.’
2009-03-09
ThinkProgress
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/03/09/beck-eugenics/
The Glenn Beck Program
Premiere Radio Networks
2009-03-09
on President Obama overturning the ban on federally funded stem cell research
2000s, 2009

David Bohm photo
Jean-Baptiste Say photo

“When a tree, a natural product, is felled, is society put into possession of no greater produce than that of the mere labour of the woodman?”

Jean-Baptiste Say (1767–1832) French economist and businessman

Source: A Treatise On Political Economy (Fourth Edition) (1832), Book I, On Production, Chapter IV, p. 76

Robert G. Ingersoll photo
Tim Powers photo
Derren Brown photo
John Glenn photo

“Could this have just happened?... I can’t believe that … Some Power put all this into orbit and keeps it there.”

John Glenn (1921–2016) American astronaut and politician

Exclaimed regarding the order in the universe. Cited in Awake! magazine (June 22, 1999).

“The operative goals will be shaped by the dominant group, reflecting the imperatives of the particular task area that is most critical, their own background characteristics (distinctive perspectives based upon their training, career lines, and areas of competence) and the unofficial uses to which they put the organization for their own needs.”

Charles Perrow (1925–2019) American sociologist

Variant: The dominant group, reflecting the imperatives of the particular task that is most critical (to the organization), their own background characteristics (distinctive perspectives based on their training, career lines, and areas of competence) and the unofficial uses to which they put the organization for their own ends.
Source: 1960s, "The analysis of goals in complex organizations", 1961, p. 857

Elizabeth Bibesco photo

“Our losses should frequently be put on the credit side.”

Elizabeth Bibesco (1897–1945) writer, actress; Romanian princess

Haven (1951)

Thomas Aquinas photo
Bill Clinton photo

“Webb, if I put you over at Justice I want you to find the answers to two questions for me. One, who killed JFK? And two, are there UFOs?”

Bill Clinton (1946) 42nd President of the United States

To Webster Hubbell during his interview for Attorney General, 1992, according to Hubbell's book Friends in High Places (1997) http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2843/is_n2_v22/ai_20562397/
Attributed

Carlos Drummond de Andrade photo

“p>I'm making a song
where my mother and all mothers
will see themselves mirrored,
a song that speaks like two eyes.I'm walking on a road
that runs through many countries.
They may not see me, but I see
and salute old friends.I'm spreading a secret
like a man who loves or smiles.
Affection seeks affection
in the most natural way.My life, our lives,
form a single diamond.
I've learned new words
and made others more beautiful.I'm making a song
for waking up men
and putting children to sleep.”

Carlos Drummond de Andrade (1902–1987) Brazilian poet

<p>Eu preparo uma canção
em que minha mãe se reconheça,
todas as mães se reconheçam,
e que fale como dois olhos.</p><p>Caminho por uma rua
que passa em muitos países.
Se não me vêem, eu vejo
e saúdo velhos amigos.</p><p>Eu distribuo um segredo
como quem ama ou sorri.
No jeito mais natural
dois carinhos se procuram.</p><p>Minha vida, nossas vidas
formam um só diamante.
Aprendi novas palavras
e tornei outras mais belas.</p><p>Eu preparo uma canção
que faça acordar os homens
e adormecer as crianças.</p>
"Canção amiga" ["I'm Making a Song"]
Novos Poemas [New Poems] (1948)

Alan Shepard photo

“I think about the personal accomplishment, but there's more of a sense of the grand achievement by all the people who could put this man on the moon.”

Alan Shepard (1923–1998) American astronaut

The Denver Post staff (September 29, 1992) "Shepard still shoots for moon", The Denver Post, p. 1D.

Nas photo

“People afraid of criticism but I always put myself in a sacrificial position, they been know I ain't just rappin for fame”

Nas (1973) American rapper, record producer and entrepreneur

N.I.G.G.E.R. (The Slave And The Master)
On Albums, Untitled (2008)

Enver Hoxha photo
David Bowie photo
Henry Wotton photo

“Hanging was the worst use a man could be put to.”

Henry Wotton (1568–1639) English ambassador

The Disparity Between Buckingham and Essex (1651).

Matthew Arnold photo
Olaudah Equiano photo

“Soon after this the blacks who brought me on board went off, and left me abandoned to despair. I now saw myself deprived of all chance of returning to my native country, or even the least glimpse of hope of gaining the shore, which I now considered as friendly; and I even wished for my former slavery in preference to my present situation, which was filled with horrors of every kind, still heightened by my ignorance of what I was to undergo. I was not long suffered to indulge my grief; I was soon put down under the decks, and there I received such a salutation in my nostrils as I had never experienced in my life: so that, with the loathsomeness of the stench, and crying together, I became so sick and low that I was not able to eat, nor had I the least desire to taste any thing. I now wished for the last friend, death, to relieve me; but soon, to my grief, two of the white men offered me eatables; and, on my refusing to eat, one of them held me fast by the hands, and laid me across I think the windlass, and tied my feet, while the other flogged me severely. I had never experienced any thing of this kind before; and although, not being used to the water, I naturally feared that element the first time I saw it, yet nevertheless, could I have got over the nettings, I would have jumped over the side, but I could not; and, besides, the crew used to watch us very closely who were not chained down to the decks, lest we should leap into the water: and I have seen some of these poor African prisoners most severely cut for attempting to do so, and hourly whipped for not eating. This indeed was often the case with myself.”

Olaudah Equiano (1745–1797) African abolitionist

Chap. II
The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African (1789)

Morrissey photo
Richard Rodríguez photo
Muhammad Iqbál photo

“Would we have played with our lives for nothing but worldly gain?
If our people had run after earth's goods and gold,
Need they have smashed idols, and not idols sold?…
Fake gods that men had made, who did break and shatter?
Who routed infidel armies and destroyed them with bloody slaughter?
Who put out and made cold the sacred flame in Iran?”

Muhammad Iqbál (1877–1938) Urdu poet and leader of the Pakistan Movement

Shikwa. https://archive.org/details/ShikwaJawabIShikwaIqbalsDialogueWithAllahTrKhushwantSinghIqbal
Shikwa & Jawab Shikwa : The complaint and the answer : the human grievance and the divine response

Antonie Pannekoek photo
Margaret Cho photo
Thomas Cromwell, 1st Earl of Essex photo
Christopher Hitchens photo

“Three words for those who want to put the Christ back in Christmas: Jingle Bell Rock.”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

2011-12-24
Christopher Hitchens on The True Spirit of Christmas
The Wall Street Jorunal
0099-9660
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204791104577110880355067656.html
2010s, 2011

Ben Carson photo

“I would like people to recognize in looking at my story that the person who has the most to do with what happens to you is you. It's not the environment, it's not the other people who were there trying to help you or trying to stop you. It's what you decide to do and how much effort you put behind it.”

Ben Carson (1951) 17th and current United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; American neurosurgeon

"Interview: Dr. Benjamin Carson Talks Race, Politics and Life After Medicine" http://www.christianpost.com/news/interview-dr-benjamin-carson-talks-race-politics-and-life-after-medicine-91474/, The Christian Post (March 8, 2013)

Jan Hendrik Weissenbruch photo

“When it is storming and raining, thundering and lightening I am in my element; nature must be seen in action. Then outside, I put on my jacket, put my feet in clogs, put on a hat and start on a march. When the showers settle down, with charcoal or black chalk [I] make a scribble, to keep a firm grip on what one sees. When working out, hue and color come smoothly back into the memory.”

Jan Hendrik Weissenbruch (1824–1903) Dutch painter of the Hague School (1824-1903)

version in original Dutch / citaat van J. H. Weissenbruch, in het Nederlands: Als het stormt en regent, als het dondert en bliksemt ben ik in mijn element; de natuur moet men in werking zien. Dan buiten, trek ik mijn jekker aan, steek mijn voeten in klompen, zet een soort hoed op en ga op marsch. Als de buien bedaren, met houtskool of zwart krijt een krabbel gemaakt om vast te houden wat je ziet. Bij het uitwerken komen toon en kleur vanzelf in de herinnering.
Source: J. H. Weissenbruch', (n.d.), pp. 29-30

Philip Snowden, 1st Viscount Snowden photo

“All the suns labor to kindle your flame and a microbe puts it out.”

Antonio Porchia (1885–1968) Italian Argentinian poet

Todos los soles se esfuerzan en encender tu llama y un microbio la extingue.
Voces (1943)

Jeanne Marie Bouvier de la Motte Guyon photo
Jacob Tobia photo
Menno Simons photo
Jopie Huisman photo

“I was sitting in the barn, drawing a dead bird which I had put on a box. Then the barn door opened and Kees entered [an old iron-merchant, already retired].... He came down next to me.... After a short silence he said: 'Are you painting? '.... it looks somewhat like that bird'. I said: 'To me that means a compliment Kees, because I am trying to draw that bird.' Stunned, he looked at me and asked, "Why are you doing that?" What could I answer? I said: Actually, I don't know myself'. Then he hoisted himself to his feet and said, I'll bring you the stuff next Monday' and he went to the door..”

Jopie Huisman (1922–2000) Dutch painter

translation, Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018
version in original Dutch / citaat van Jopie Huisman, in het Nederlands: ** Ik zat in de schuur en tekende een dode vogel, die ik op een kistje had neergelegd. Toen ging de schuurdeur open en kwam Kees binnen [een oud ijzerkoopman, al met pensioen].. ..Hij ging op zijn hurken naast me zitten.. ..Toen zei hij, na een korte stilte: 'Ben je aan het schilderen?'.. .. 'Het lijkt wel wat op die vogel'. Ik zei: 'Dat is voor mij een compliment, Kees, want die vogel probeer ik na te tekenen.' Stomverbaasd keek hij me aan en vroeg: 'Waarom doe je dat?' Wat moest ik daar nu op antwoorden? Ik zei: 'Ja, dat weet ik eigenlijk zelf ook niet'. Toen hees hij zichzelf overeind en zei 'Ik breng de rommel maandag wel bij je.' Hij liep naar de deur..
Source: Jopie de Verteller' (2010) - postumous, p. 27

Arthur Scargill photo
Robert Frost photo
John Maynard Keynes photo
David Dixon Porter photo
Ethan Hawke photo

“A lot of American actors when they do Shakespeare put on a phoney English accent and it drives me crazy. You're always fighting against the idea that only the British know how to do Shakespeare.”

Ethan Hawke (1970) American actor and writer

New York Daily News http://www.nydailynews.com/archives/entertainment/2000/05/11/2000-05-11_a_renaissance_man_tackles_sh.html (2000-05-11)
2000&ndash;2004

“The fourth phase which commenced with the coming of independence proved a boon for Christianity. The Christian right to convert Hindus was incorporated in the Constitution. Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru who dominated the scene for 17 long years, promoted every anti-Hindu ideology and movement behind the smokescreen of a counterfeit secularism. The regimes that followed continued to raise the spectre of ‘Hindu communalism’ as the most frightening phenomenon. Christian missionaries could now denounce as a Hindu communalist and chauvinist, even as a Hindu Nazi, any one who raised the slightest objection to their means and methods. All sorts of ‘secularists’ came forward to join the chorus. New theologies of Fulfilment, Indigenisation, Liberation, and Dialogue were evolved and put into action. The missionary apparatus multiplied fast and became pervasive. Christianity had never had it so good in the whole of its history in India. It now stood recognized as ‘an ancient Indian religion’ with every right to extend its field of operation and expand its flock. The only rift in the lute was K. M. Panikkar’s book, Asia and Western Dominance, published from London in 1953, the Niyogi Committee Report published by the Government of Madhya Pradesh in 1956, and Om Prakash Tyagi’s Bill on Freedom of Religion introduced in the Lok Sabha in December 1978.”

Sita Ram Goel (1921–2003) Indian activist

Vindicated by Time: The Niyogi Committee Report (1998)

“And then I asked him with my eyes to ask again (yes),
And then he asked me would I (yes, yes).
I put my arms around him (yes),
And drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts,
And his heart was going like mad.
Yes, I said yes, I will, yes.”

Amber (1970) Dutch born German singer, songwriter, label owner and executive producer

"Yes", from Naked; inspired by Molly Bloom's soliloquy in James Joyce's Ulysses (2002). Live performance http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htbsGpcc0Fw

Omar Khayyám photo
Jeremy Clarkson photo
John Ruskin photo
Ted Cruz photo
Rebecca Solnit photo
Mike Huckabee photo

“I pointed to the side of the road and then I pulled over and parked. When the guy got out of the car he was stripped to the waist. A typical young macho stud. He put his face within two inches of mine, and he was telling me what I was and what he was going to do to me. So I did the natural thing. I reached in and got a headlock on him, and I had him very firmly while he thrashed around. I felt I was doing just fine because I had stopped what was going on, but his girlfriend decided that he wasn't doing very well. So she ran and jumped on us. They both fell on top of me and my head crashed into the pavement. I landed on my left ear, got a hairline fracture and concussion.
[…]
It was like some kind of nether world. Most of the time I didn't know where I was. Like I'd wake up and find I. V. units in my arm, and I'd rip 'em out and say, "What kind of a hotel is this? You tell them I'm never coming here again."
[…]
When I came home from the hospital I was having terrible nightmares every night, sometimes to the point where I started not wanting to go to sleep. And I still have occasional migraines, dry eyes and short-term memory loss.
[…]
If I discovered anything in that strange, 10-month period of recovery, it's that music is the one thing that makes me sane.”

Clare Fischer (1928–2012) American keyboardist, composer, arranger, and bandleader

As quoted in "Fischer: A Ferocious Teddy Bear" http://articles.latimes.com/1992-07-03/entertainment/ca-1426_1_teddy-bear

Steve Wozniak photo

“Some great people are leaders and others are more lucky, in the right place at the right time. I'd put myself in the latter category. But I'd never call myself a normal designer of anything.”

Steve Wozniak (1950) American inventor, computer engineer and programmer

"Letters-General Questions Answered" p. 96 http://www.woz.org/letters/general/96.html
Woz.org files

Baltasar Gracián photo

“The person who does not know how to put up with others should retire into himself, if indeed he can suffer even himself.”

El que no se hallare con ánimo de sufrir apele al retiro de sí mismo, si es que aun a sí mismo se ha de poder tolerar.
Maxim 159 (p. 90)
The Art of Worldly Wisdom (1647)

James Boswell photo

“Johnson is dead. Let us go to the next best — there is nobody; no man can be said to put you in mind of Johnson.”

Quoting William Gerard Hamilton (1784)
The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. (1791)

Plutarch photo
Emma Orczy photo
Robert E. Howard photo
James McNeill Whistler photo
Robert Louis Stevenson photo
Mike Scott photo
Thierry Henry photo
Peter Greenaway photo
Joe Higgins photo
Ben Croshaw photo
Hugo Chávez photo
Sarah Orne Jewett photo

“The thing that teases the mind over and over for years, and at last gets itself put down rightly on paper — whether little or great, it belongs to Literature.”

Sarah Orne Jewett (1849–1909) American novelist, short story writer and poet

Letter to Willa Cather, quoted in the preface to The Country of the Pointed Firs and Other Stories (1925)

John Constable photo

“My observations on clouds and skies are on scraps and bits of paper, and I have never yet put them together so as to form a lecture, which I shall do.... next summer.”

John Constable (1776–1837) English Romantic painter

1836
Quoted in Leslie Parris and Ian Fleming-Williams, Constable, (Tate Gallery Publications, London, 1993), p. 37
1830s

Gloria Estefan photo
Warren Farrell photo
Daniel Dennett photo

“Surely just about everybody has faced a moral dilemma and secretly wished, "If only somebody — somebody I trusted — could just tell me what to do!" Wouldn't this be morally inauthentic? Aren't we responsible for making our own moral decisions? Yes, but the virtues of "do it yourself" moral reasoning have their limits, and if you decide, after conscientious consideration, that your moral decision is to delegate further moral decisions in your life to a trusted expert, then you have made your own moral decision. You have decided to take advantage of the division of labor that civilization makes possible and get the help of expert specialists.We applaud the wisdom of this course in all other important areas of decision-making (don't try to be your own doctor, the lawyer who represents himself has a fool for a client, and so forth). Even in the case of political decisions, like which way to vote, the policy of delegation can be defended. … Is the a dereliction of [one's] dut[y] as a citizen? I don't think so, but it does depend on my having good grounds for trusting [the delegate's] judgment. … That why those who have an unquestioning faith in the correctness of the moral teachings of their religion are a problem: if they themselves haven't conscientiously considered, on their own, whether their pastors or priests or rabbis or imams are worthy of this delegated authority over their own lives, then they are in fact taking a personally immoral stand.This is perhaps the most shocking implication of my inquiry, and I do not shrink from it, even though it may offend many who think of themselves as deeply moral. It is commonly supposed that it is entirely exemplary to adopt the moral teachings of one's own religion without question, because -- to put it simply — it is the word of God (as interpreted, always, by the specialists to whom one has delegated authority). I am urging, on the contrary, that anybody who professes that a particular point of moral conviction is not discussable, not debatable, not negotiable, simply because it is the word of God, or because the Bible says so, or because "that is what all Muslims [Hindus, Sikhs… ] [sic] believe, and I am a Muslim [Hindu, Sikh… ]" [sic], should be seen to be making it impossible for the rest of us to take their views seriously, excusing themselves from the moral conversation, inadvertently acknowledging that their own views are not conscientiously maintained and deserve no further hearing.”

Breaking the Spell (2006)

Haruki Murakami photo
Joseph Strutt photo

“A number of little birds, to the amount, I believe, of twelve or fourteen, being taken from different cages, were placed upon a table in the presence of the spectators; and there they formed themselves into ranks like a company of soldiers: small cones of paper bearing some resemblance to grenadiers caps were put upon their heads, and diminutive imitations of muskets made with wood, secured under their left wings. Thus equipped, they marched to and fro several times; when a single bird was brought forward, supposed to be a deserter, and set between six of the musketeers, three in a row, who conducted him from the top to the bottom of the table, on the middle of which a small brass cannon charged with a little gunpowder had been previously placed, and the deserter was situated in the front part of the cannon; his guards then divided, three retiring on one side, and three on the other, and he was left standing by himself. Another bird was immediately produced; and, a lighted match being put into one of his claws, he hopped boldly on the other to the tail of the cannon, and, applying the match to the priming, discharged the piece without the least appearance of fear or agitation. The moment the explosion took place, the deserter fell down, and lay, apparently motionless, like a dead bird; but, at the command of his tutor he rose again; and the cages being brought, the feathered soldiers were stripped of their ornaments, and returned into them in perfect order.”

Joseph Strutt (1749–1802) British engraver, artist, antiquary and writer

pg. 250
The Sports and Pastimes of the People of England (1801), Public entertainment

Michelle Obama photo
Adrianne Wadewitz photo

“Archivists take Wikipedia with a grain of salt. You think there's a troll behind the screen and don't know what's going on, what's the accountability. She walked us through this great unknown, Wikipedia land. She put us at ease.”

Adrianne Wadewitz (1977–2014) academic and Wikipedian

Liza Posas, Austry National Center librarian and archivist — quoted in: **Woo, Elaine (April 23, 2014). "Adrianne Wadewitz dies at 37; helped diversify Wikipedia" http://www.latimes.com/obituaries/la-me-adrianne-wadewitz-20140424,0,1077455.story. Los Angeles Times.
About

Anand Patwardhan photo
Kent Hovind photo
Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston photo

“The honourable gentleman has alluded to the distresses and financial embarrassments of the country. I should be the last man to speak of those distresses in a slighting manner; but in considering the amount of our burdens, we ought not to forget under what circumstances those difficulties have been incurred. Engaged in an arduous struggle, single-handed and unaided, not only against all the powers of Europe, but with the confederated forces of the civilized world, our object was not merely military glory—not the temptation of territorial acquisition—not even what might be considered a more justifiable object, the assertion of violated rights and the vindication of national honour; but we were contending for our very existence as an independent nation. When the political horizon was thus clouded, when no human foresight could point out from what quarter relief was to be expected, when the utmost effort of national energy was not to despair, I would put to the honourable gentleman whether, if at that period it could have been shown that Europe might be delivered from its thraldom, but that this contingent must be purchased at the price of a long and patient endurance of our domestic burdens, we should not have accepted the conditions with gratitude? I lament as deeply as the honourable gentleman the burdens of the country; but it should be recollected that they were the price which we bad agreed to pay for our freedom and independence.”

Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865) British politician

Speech in the House of Commons (16 May 1820), quoted in George Henry Francis, Opinions and Policy of the Right Honourable Viscount Palmerston, G.C.B., M.P., &c. as Minister, Diplomatist, and Statesman, During More Than Forty Years of Public Life (London: Colburn and Co., 1852), pp. 15-16.
1820s

“Put music to our troubles and we'll dance them away.”

The Ghost.
A→B Life (2002)

Chauncey Depew photo
Rex Grossman photo
Nick Lowe photo

“Even if I was really prolific — which I'm not — I think I'd always put at least a couple of covers on my record. I think it's a sort of healthy thing to do. It shows that you're not totally self-obsessed.”

Nick Lowe (1949) British singer

"Nick Lowe" interview with Noel Murray at the A.V. Club (27 June 2007) http://www.avclub.com/articles/nick-lowe,14119/

Henri Matisse photo

“I simply put down colours which render my sensation.”

Henri Matisse (1869–1954) French artist

1905 - 1910, Notes of a Painter' (1908)

Bill Clinton photo
Calvin Coolidge photo
Donald J. Trump photo
Karl Popper photo
Shepard Smith photo
Michael Savage photo
Robert Smith (musician) photo
James Jeans photo
Stephen Colbert photo

“Well folks, it's October and you know what that means: only a few more weeks 'til Hallowe'en when my family traditionally puts up our Christmas decorations. People come from far and wide to visit our haunted manger. We make their kids stick their hands in a spoooky bowl of Frankincense!! It's actually just spaghetti.”

Stephen Colbert (1964) American political satirist, writer, comedian, television host, and actor

On The Colbert Report (28 September 2006). Video available at Colbert Nation http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/76103/september-28-2006/the-blitzkrieg-on-grinchitude

Joseph Strutt photo

“In each of the cathedral churches there was a bishop, or an archbishop of fools, elected; and in the churches immediately dependent upon the papal see a pope of fools. These mock pontiffs had usually a proper suit of ecclesiastics who attended upon them, and assisted at the divine service, most of them attired in ridiculous dresses resembling pantomimical players and buffoons; they were accompanied by large crowds of the laity, some being disguised with masks of a monstrous fashion, and others having their faces smutted; in one instance to frighten the beholders, and in the other to excite their laughter: and some, again, assuming the habits of females, practised all the wanton airs of the loosest and most abandoned of the sex. During the divine service this motley crowd were not contended with singing of indecent songs in the choir, but some of them ate, and drank, and played at dice upon the altar, by the side of the priest who celebrated the mass. After the service they put filth into the censers, and ran about the church, leaping, dancing, laughing, singing, breaking obscene jests, and exposing themselves in the most unseemly attitudes with shameless impudence. Another part of these ridiculous ceremonies was, to shave the precentor of fools upon a stage erected before the church, in the presence of the populace; and during the operation, he amused them with lewd and vulgar discourses, accompanied by actions equally reprehensible. The bishop, or the pope of fools, performed the divine service habited in the pontifical garments, and gave his benediction to the people before they quitted the church. He was afterwards seated in an open carriage, and drawn about to the different parts of the town, attended by a large train of ecclesiastics and laymen promiscuously mingled together; and many of the most profligate of the latter assumed clerical habits in order to give their impious fooleries the greater effect; they had also with them carts filled with ordure, which they threw occasionally upon the populace assembled to see the procession. These spectacles were always exhibited at Christmas-time, or near to it, but not confined to one particular day.”

Joseph Strutt (1749–1802) British engraver, artist, antiquary and writer

pg. 345
The Sports and Pastimes of the People of England (1801), Festival of Fools