“If you want the rainbow, you have to put up with the rain.”
Dolly Parton (1946) American singer-songwriter and actress
Variant: The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain!
A collection of quotes on the topic of rainbow, likeness, love, life.
“If you want the rainbow, you have to put up with the rain.”
Dolly Parton (1946) American singer-songwriter and actress
Variant: The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain!
“Try to be a rainbow in someone's cloud.”
Maya Angelou book Letter to My Daughter
Variant: Be a rainbow in somebody else's cloud.
Source: Letter to My Daughter
MF Doom (1971) hip hop artist from America
With DANGERDOOM, "Old School", The Mouse and the Mask (2005)
Sourced Lines
“Look up to the sky
You'll never find rainbows
If you’re looking down.”
Charlie Chaplin (1889–1977) British comic actor and filmmaker
"Swing High Little Girl", opening song written and sung by Chaplin for the 1969 re-release of The Circus (1928) - Full text online http://www.charliechaplin.com/biography/articles/84-Swing-little-girl
“In my world, everyone's a pony and they all eat rainbows and poop butterflies!”
Dr. Seuss (1904–1991) American children's writer and illustrator, co-founder of Beginner Books
“You run along the rainbow
And never leave the ground,
Still you don’t know why.”
Ronnie James Dio (1942–2010) American singer
"Sacred Heart" on Sacred Heart (1985)
Lyrics
Temple Grandin (1947) USA-american doctor of animal science, author, and autism activist
First Person (TV series) Episode 1 "Stairway to Heaven" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Person_(TV_series)#Season_1
Yuri Gagarin (1934–1968) Soviet pilot and cosmonaut, the first human in space
Statement of April 1961, as quoted in Warrior of Light : The Life of Nicholas Roerich : Artist, Himalayan explorer and visionary (2002) by Colleen Messina, p. 46
“Oh, God of Dust and Rainbows,
Help us to see
That without the dust the rainbow
Would not be.”
Langston Hughes (1902–1967) American writer and social activist
Megan McDonald (1959) American children's literature author
Source: The Sisters Club
David C. McClelland (1917–1998) American psychological theorist
David C. McClelland (1978). "Managing motivation to expand human freedom". American Psychologist. 33 (3): 201
“Military glory, — that attractive rainbow that rises in showers of blood.”
Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States
Speech in the United States House of Representatives opposing the Mexican war ( 12 January 1848 http://books.google.com/books?id=wiuRyJK6OocC&pg=PA106&dq=rainbow) <br class="br">1840s
Gloria Estefan (1957) Cuban-American singer-songwriter, actress and divorciada
Christmas Through Your Eyes
2007, 2008
Judy Garland (1922–1969) actress, singer and vaudevillian from the United States
Letter to Harold Arlen, as quoted in Over the Rainbow : The Wizard of Oz as a Secular Myth of America (1991) by Paul Nathanson, p. 340
Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism
Soren Kierkegaard, Three Discourses at the Communion on Fridays.1 John 3: From Cristian Discourses & The Lilies of the Field & The Birds of the Air, & Discourses at the Communion on Fridays 1848 Translated by Walter Lowrie 1940, 1961 Galaxy Books P. 298-299
1840s, Christian Discourses (1848)
Nelson Mandela (1918–2013) President of South Africa, anti-apartheid activist
1990s, Inaugural celebration address (1994)
Context: We succeeded to take our last steps to freedom in conditions of relative peace. We commit ourselves to the construction of a complete, just and lasting peace.
We have triumphed in the effort to implant hope in the breasts of the millions of our people. We enter into a covenant that we shall build the society in which all South Africans, both black and white, will be able to walk tall, without any fear in their hearts, assured of their inalienable right to human dignity — a rainbow nation at peace with itself and the world.
“Everyone likes happiness, no one likes pain. But you can't have a rainbow without a little rain.”
Ingmar Bergman (1918–2007) Swedish filmmaker
Gregory Maguire book Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
Source: Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
“No, no,” Leo said. “Rainbows. Very macho.”
Rick Riordan book The Lost Hero
Variant: Rainbows. Very Macho! ~Leo Valdez
Source: The Lost Hero
Jodi Picoult My Sister's Keeper
Variant: Love has all the lasting permanence of a rainbow — beautiful while it’s there, and just as likely to have disappeared by the time you blink.
Source: My Sister's Keeper
“Our only kiss was like an accident- a beautiful gasoline rainbow.”
Alice Sebold book The Lovely Bones
Source: The Lovely Bones
“Rainbow drops - suck them and you can spit in six different colours.”
Roald Dahl book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Source: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
John Muir (1838–1914) Scottish-born American naturalist and author
Source: The Mountains of California
“My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky”
William Wordsworth (1770–1850) English Romantic poet
My Heart Leaps Up When I Behold, (1802)
The last three lines of this form the introductory lines of the long Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood begun the next day.
Context: My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky:
So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a man;
So be it when I shall grow old,
Or let me die!
The Child is father of the Man;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.
“You hated my rainbows, now you don't like my leather. Is there anything you like on me?”
Karen Marie Moning (1964) author
Source: Dreamfever
“…gender is not sane. It's not sane to call a rainbow black and white.”
Kate Bornstein (1948) American author, playwright, performance artist, and gender theorist
“[Iris] squeezed his hand. "Don't lose hope, Frank. Rainbows always stand for hope.”
Rick Riordan book The Son of Neptune
Source: The Son of Neptune
Jaclyn Moriarty (1968) Australian writer
Source: The Murder of Bindy Mackenzie
Morgan Llywelyn book Bard: The Odyssey of the Irish
Source: Bard: The Odyssey of the Irish
Ntozake Shange for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf
Source: for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf
“rainbows apologizing for angry skies”
Barbara Ann Kipfer (1954) American linguist and lexicographer
14,000 Things to Be Happy About
Herman Melville book Billy Budd, Sailor
Source: Billy Budd, the Sailor (1891), Ch. 21
Source: Billy Budd, Sailor
Context: Who in the rainbow can draw the line where the violet tint ends and the orange tint begins? Distinctly we see the difference of the colors, but where exactly does the one first blendingly enter into the other? So with sanity and insanity. In pronounced cases there is no question about them. But in some supposed cases, in various degrees supposedly less pronounced, to draw the exact line of demarcation few will undertake tho' for a fee some professional experts will. There is nothing nameable but that some men will undertake to do it for pay.
“I’m so storming pure I practically belch rainbows.”
Brandon Sanderson book Words of Radiance
Source: Words of Radiance
Leonard Cohen (1934–2016) Canadian poet and singer-songwriter
"The Old Revolution"
Songs from a Room (1969)
Hortense Calisher (1911–2009) American novelist, short story writer, and memoirist
Queenie, 1971.
“There can be no rainbow without a cloud and a storm.”
John Heyl Vincent (1832–1920) American theologian
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 556.
Alexander Bryan Johnson (1786–1867) United States philosopher and banker
Part II. Of the Extent of Sensible Knowledge.
The Physiology of the Senses: Or, How and what We See, Hear, Taste, Feel and Smell (1856)
James Taylor (1948) American singer-songwriter and guitarist
"Long Ago and Far Away" · Early performance on Youtube (before he had given it a title) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuvO2Vw-M2Y <br class="br">Song lyrics, Mud Slide Slim and the Blue Horizon (1971)
Jim Gaffigan (1966) comedian, actor, author
That bacon tray is always at the end of the buffet, you always regret all the stuff on your plate. "What am I doing with all this worthless fruit? I should have waited! If I had known you were here I would've waited...."
King Baby
George William Russell (1867–1935) Irish writer, editor, critic, poet, and artistic painter
The Nuts of Knowledge (1903)
John Lanahan (1815–1903)
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 611.
Roger Bacon book Opus Majus
6th part Experimental Science, Ch.2 Tr. Richard McKeon, Selections from Medieval Philosophers Vol.2 Roger Bacon to William of Ockham
Opus Majus, c. 1267
Merle Haggard (1937–2016) American country music song writer, singer and musician
"Rainbow Stew", on Rainbow Stew Live at Anaheim Stadium (July 1981) · Performance on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEDT7QGDzsE <br class="br">Variant: One of these days when the air clears up <br> And the sun come shining through <br> We'll all be drinking free bubble up <br> And eating some rainbow stew.
Van Morrison (1945) Northern Irish singer-songwriter and musician
Cyprus Avenue
Song lyrics, Astral Weeks (1969)
“ye and I might meet with joy up in the rainbow”
Samuel Rutherford (1600–1661) Scottish Reformed theologian
Letter 180 to John Gordon, Laird of Cardoness Castle
Letters of Samuel Rutherford (Andrew Bonar)
Camille Paglia (1947) American writer
Source: Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson (1990), p. 36
Harry Chapin (1942–1981) American musician
Live version
Flowers are Red
Song lyrics, Living Room Suite (1978)
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) English poet, literary critic and philosopher
"Hymn in the Vale of Chamouni" (1802)
J. M. Barrie (1860–1937) Scottish writer
Source: The Little Minister (1891), Ch. 24 : The New World, and the Woman Who May Not Dwell Therein
William Morley Punshon (1824–1881) English Nonconformist minister
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 372.
Robert Seymour Bridges (1844–1930) British writer
Book IV, lines 492-492.
The Testament of Beauty (1929-1930)
Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) writer of novels, short stories, and erotica
As quoted in French Writers of the Past (2000) by Carol A. Dingle, p. 126
“Along a parabola life like a rocket flies,
Mainly in darkness, now and then on a rainbow.”
Andrey Voznesensky (1933–2010) Soviet poet
"Parabolic Ballad"; translated by W. H. Auden, p. 113.
Antiworlds, and the Fifth Ace