Quotes about roll
page 4

Carl Schurz photo

“I will make a prophecy that may now sound peculiar. In fifty years Lincoln's name will be inscribed close to Washington's on this Republic's roll of honor.”

Carl Schurz (1829–1906) Union Army general, politician

Letter to Theodore Petrasch (12 October 1864)

Noel Gallagher photo
Thomas Hardy photo
Ted Nugent photo

“The magic's in my hands
When in doubt I whip it out
I got me a rock 'n' roll band
It's a free-for-all”

Ted Nugent (1948) American rock musician

"Free-for-All" on Free-for-All (1976)
Lyrics

George William Curtis photo

“The slavery debate has been really a death-struggle from that moment. Mr. Clay thought not. Mr. Clay was a shrewd politician, but the difference between him and Calhoun was the difference between principle and expediency. Calhoun's sharp, incisive genius has engraved his name, narrow but deep, upon our annals. The fluent and facile talents of Clay in a bold, large hand wrote his name in honey upon many pages. But time is already licking it away. Henry Clay was our great compromiser. That was known, and that was the reason why Mr. Buchanan's story of a bargain with J. Q. Adams always clung to Mr. Clay. He had compromised political policies so long that he had forgotten there is such a thing as political principle, which is simply a name for the moral instincts applied to government. He did not see that when Mr. Calhoun said he should return to the Constitution he took the question with him, and shifted the battle-ground from the low, poisonous marsh of compromise, where the soldiers never know whether they are standing on land or water, to the clear, hard height of principle. Mr. Clay had his omnibus at the door to roll us out of the mire. The Whig party was all right and ready to jump in. The Democratic party was all right. The great slavery question was going to be settled forever. The bushel-basket of national peace and plenty and prosperity was to be heaped up and run over. Mr. Pierce came all the way from the granite hills of New Hampshire, where people are supposed to tell the truth, to an- nounce to a happy country that it was at peace — that its bushel-basket was never so overflowingly full before. And then what? Then the bottom fell out. Then the gentlemen in the national rope -walk at Washington found they had been busily twining a rope of sand to hold the country together. They had been trying to compromise the principles of human justice, not the percentage of a tariff; the instincts of human nature and consequently of all permanent government, and the conscience of the country saw it. Compromises are the sheet-anchor of the Union — are they? As the English said of the battle of Bunker Hill, that two such victories would ruin their army, so two such sheet- anchors as the Compromise of 1850 would drag the Union down out of sight forever.”

George William Curtis (1824–1892) American writer

1850s, The Present Aspect of the Slavery Question (1859)

David Thomas (born 1813) photo
George William Russell photo
Harald V of Norway photo
Sholem Asch photo
Henry Van Dyke photo
George Gordon Byron photo
Elton John photo
Garth Brooks photo

“The thunder rolls,
And the lightnin' strikes.
Another love grows cold
On a sleepless night.
As the storm blows on
Out of control,
Deep in her heart
The thunder rolls.”

Garth Brooks (1962) American country music artist

The Thunder Rolls, written by G. Brooks and Pat Alger
Song lyrics, No Fences (1990)

Nancy Cartwright photo

“Rufus because my diaphragm gets a workout while trying to utilize the 18 vocal sounds a mole makes. Chuckie because […] he's an asthmatic with five personalities rolled into one—plus I have to do the voice the way [Christine Cavanaugh] did it for 10 years.”

Nancy Cartwright (1957) American actress

Quoted in [Voice behind Bart Simpson also lends her animated talents to other TV shows, The San Diego Union-Tribune, Knutzen, Eirik, (2002-08-18)]
In reference to voicing characters in Rugrats, whom she considers the most difficult.

Cormac McCarthy photo
Umberto Boccioni photo
Oliver Goldsmith photo
Norman Spinrad photo

“Flaming torches arching from hand to hand, the silken rolling of flesh on flesh, tautened wire vibrating to the human word, ideogrammatic gestures of fear, love, and rage, the mathematical grace of bodies moving through space—all seemed revealed as shadows on the void, the pauvre panoply of man’s attempt to transcend the universe of space and time through the transmaterial purity of abstract form.
Yet beyond this noble dance of human art, the highest expression of our spirit’s striving to transcend the realm of time and form, lay that which could not be encompassed by the artifice of man. From nothing are we born, to nothing do we go; the universe we know is but the void looped back upon itself, and form is but illusion’s final veil.
We touch that which lies beyond only in those fleeting rare moments when the reality of form dissolves—through molecule and charge, the perfection of the meditative trance, orgasmic ego-loss, transcendent peaks of art, mayhap the instant of our death.
Vraiment, is not the history of man from pigments smeared on the walls of caves to our present starflung age, our sciences and arts, our religions and our philosophies, our cultures and our noble dreams, our heroics and our darkest deeds, but the dance of spirit round this central void, the striving to transcend, and the deadly fear of same?”

Source: The Void Captain's Tale (1983), Chapter 10 (p. 117)

Charles Churchill (satirist) photo

“Wherever waves can roll, and winds can blow.”

Charles Churchill (satirist) (1731–1764) British poet

The Farewell (1764), line 38; comparable with: "Far as the breeze can bear, the billows foam", Lord Byron, The Corsair, canto i. stanza 1

Mickey Spillane photo
James Thomson (B.V.) photo

“The world rolls round for ever like a mill;
It grinds out death and life and good and ill;
It has no purpose, heart or mind or will.”

James Thomson (B.V.) (1834–1882) Scottish writer (1834-1882)

Part VIII
The City of Dreadful Night (1870–74)

GG Allin photo

“Jane Whitney: You go way beyond sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll in your performances: you self-mutilate on stage.”

GG Allin (1956–1993) American singer-songwriter

On The Jane Whitney Show

Tony Conrad photo

“I'm a ROLLS-ROYCE! A MAN-EATING ROLLS-ROYCE!”

Taubie Kushlick (1910–1991) South African actor and director

Sunday Times interview (1980s)

Sandra Fluke photo
Bob Barr photo

“…there remains time to turn back the constitutional clock and roll back excessive post-9/11 powers before we turn the corner into another Japanese internment or, closer to our own experiences, before we witness a legally sanctioned Ruby Ridge or Waco scenario.”

Bob Barr (1948) Republican and Libertarian politician

Testimony Submitted to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on America Post-9/11, 18 November 2003, as quoted in America after 9/11: Freedom Preserved or Freedom Lost? http://www.globalsecurity.org/security/library/congress/2003_h/031118-barr.htm.
2000s, 2003

William Carlos Williams photo
H. G. Wells photo

“"You don't understand," he said, "who I am or what I am. I'll show you. By Heaven! I'll show you." Then he put his open palm over his face and withdrew it. The centre of his face became a black cavity. "Here," he said. He stepped forward and handed Mrs. Hall something which she, staring at his metamorphosed face, accepted automatically. Then, when she saw what it was, she screamed loudly, dropped it, and staggered back. The nose—it was the stranger's nose! pink and shining—rolled on the floor.Then he removed his spectacles, and everyone in the bar gasped. He took off his hat, and with a violent gesture tore at his whiskers and bandages. For a moment they resisted him. A flash of horrible anticipation passed through the bar. "Oh, my Gard!" said some one. Then off they came.It was worse than anything. Mrs. Hall, standing open-mouthed and horror-struck, shrieked at what she saw, and made for the door of the house. Everyone began to move. They were prepared for scars, disfigurements, tangible horrors, but nothing! The bandages and false hair flew across the passage into the bar, making a hobbledehoy jump to avoid them. Everyone tumbled on everyone else down the steps. For the man who stood there shouting some incoherent explanation, was a solid gesticulating figure up to the coat-collar of him, and then—nothingness, no visible thing at all!”

Source: The Invisible Man (1897), Chapter 7: The Unveiling of the Stranger

Will Cuppy photo
Francis Parkman photo
Aldo Leopold photo
John Coleridge, 1st Baron Coleridge photo
Charles Bukowski photo
Robert W. Service photo

“And the heavens scowled, and the huskies howled, and the wind began to blow.
It was icy cold, but the hot sweat rolled down my cheeks, and I don’t know why;
And the greasy smoke in an inky cloak went streaking down the sky.”

Robert W. Service (1874–1958) Canadian poet

The Shooting of Dan McGrew http://freemasonry.bcy.ca/biography/service_r_w/dan_mcgrew.html (1907), The Cremation of Sam McGee http://www.wordinfo.info/words/index/info/view_unit/2640/?letter=C&spage=26

Hendrik Werkman photo

“The subject reports itself, it is never looked for. Afterwards a small drawing will follow for the color-planes which are determined immediately. These colors will be printed by large logs and updated and enlivened with the hand-roller. For pressing I use an old hand-press with lever (from c. 1800)... Sometimes it is necessary to press heavily, other times only very light. Sometimes one half of the block is rolled in [with ink] bold, the other half only skimpy. By first printing sometimes the first layer of paint on a piece of paper, a gentle tint appears which is then printed on the original. Another time I print the first print of the paper back on the original... As soon as the color-planes have been applied, the first state is reached, so to say..
.. Of course all kinds of side-steps can be made, while working. In case of enlivening the picture - both in terms of color or decoration - the main goal I always keep in mind.”

Hendrik Werkman (1882–1945) Dutch artist

version in original Dutch (origineel citaat van Hendrik Werkman, in het Nederlands): Het onderwerp meldt zichzelf en wordt nooit gezocht, daarna volgt een kleine tekening voor de kleurvlakken die meteen vaststaan. Deze kleuren worden met groote houtblokken gedrukt en met de handrol bijgewerkt en verlevendigt. Als pers gebruik ik een oude handpers met hefboom (c. 1800).. .Soms is het noodig zwaar te drukken, soms heel licht; soms wordt de ene helft van het blok vet ingerold [met inkt], de andere helft schraal, ook wordt door eerst op een stuk papier de eerste laag verf af te drukken een lichte tint gekregen die dan op het origineel afgedrukt wordt, een andere keer druk ik de eerste druk van het papier weer op het origineel af.. Zijn de kleurvlakken aangebracht, dan is als het ware de eerste staat bereikt..
.Het spreekt vanzelf dat onder het werk verschillende zijsprongetjes gemaakt kunnen worden. Ter verlevendiging, zowel wat kleur als wat versiering aangaat: het hoofddoel staat steeds voor oogen.
Quote from Werkman's letter (6.) to August Henkels, 24 Jan. 1941; as cited in H. N. Werkman - Leven & Werk - 1882-1945, ed. A. de Vries, J. van der Spek, D. Sijens, M. Jansen; WBooks, Groninger Museum / Stichting Werkman, 2015 (transl: Fons Heijnsbroek), p. 134
1940's

George Eliot photo
Tom Baker photo

“Most people don’t listen to classical music at all, but to rock-and-roll or hillbilly songs or some album named Music To Listen To Music By…”

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

“The Taste of the Age”, p. 12
A Sad Heart at the Supermarket: Essays & Fables (1962)

Samuel Rutherford photo

“There is nothing left to us but to see how we may be approved of Him, and how we may roll the weight of our weak souls in well-doing upon Him, who is God omnipotent.”

Samuel Rutherford (1600–1661) Scottish Reformed theologian

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 274.

Marilyn Manson photo
Linus Torvalds photo

“Guess what? Wheels have been round for a really long time, and anybody who "reinvents" the new wheel is generally considered a crackpot. It turns out that "round" is simply a good form for a wheel to have. It may be boring, but it just tends to roll better than a square, and "hipness" has nothing what-so-ever to do with it.”

Linus Torvalds (1969) Finnish-American software engineer and hacker

Attributed
Source: on Desktop_architects: Drivers – below the OS, Fri Aug 3 18:12:57 PDT 2007 https://lists.linux-foundation.org/pipermail/desktop_architects/2007-August/002446.html.

Anthony Crosland photo
Alan M. Dershowitz photo
John Heywood photo

“The rolling stone never gathereth mosse.”

John Heywood (1497–1580) English writer known for plays, poems and a collection of proverbs

Part I, chapter 11.
Proverbs (1546), Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Matt Taibbi photo
David Spade photo
James Dickey photo

“Here they are. The soft eyes open.
If they have lived in a wood
It is a wood.
If they have lived on plains
It is grass rolling
Under their feet forever.”

James Dickey (1923–1997) American writer

The Heaven of Animals (l. 1–6).
The Whole Motion; Collected Poems, 1945-1992 (1992)

Kin Hubbard photo

“Coming to the period following Islamic invasions, Hindu society did not bother to remember the Arabs, the Ghaznavids, the Ghurids, the Mamluks, the Khaljis, the Tughlaqs, the Sayyads, the Lodis, and the Mughals. But it took pride in Bapa Raval who had humbled the Arabs; in Maharani Nayakidevi of Gujarat and Prithivi Raj Chauhan who had defeated Muhammad Ghuri again and again; in Gora and Badal who had rescued Rana Ratan Singh from the camp of Alauddin Khalji and then laid down their lives in defence of Padmini and her Chittor; in Harihara and Bukka who had founded the Vijayanagar Empire which stood like a rock against Islamic imperialism for more than two centuries; in Rana Sangram Singh who had crossed swords with Babur; in Maharana Pratap who had defied the mightiest Mughal in the midst of great adversity; in Durgadas Rathor who had despised the wrath of Aurangzeb in defence of his right to give refuge to a rebellious Mughal prince; in Chhatrapati Shivaji who devised a new diplomacy and innovated a new art of warfare which finally worsted the most powerful Muslim empire and rolled back the Islamic invasion; in Chhatrasal Bundela and Maharaja Surajmal who revived Hindu rule in the north; in Banda Bairagi who avenged the wrongs done by Muslim despots to Guru Arjun Deva, Guru Tegh Bahadur and Guru Gobind Singh; and in Maharaja Ranjit Singh who liberated the Punjab and the North-West Frontier Province from Islamic stranglehold.”

Sita Ram Goel (1921–2003) Indian activist

Muslim Separatism – Causes and Consequences (1987)

James Jeans photo
Kate Bush photo

“Out on the wiley, windy moors
We'd roll and fall in green.
You had a temper like my jealousy:
Too hot, too greedy.
How could you leave me,
When I needed to possess you?
I hated you. I loved you, too.”

Kate Bush (1958) British recording artist; singer, songwriter, musician and record producer

Song lyrics, The Kick Inside (1978)

Anna Akhmatova photo
Alex Jones photo
Fred Phelps photo

“Thank God for the violent shooter, one of your soldier heroes in Tucson. God appointed the Afghanistan veteran to avenge himself on this evil nation. However many are dead, Westboro Baptist Church will picket their funerals. We will remind the living that you can still repent and obey. This is ultimatum time with God. Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish. Luke 13:3. This nation unleashed criminal violent veterans on Westboro Baptist Church for telling you to obey God. We told you at your soldiers' funerals that they are dying for your sins. You hate those words and you will not stop sinning. So you sent violent veterans, so-called patriot guard riders, to attack and try to silence Westboro Baptist Church. Then you sent violent crippled veteran Ryan Newell with 90 rounds of ammunition, planning to shoot five Westboro Baptist Church members while picketing. God restrained the hand of them all, then he turned the violent veteran on you. 22-year-old Jared Loughner opened fire outside a Tucson, Arizona grocery store, shooting Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, Federal Judge John M. Roll, and sixteen others. At least six are dead and counting. Congress passed three laws against Westboro Baptist Church. Congresswoman Giffords, an avid supporter of sin and baby-killing, was shot for that mischief. A federal judge in Baltimore, part of the massive military community in Maryland and in the District of Columbia, put Westboro Baptist Church on trial for faithful words from God. Federal Judge Roll paid for those sins with his life. Today, mouthy witch Sarah Palin had Representative Giffords in her crosshairs on her website. She quick took it down, however, because she is a cowardly brute like the rest of you. The crosshairs to worry about are God's and he's put you in his and your destruction is upon you. You should have obeyed. This nation of violent murderers is in full rebellion against God. God avenged himself on you today by a marvelous work in Tucson. He sits in the heavens and laughs at you in your affliction. Westboro Baptist Church prays for more shooters, more violent veterans, and more dead. Praise God for his righteous judgments in this Earth. Amen.”

Fred Phelps (1929–2014) American pastor and activist

Fred Phelps, on the 2011 Tucson shooting. As quoted in Westboro Baptist Church To Picket Christina Green’s Funeral http://www.anorak.co.uk/270124/media/westboro-baptist-church-to-picket-christina-greens-funeral.html. Anorak News. January 10, 2011.
2010s, Thank God for the Violent Shooter (2011)

Conor McGregor photo

“Why would I want to train at that bum gym? I train with my own people, I have since day one. That man needs to get his facts straight before I roll in there and buy that gym.”

Conor McGregor (1988) Irish mixed martial artist and boxer

"UFC 197 press conference" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75xAdA3uVeY (January 2016), Ultimate Fighting Championship, Zuffa, LLC
2010s, 2016

“A rolling stone gathers no moss.”
Saxum volutum non obducitur musco

Publilio Siro Latin writer

Maxim 524
Sentences, The Moral Sayings of Publius Syrus, a Roman Slave

Robert Charles Wilson photo
Poul Anderson photo
Robert X. Cringely photo

“If the automobile had followed the same development as the computer, a Rolls Royce would today cost $100 and get a million miles per gallon, and explode once a year killing everyone inside.”

Robert X. Cringely (1953) American technology journalist and columnist

Robert X. Cringely (1989), "Noted from the field" in: InfoWorld magazine, Vol. 11, nr. 10, March 6, 1989, p. 94

Peter Weiss photo
Robert Erskine Childers photo

“…the Dulcibella had begun to move in her sleep, as it were, rolling drowsily to some faint send of the sea, with an occasional short jump, like the start of an uneasy dreamer.”

Robert Erskine Childers (1870–1922) Irish nationalist and author

Source: Literary Years and War (1900-1918), The Riddle Of The Sands (1903), p. 35.

William Cullen Bryant photo

“These struggling tides of life that seem
In wayward, aimless course to tend,
Are eddies of the mighty stream
That rolls to its appointed end.”

William Cullen Bryant (1794–1878) American romantic poet and journalist

The Crowded Street http://www.gutenberg.org/files/16341/16341-h/16341-h.htm#page253, st. 10 (1864)

Alan Shepard photo

“The first one I hit pretty flush with one hand - went about 200 yards. And the second one I shanked, and it rolled into a crater about 40 yards away.”

Alan Shepard (1923–1998) American astronaut

Describing his golf shots made on the Moon — reported in Philip Morgan (April 4, 1993) "'Boy, what a ride!' - On May 5, 1961, Alan Shepard went from being a mere Navy commander to an American icon - the country's first man in space. That 15-minute, 28-second flight on Freedom 7 catapulted him into fame, searing his name and face into the collective imagination of a generation", The Tampa Tribune, p. 1.

Moby photo

“I got a phone call from Ricky Martin's management asking me if I'd like to do something with him in Florida around the winter music conference. My answer is as follows: 'I would consider doing something with Ricky Martin if and only if he publicly apologizes for performing at George W's inauguration and if he confirms that when he danced next to George W. Bush at the inauguration he could smell brimstone and that George W. Bush is in fact the spawn of Satan. So if Ricky Martin goes on national television to confirm that George W. is the spawn of Satan then I will perform with him. Otherwise no deal. And only if we can do a cover of 'In a Gadda-da-vida', but The Simpsons version, 'In the garden of Eden' (to which reverend Lovejoy responds ""that sounds like rock and or roll""). And, by the way, I'm a pretty easygoing young-ish person, so if you ever see me walking down the street just stop me and say hello. We're all in the same boat, right? of course you'll have to make it past my phalanx of security guards who are all ex-NFL linebackers, and the cadre of dobermans, and the perma-moat that I wear that's filled with electric eels and vicious sea monkeys. So if you see me just come and say hi. I'm normal.”

Moby (1965) Activist, American musician, DJ and photographer

"predictions" http://www.moby.com/journal/2001-02-15/predictions.html, journal entry (15 February 2001) at Moby's website, moby.com http://www.moby.com/

Robert Erskine Childers photo

“A keen wind from the west struck our faces, and as swiftly as it had come the fog rolled away from us, in one mighty mass, stripping clean and pure the starry dome of heaven….”

Robert Erskine Childers (1870–1922) Irish nationalist and author

Source: Literary Years and War (1900-1918), The Riddle Of The Sands (1903), p. 217.

Matthew Arnold photo
Koenraad Elst photo
Gerald Durrell photo
Bill Engvall photo
Craig David photo

“If you play the tabloid game you get burned. I’d rather say nothing at all and let things roll. You just have to ride those things out.”

Craig David (1981) English singer

Jewish Chronicle interview 1 February 2008 http://website.thejc.com/home.aspx?AId=57854&ATypeId=1&search=true2&srchstr=loftus&srchtxt=0&srchhead=1&srchauthor=0&srchsandp=0&scsrch=0

Epes Sargent photo
William S. Burroughs photo
Slavoj Žižek photo
Richard Blackmore photo
Torquato Tasso photo

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

Torquato Tasso (1544–1595) Italian poet

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

Martin Heidegger photo
Carole King photo
Rachel Maddow photo

“More drama than a junior prom, a shotgun wedding, and a paternity test all rolled into one!”

Rachel Maddow (1973) American journalist

The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC (June 8, 2009)

George W. Bush photo
Thomas R. Marshall photo
Charles Stross photo
John Dryden photo

“Than a successive title long and dark,
Drawn from the mouldy rolls of Noah's ark.”

Pt 1, line 301.
The Hind and the Panther (1687)

Musō Soseki photo

“Thus have I rolled my life throughout
Inside and out, reclined, upright.
What is all this?
A beating drum
A trumpet's blare
No more.”

Musō Soseki (1275–1351) Japanese Zen-Buddhist teacher and landscape architect

Japanese Death Poems. Compiled by Yoel Hoffmann. ISBN 978-0-8048-3179-6

George Colman the Younger photo

“Like two single gentlemen rolled into one.”

George Colman the Younger (1762–1836) English dramatist and writer

Lodgings for Single Gentlemen, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Jorge Luis Borges photo

“Of course, like all young men, I tried to be as unhappy as I could — a kind of Hamlet and Raskolnikov rolled into one.”

Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator, and a key figure in Spanish language literature

Autobiographical Notes (1970)

Omar Khayyám photo

“Would but some wing'ed Angel ere too late
Arrest the yet unfolded Roll of Fate,
And make the stern Recorder otherwise
Enregister, or quite obliterate!”

Omar Khayyám (1048–1131) Persian poet, philosopher, mathematician, and astronomer

The Rubaiyat (1120)

Susan B. Anthony photo

“The older I get, the greater power I seem to have to help the world; I am like a snowball — the further I am rolled the more I gain.”

Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906) American women's rights activist

The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=8HI_AQAAMAAJ&rdid=book-8HI_AQAAMAAJ&rdot=1: Including Public Addresses, Her Own Letters and Many from Her Contemporaries During Fifty Years, Volume 2 (1 January 1898) by Ida Husted Harper, published by Bowen-Merrill Company

Max Ernst photo

“A banal fever hallucination, soon obliterated and forgotten; it didn't reappear in M's memory until about thirty years later (on 10 August 1925), as he sat alone on a rainy day in a little inn by the seaside, staring at the wooden floor which had been scored by years of scrubbing, and noticed that the grain had started moving of its own accord (much like the lines on the [imitation] mahogany board of his childhood). As with the mahogany board back then, and as with visions seen between sleeping and waking, the lines formed shifting, changing images, blurred at first but then increasingly precise. Max {Ernst] decided to pursue the symbolism of this compulsory inspiration and, in order to sharpen his meditative and hallucinatory skills, he took a series of drawings from the floorboards. Letting pieces of paper drop at random on the floor, he rubbed over them with a black pencil. On careful inspection of the impressions made in this way, he was surprised by the sudden increase they produced in his visionary abilities. His curiosity was aroused. He was delighted, and began making the same type of inquiry into all sorts of materials, whatever caught his eye – leaves with their ribs, the frayed edges of sacking, the strokes of a palette knife in a 'modern' painting, thread rolling off a spool, and so forth. To quote 'Beyond Painting' These drawings, the first fruits of the frottage technique, were collected under the title 'Histoire Naturell.”

Max Ernst (1891–1976) German painter, sculptor and graphic artist

Quote in 'Biographical Notes. Tissue of truth, Tissue of Lies', 1929; as cited in Max Ernst. A Retrospective, Munich, Prestel, 1991, pp.283/284
1910 - 1935