Quotes about shock
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“Shock is a merciful condition. It allows you to get through disaster with a necessary distance between you and your feelings.”

Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer

Source: Sugar Daddy

Feeling

“Hope for the best, be prepared for the worse. Life is shocking, but you must never appear to be shocked. For no matter how bad it is it could be worse and no matter how good it is it could be better.”

Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American author and poet

Life, Hope, Appearance

“Henry," said Charlotte, who appeared to have recovered from her shock, "if you set yourself on fire deliberately, I will institute divorce proceedings. Now sit down and eat your supper. And say hello to our guest.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Angel

Variant: Henry," said Charlotte, who seemed to have recovered from her shock, "if you set yourself on fire deliberately, I will institute divorce proceedings. Now sit down and eat your supper. And say hello to our guest.
Source: Clockwork Angel

Appearance

“Yes, Jason Grace." Favonius arched an eyebrow. "I fell in love with a. Does that shock you?”

Rick Riordan book The House of Hades

Source: The House of Hades

Love

“There are some people who can receive a truth by no other way than to have their understanding shocked and insulted.”

Carl Sandburg (1878–1967) American writer and editor

In Reckless Ecstasy (1904)

People, Truth, Way, Understanding

“Just when you think it's reconciled, accepted, someone points it out to you, and it just hits you all over again, that shocking.”

Sarah Dessen book The Truth About Forever

Source: The Truth About Forever

Thinking

“Most of us are about as eager to be changed as we were to be born, and go through our changes in a similar state of shock.”

James Baldwin (1924–1987) (1924-1987) writer from the United States

Change

“The snow has quietness in it; no songs,
no smells, no shouts or traffic.
When I speak
my own voice shocks me.”

Anne Sexton (1928–1974) poet from the United States

Source: All My Pretty Ones

“Why is marijuana against the law? It grows naturally on our planet, serves a thousand different functions, all of them positive. To make marijuana against the law is like saying that God made a mistake. Like on the seventh day God looked down, "There it is. My Creation, perfect and holy in all ways. Now I can rest. [Gives shocked expression] Oh my Me! I left fuckin' pot everywhere. I should never have smoked that joint on the third day. Hehe, that was the day I created the possum. Still gives me a chuckle. But if I leave pot everywhere, that's gonna give people the impression they're supposed to … use it. Now I have to create Republicans."”

Bill Hicks (1961–1994) American comedian

" … and God wept", I believe is the next part of that story.
Chicago '91 (1991)

God, People, Law, Way

“That was the thing. You never got used to it, the idea of someone being gone. Just when you think it's reconciled, accepted, someone points it out to you, and it just hits you all over again, that shocking.”

Sarah Dessen book The Truth About Forever

Source: The Truth About Forever

Idea, Thinking

“But you can't muscle through a five-hour run that way; you have to relax into it like easing your body into a hot bath, until it no longer resists the shock and begins to enjoy it.”

Christopher McDougall (1962) American journalist and writer

Source: Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen

Way

“Must have been quite the culture shock, going there.”
“Yes it was.” Idris doesn’t say that the real culture shock has been in coming back.”

Khaled Hosseini book And the Mountains Echoed

Source: And the Mountains Echoed

“I know it may come as a shock, but it's sort of considered polite to wait for the consent of the woman. In fact, I'm pretty sure that if you don't wait, you may have to deal with pesky criminal charges like kidnapping and rape.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Bleeds

Waiting

“I screwed up. Again. You're shocked, I'm sure.”

Kelley Armstrong The Reckoning

Source: The Reckoning

“Sometimes I see something so moving I know I’m not supposed to linger. See it and leave. If you stay too long, you wear out the wordless shock. Love it and trust it and leave.”

Don DeLillo Underworld

Source: Underworld

Love

“You live like this, sheltered, in a delicate world, and you believe you are living. Then you read a book (Lady Chatterley, for instance), or you take a trip, or you talk with Richard, and you discover that you are not living, that you are hibernating. The symptoms of hibernating are easily detectable: first, restlessness. The second symptom (when hibernating becomes dangerous and might degenerate into death): absence of pleasure. That is all. It appears like an innocuous illness. Monotony, boredom, death. Millions live like this (or die like this) without knowing it. They work in offices. They drive a car. They picnic with their families. They raise children. And then some shock treatment takes place, a person, a book, a song, and it awakens them and saves them from death.”

Anaïs Nin book The Diary of Anaïs Nin

The Diary of Anaïs Nin , Volume One 1931-1934
Diary entries (1914 - 1974)

Death, Children, Pleasure, Books

“Chong said, 'Do yourself a favor, Morg. Next time you're staring at a girl's boobs, look up. You'll be shocked to learn it, but there's going to be a face up there. Nose, mouth, eyes. And behind the eyes is an actual person.”

Jonathan Maberry book Rot & Ruin

Source: Rot & Ruin

Girl, Learning, Time, Personality

“He leaned closer to me and then seemed shocked as he realized what he was doing.

"Why would you do that? Why would you do that for me?”

Richelle Mead book The Golden Lily

Source: The Golden Lily

“Did you know," he said slowly, "That Victor Dashkov is sitting on your bed?"
"Yeah," I said. "It was kind of a shock to us too.”

Richelle Mead book Spirit Bound

Source: Spirit Bound

“Alec had his arms around Magnus and was kissing him, full on the mouth. Magnus, who appeared to be in a state of shock, stood frozen.”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

Kiss, Appearance

“There is, though, nothing that prepares us for the worst things in our life. There is nothing you can do to stop the shock, or buffer the pain.”

James Frey book The Final Testament of the Holy Bible

Source: The Final Testament of the Holy Bible

Life, Pain

“I was yours once 'till death if you'd cared to keep me, but I'm someone else's now - I can't hang about whining forever - and he's mine in a way that shocks you, but why don't you stop being shocked, and attend to your own happiness?”

E.M. Forster book Maurice

Source: Maurice

Death, Happiness, Way

“I froze, shocked. (And don't try to claim that you did anything different the first time a government bureaucrat pulled a gun on you.)”

Brandon Sanderson Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians

Source: Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians

Time

“I see no good reason why the views given in this volume should shock the religious feelings of any one.”

Charles Darwin book On the Origin of Species (1859)

Source: On the Origin of Species (1859), chapter XV: "Recapitulation and Conclusion", page 421 http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=449&itemID=F391&viewtype=image, in the sixth (1872) edition Source: The Origin of Species

Feeling

“Antifragility is beyond resilience or robustness. The resilient resists shocks and stays the same; the antifragile gets better.”

Nassim Nicholas Taleb book Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder

Source: Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder

“I suppose the shock of recognition is one of the nastiest shocks of all.”

Donna Tartt book The Secret History

Source: The Secret History

“Conflict is the gadfly of thought. It stirs us to observation and memory. It instigates invention. It shocks us out of sheep-like passivity, and sets us at noting and contriving…conflict is a sine qua non of reflection and ingenuity.”

John Dewey (1859–1952) American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer

Memory

“Of course. Because at the Gallagher Academy, "precautions" usually equals "voluntary shock therapy.”

Ally Carter Out of Sight, Out of Time

Source: Out of Sight, Out of Time

“I looked at her and tried to speak, but all I could think about was how shocked she'd be if I said what I was thinking.”

John Grisham book A Painted House

Source: A Painted House

Thinking

“Scenes of blood and cruelty are shocking to our ear and heart. What man has nerve to do, man has not nerve to hear.”

Harriet Beecher Stowe book Uncle Tom's Cabin

Source: Uncle Tom's Cabin

Heart

“In a time of social fragmentation, vulgarity becomes a way of life. To be shocking becomes more important - and often more profitable - than to be civil or creative or truly original.”

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

Life, Way, Time

“Though liberals do a great deal of talking about hearing other points of view, it sometimes shocks them to learn that there are other points of view.”

William F. Buckley Jr. (1925–2008) American conservative author and commentator

Up from Liberalism (1959); also quoted in The American Dissent : A Decade of Modern Conservatism (1966) by Jeffrey Peter Hart, p. 171 Variants: Liberals claim to want to give a hearing to other views, but then are shocked and offended to discover that there are other views. As quoted in The Nastiest Things Ever Said about Democrats (2006) by Martin Higgins, p. 93 Liberals do a great deal of talking about hearing other points of view, but it sometimes shocks them to learn that there are other points of view. As quoted in his obituary in The TImes (28 February 2008) http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article3447250.ece.

Learning

“Uh, the Council," I said. "Big shock, they aren't helping."

Murphy looked like she might be asleep, but she snorted. "So we're on our own."

Yeah."

Good. It's more familiar.”

Jim Butcher book Changes

Source: Changes

Help

“It shocks me how I wish for… what is lost and cannot come back.”

Sue Monk Kidd (1948) Novelist

Source: Traveling With Pomegranates: A Mother-Daughter Story

“The important thing in writing is the capacity to astonish. Not shock—shock is a worn-out word—but astonish.”

Terry Southern (1924–1995) American author

“Sometimes I get so immersed in my own company, if I unexpectedly run into someone I know, it's a bit of a shock and takes me a while to adjust.”

Kazuo Ishiguro book Never Let Me Go

Source: Never Let Me Go

“There is only one kind of shock worse than the totally unexpected: the expected for which one has refused to prepare.”

Mary Renault book The Charioteer

Source: The Charioteer

“Great tragedies have great consequences. They ripple through the fabric of this world and the next. When the loss is too great for either world to bear, Everlost absorbs the shock, like a cushion between the two.”

Neal Shusterman book Everwild

Source: Everwild

World, Loss

“Noise is relative to the silence preceding it. The more absolute the hush, the more shocking the thunderclap.”

Alan Moore V for Vendetta

Source: V for Vendetta

Silence

“Surfing?” he asked. She laughed, and the sound sent a shock wave through the water. The wailing faded to background noise. Annabeth wondered if anyone had ever laughed in Tartarus before—just a pure, simple laugh of pleasure. She doubted it.”

Rick Riordan book The House of Hades

Source: The House of Hades

Pleasure, Water

“It didn't matter whether he was nearby or far away. His image would drift up into your mind just when you least expected it, shocking you, making your chest pound. Making your heart ache.”

Banana Yoshimoto book Asleep

Source: Asleep

Heart

“It's shocking the things we call love.”

Deb Caletti (1963) American writer

Source: The Secret Life of Prince Charming

Love

“Look at what Bush has done. The economy took an incredible hit after September 11. That was a huge shock to the economy. And we've recovered a lot quicker than we thought, thanks to Bush and his economic policy.”

Christine O'Donnell (1969) American Tea Party politician and former Republican Party candidate

Donahue
2002-11-22
TV appearances

“Eight years ago, when the life of this Republic seemed frozen by a fatalistic terror, we proved that this is not true. We were in the midst of shock — but we acted. We acted quickly, boldly, decisively.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945) 32nd President of the United States

1940s, Third inaugural address (1941)

Life, Decision

“My first memory of Nirvana was getting a cassette of demos, which ended up becoming Bleach. Everybody's response was that this was an amazing band and these were amazing songs. It was another indication that the Northwest had something special that you couldn't argue with.
It was pretty shocking to see a threepiece that sounded like that, and trying to get inside the head of a guy who writes a song like "Floyd the Barber" – where does the kernel of a song like that start?
The Seattle scene benefitted from an MTV culture, and it was because of the way Nirvana looked and presented themselves that created this kind of unanimous support worldwide. Rock music had become kind of hedonistic – 35-year-old men taking a helicopter to the stage and dating supermodels, and going out of their way to separate themselves from their audience. Nirvana, more than any other band, rocked way harder, had significant originality, while looking like guys you went to high school with. I think that was their secret. There was an inclusion that was long overdue, and it was what rock was supposed to be about.
The legend isn't simply going to be the way that he took his life; I believe it will always be the songs.”

Chris Cornell (1964–2017) American singer-songwriter, musician

Soundgarden Era

Life, Men, Secret, School

“Man remains in the end what he started as in the beginning: a biosystem with a limited capacity for change. When this capacity is overwhelmed, the consequence is future shock.”

Alvin Toffler book Future Shock

Future Shock (1970), ch. 15

Change, Future

“I came to the understanding that individually we are responsible for the way in which we live and for the care of our human frame by good nutrition, proper exercise and a balanced lifestyle. It is this, together with a strong focused mind, that enables us to draw from our vast inner resources and strength to make the most of our time on this planet. The changes in my life came by way of a massive physical and psychological shock and were implemented for the purpose of healing and motivating my recovery. A change in our diet and lifestyle of course can be started at any time, and is of interest to anybody wishing to maximise their health and vitality, leading to a more fulfilling life. This was how I discovered the benefits of cutting meat and dairy from my diet and then taking the correct care of my body’s nutritional requirements to help heal my mind, body and soul.”

Heather Mills (1968) former glamour model, activist

"Discovering Veganism", in heathermills.org (2016) http://www.heathermills.org/veganism/

Life, Health, Way, Exercises

“I don't have the soreness I used to have before. I'm not sluggish. I recover a lot faster. If I get a little bump or bruise, it hurts for a second and then it goes away. I'm a lot stronger. I was shocked. When I first started, I was, 'What the hell? I have more energy. I'm a lot stronger than I was before.”

David Carter (1987) Player of American Football

About his switch to a vegan diet. "Bears' David Carter: 300 lbs of veganism" https://chicago.suntimes.com/sports/bears-david-carter-300-lbs-of-veganism/, interview with the Chicago Sun Times (4 August 2015).

Hell, Hurt

“And then one fine day the bourgeoisie is awakened by a terrific reverse shock: the gestapos are busy, the prisons fill up, the torturers around the racks invent, refine, discuss.People are surprised, they become indignant. They say: “How strange! But never mind — it’s Nazism, it will pass!” And they wait, and they hope; and they hide the truth from themselves, that it is barbarism, but the supreme barbarism, the crowning barbarism that sums up all the daily barbarisms; that it is Nazism, yes, but that before they were its victims, they were its accomplices; that they tolerated that Nazism before it was inflicted on them, that they absolved it, shut their eyes to it, legitimized it, because, until then, it had been applied only to non-European peoples; that they have cultivated that Nazism, that they are responsible for it.”

Aimé Césaire (1913–2008) Martiniquais politician

Source: Discourse on Colonialism (1955), p. 36

People, Truth, Hope, Business

“Finally Jones came in with a blinding fastball, the way Sad Sam used to throw ’em, and Clemente unloaded. The wind was blowing in from left field that day, and blowing hard. This was 1960, remember, before the fences had been moved in, and nobody was hitting home runs at Candlestick. Not Mays, not Cepeda, not anybody. Clemente’s bat hit the ball, and the result absolutely clubbed the crowd into awed silence for a long moment. Right into that wet whipping wind the ball carried. Right on through, hit 120 feet high in a long soaring majestic parabola that came down finally over 450 feet away. There is just no way of telling how far Clemente’s home run blast would have traveled had it not been for that wind. Suffice it to say partisan Giant fans suddenly broke their shell-shocked silence and let loose a gagantic roar. For two innings the stadium buzzed. For days the Giants talked about it. Even today if you slip up behind a Giant pitcher and suddenly whisper in his ear: ‘Remember the home run Clemente hit?’ he’s likely to jump as high as if he’d been caught putting spit on baseballs.”

Arnold Hano (1922) American writer

From "Roberto Clemente: Arriba!" in Baseball Stars of 1962 (March 1962), edited by Ray Robinson, p. 115
Sports-related

Sadness, Way, Travel, Home

“It's shocking, the positions,
the unchecked simplicity with which
one mind contrives to fertilize another!
Such positions the Kama Sutra itself doesn't know.”

Wisława Szymborska (1923–2012) Polish writer

"An Opinion Concerning the Question of Pornography"
Poems New and Collected (1998), The People on the Bridge (1986)

“There was a white man sitting at the kitchen table, warming his hands by wrapping them around a hot cup of tea. He had kind of an oblong face, curly red hair piled on top, a close-cropped but dense red beard, shocking blue eyes that always looked wide open. He face was ruddy with the outdoors, and the way he was sitting there with that tea, he looked so calm, so centered, almost like he was in meditation. When I came in, he looked at me and smiled just a trace, without showing his teeth…”

Neal Stephenson book Zodiac

The legendary S.T. finally meets the legendary Hank Boone (proto-Enoch Root character), end of chapter 24
Zodiac (1988)

Smile, Way, Tea

“No honest man or woman in Germany feels responsible for these things. Good Germans took Nazism as a new religion. These people are shocked by the revelations which have shown that Nazism was not idealism, but a means to the performance of criminal acts…
In war a German feels bound to join the ranks without question. Three of my sons were called up. I could not hold back. I wrote from the concentration camp to Admiral Raeder, C. in C. of the Navy, asking to be allowed to return to the submarine service or to do any other service in the Navy. I heard nothing for several months, and then a reply came, not from Raeder but from Keitel, head of the Wehrmacht. He thanked me, but regretted I could not be employed on active service.”

Martin Niemöller (1892–1984) German anti-Nazi theologian and Lutheran pastor

Replying to questions on the atrocities of the concentration camps, at a press conference in Naples, Italy, and confirming that he actually had written a widely publicized letter from such a camp, early in the war, to be permitted to serve in the military (5 June 1945)

War, People, Religion, Feeling

“The university is a space for would-be adults to explore new ideas, to expand their knowledge, to interrogate power, to learn how to make an argument. A space within which students can be challenged, even upset or shocked or made angry.”

Kenan Malik (1960) English writer, lecturer and broadcaster

Free speech in an age of identity politics (2015)

Idea, Knowledge, Learning, Universe

“This mechanistic approach to psychiatry is being used extensively at present; I think it can be stated unequivocally that it is fraught with extreme danger. There is not only an emotional but an intellectual change in the patients. Those who have seen fighters that have been in many battles know the 'punch-drunk' or 'slap-happy' conditions and may recognize a similar state in some patients after shock therapy.”

Roy R. Grinker, Sr. (1900–1993) American psychiatrist and neurologist

Grinker (1942) as cited in: Linda Andre (2009) Doctors of Deception: What They Don't Want You to Know about Shock. p. 49

Happiness, Thinking, Change

“In the decade after the war Freud’s theories dominated the narrow circles of British intellectuals. His psycho-analysis was accepted warmly for many reasons. It was new and exciting, it was shocking, it debunked religion and morals, it promised an internal liberation from all restraints. Nevertheless, it was essentially a creed of escape into an inner world of complexes and repressions and away from social and economic realities.”

John Desmond Bernal (1901–1971) British scientist

Bernal (1937) "Psycho-Analysis and Marxism" in: The Labour Monthly, Vol. 19, July 1937, No. 7, pp. 435-437. Online here http://www.marxists.org/archive/bernal/works/1930s/psycho.htm on Marxists Internet Archive (2010).

War, World, Religion, Reality

“Native Americans would say that [the sight of a fox killed in a trap] was the moment when my fate was sealed. They say that you sign nature's unwritten contract to work with animals at a very young age as a result of some experience, either good or bad, that happens in early childhood. Looking back, there is no doubt that the shock of seeing that magnificent young fox-my friend-hanging from that tree left me with a feeling of revulsion for my own kind and a desire to distance myself from the human race.”

Shaun Ellis (1977) American football player, defensive end

The Man who lives with Wolves (2010)

Fate, Age, Feeling, Nature

“…I suspect people would be in for a real shock if they knew the depths of [Obama's] historical ignorance.”

Charles Foster Johnson (1953) American musician

May 25, 2008 http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/30079_Obama-_Bush_is_Responsible_for_Chavez_(Bzzt!_Wrong!)&only

People

“Hours then of blasphemy and fury and debate, all in the theological terms that seem shocking to the literate citizens today, who believe in God but just don't care to mention him or any of the other lowly friends they knew before they went to Yale.”

Sinclair Lewis (1885–1951) American novelist, short-story writer, and playwright

The God-Seeker (1949), Ch. 6

God

“The euro is bad for Europe. The euro is bad for the Netherlands, it’s especially bad because it is a stimulus for politicians to kill the Welfare State. I look forward to a European economy using multiple currencies. In the end that will be much better: it will make us more resistant to shocks and makes us less vulnerable to what is happening now.”

Arjo Klamer (1953) Dutch columnist, economist and politician

Arjo Klamer, cited in: Hans von der Brelie, " The Dutch face austerity http://www.euronews.com/2012/05/25/the-dutch-face-austerity," at euronews.com, 2012/05/25

“There are some men whom a staggering emotional shock, so far from making them mental invalids for life, seems, on the other hand, to awaken, to galvanize, to arouse into an almost incredible activity of soul.”

William McFee (1881–1966) American writer

"On a Balcony", First lines, in The Atlantic Monthly (January 1920), p. 27

Life, Men, Soul

“People are surprised at the depth of resentment against Asian Americans, but it never shocks me. We are the object of hatred not only for the things we do but just being who we are, ching chong chinamen.”

Margaret Cho (1968) American stand-up comedian

From Her Books, I Have Chosen To Stay And Fight, RACISM AND CIVIL RIGHTS

People

“My business is too difficult. My business is trying to arouse human pity. There are few things that'll move people to pity, a few, but the trouble is when they've been used several times, they no longer work. So it happens, for instance, that a man who sees another man on the street corner with only a stump for an arm will be so shocked the first time that he'll give him sixpence. But the second time it'll only be a threepenny bit. And if he sees him a third time, he'll hand him over cold-bloodedly to the police.”

Bertolt Brecht The Threepenny Opera

Peachum in Act 1, scene 1, pp. 5-6
The Threepenny Opera (1928)

People, Business, Time

“Goebbels […] was using my book Crystallizing Public Opinion as a basis for his destructive campaign against the Jews of Germany. This shocked me.”

Edward Bernays (1891–1995) American public relations consultant, marketing pioneer

Biography of an Idea: Memoirs of Public Relations Counsel (1965)

Books

“Bracquemond tells me that he looked attentively at my works at our exhibition. Far from objecting to them, as I expected, he said they were compactly drawn, and modeled, but he is shocked by the dots; he enjoined me to stick to divisionism but not to use the dot. - I said nothing to him of our experiments. He told me that of all the impressionist painters he liked my work best; this was not the first time he had said this; to each one his own taste. He does completely accept my view that the old disorderly method of execution has become impossible.”

Camille Pissarro (1830–1903) French painter

Quote of Camille Pissarro, in a letter, Eragny, 23 January 1887, to his son Lucien; in Camille Pissarro - Letters to His Son Lucien ed. John Rewald, with assistance of Lucien Pissarro; from the unpublished French letters; transl. Lionel Abel; Pantheon Books Inc. New York, second edition, 1943, p. 97
1880's

Time

“When I dug into this temple, which had been destroyed by the Christians, I was shocked… I was barely 15, yet I understood in a powerful hands-on, nonintellectual way, how harsh had been Europe's conversion to Christianity. They burned temples, smashed statues, massacred the priests and established extremely harsh laws. By 392 ce, Paganism died.”

Christopher Gérard (1962)

Pagan Power in Modern Europe (1999)

Law, Way

“Our century is noted for its bloody wars. WW1 saw 9 million people killed in battle, an incredible record that was surpassed within a few decades by the 15 million battle deaths of WW2. Even the numbers killed in 20th century revolutions and civil wars have set historical records. In total, about 35,654,000 people have died in this century’s international and domestic wars, revolutions, and violent conflicts. Yet, even more unbelievable than these vast numbers killed in war is a shocking fact. The number of people killed by totalitarian or extreme authoritarian governments already exceeds that for all wars, civil and international. Indeed, this number already approximates the number that might be killed in a nuclear war.”

Rudolph Rummel (1932–2014) American academic

“War Isn’t This Century’s Biggest Killer, The Wall Street Journal (July 7, 1986)

Death, War, People

“In the following decades “Kierkegaard remained completely unknown, Schelling’s work was contemptuously buried, and Marx and Feuerbach were interpreted as dogmatic materialists. Then a new impetus came in the 1880’s with the work of Dilthey, and particularly with Freidrich Nietzsche, the “philosophy of life” movement, and the work of Berson. The third phase came after the shock of WWI – “Kierkegaard and the early Marxists were rediscovered and the serious challenges to the spiritual and psychological basis of Western society given by Nietzsche could no longer be covered over by Victorian self-satisfied placidity. The specific form of the third phase owes much to the phenomenology of Edmond Husserl, which gave to Heidegger, Jaspers, and the others the tool they needed to undercut the subject object cleavage which had been such a stumbling block to science as well as philosophy.”

Rollo May (1909–1994) US psychiatrist

Source: The Discovery of Being (1983), p. 54-55

Life, Science

“Who knows what the new century holds for music? I predict that we will bury most of the musical modernism of the 20th, with its need to shock and cause distress.”

Donald Vroon (1942) American music critic

American Record Guide, March/April 2000, quoted in Ashby, Arved, ed. (2004). The Pleasure of Modernist Music. ISBN 1580461433.

Music

“He knocked the chess set off his desk, screaming at me, “You’re not a stupid Mexican! You’re just lazy! I’m one of the best chess players in all Carlsbad and you treat me with no respect!” I was shocked. All my life I’d been called stupid because I was Mexican, not because I was lazy. This was really good.”

Victor Villaseñor (1940) American writer

Crazy Loco Love: A Memoir (2008)

Life, Stupidity

“The shock therapy of decisive war against Iraq will elevate the stock market by a couple-thousand points. We will know that our businesses will stay open, that our families will be safe, and that our future will be unlimited. The world will be righted in this life-and-death struggle to preserve our values and our civilization. But to do all this, we must act.”

Lawrence Kudlow (1947) American economist

National Review Online http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZTIzOWYzYjk4NWM1Y2U5M2U1NmI3ZWFjODdkOTI3MTg= June 26, 2002.

Life, Death, War, World

“I am shocked by this wicked crime.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Reaction to the assassination of Gandhi. Ottawa Citizen, Jan. 27, 1948. https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2194&dat=19480127&id=n_4uAAAAIBAJ&sjid=GNwFAAAAIBAJ&pg=1578,6285092&hl=en Post-war years (1945–1955)

“There were certain basic things, perhaps—the very earth, itself—which existed through every point in time, holding a sort of limited eternity to provide a solid matrix. And the dead—the dead and fabricated—stayed in the past as ghosts. The fence posts and the wire strung on them, the dead trees, the farm buildings, and the bridge were shadows of the present persisting in the past. Persisting, perhaps, reluctantly, because since they had no life they could not move along. They were bound in time and stretched through time and they were long, long shadows.
He was, he realized with a shock, the only living thing existing in this moment on this earth. He and nothing else.”

Clifford D. Simak book Time is the Simplest Thing

Source: Time is the Simplest Thing (1961), Chapter 11 (p. 87)

Life, Tree, Time, Past

“I did not want to destroy the Bamiyan Buddha. In fact, some foreigners came to me and said they would like to conduct the repair work of the Bamiyan Buddha that had been slightly damaged due to rains. This shocked me. I thought, these callous people have no regard for thousands of living human beings -- the Afghans who are dying of hunger, but they are so concerned about non-living objects like the Buddha. This was extremely deplorable. That is why I ordered its destruction. Had they come for humanitarian work, I would have never ordered the Buddha's destruction.”

Mohammed Omar (1959–2013) Founder and former leader of the Taliban

http://www.rediff.com/news/2004/apr/12inter.htm.
Buddhas of Bamyan

Hunger, People

“I think there is in this country a war on religion. I think there is a desire to establish a religion in America known as secularism. And I know that, based on reports, that the Obama administration gave this a lot of thought – a lot of discussion. This was not some little side issue that no one thought about. They gave it a lot of thought, and they decided to say that in this country that a church — in this case, the Catholic Church — would be required to violate its principles and its conscience and be required to provide contraceptives, sterilization, and morning after pills to the employees of the church. And that came as a shock. As I think it was Mike Huckabee said, "We are now all Catholics."”

Mitt Romney (1947) American businessman and politician

Those of us who are people of faith recognize this is — an attack on one religion is an attack on all religion.
2012-04-03
Romney: Obama wants to ‘establish a religion called secularism’
David
Edwards
The Raw Story
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/04/03/romney-obama-wants-to-establish-a-religion-called-secularism/
2012-04-13
2012

War, People, Faith, Religion

“There are fears amongst those who are responsible for government to-day, fears not yet gripping us by the throat but taking grisly shape in the twilight, that the Great War, by the destruction of our best lives in such numbers, has not left enough of the breed to carry on the work of Empire. Our task is hard enough, but it will be accomplished; yet who in Europe does not know that one more war in the West, and the civilization of the ages will fall with as great a shock as that of Rome? She has left danger-signals along the road; it is for us to read them.”

Stanley Baldwin (1867–1947) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech to the Classical Association (8 January 1926), quoted in On England, and Other Addresses (1926), p. 106.
1926

War, Age, Fear, Reading

“I am shocked that we should be debating a Bill such as this which basically shows the Tory party's deep concern for its future. It has to scrabble round the world looking for tax dodgers, crooks, thieves and wastrels, anywhere that it can, in order to get a Tory Government re-elected in two years' time. That is what the Bill is about. It has nothing to do with democracy.”

Jeremy Corbyn (1949) British Labour Party politician

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1989/jun/29/representation-of-the-people-bill in the House of Commons (29 June 1989) on the Representation of the People Act 1989. 1980s

World, Democracy, Time, Future

“I started about five years ago when I did a hospital visit and was shocked at what a huge difference the [Starlight Children's Foundation] makes for not only these children but also their families, who are also affected. I consider family one of the most important aspects of life, because at the end of the day your family is who is always going to be there for you. When it comes to these children, their family is all they have because some of them never get to leave the hospital.”

Corbin Bleu (1989) American actor, model, dancer, producer, and singer-songwriter

As quoted in "Corbin Bleu aids Starlight charity" in Variety (3 December 2009) http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118012141.html?categoryId=3834&cs=1

Life, Children, Family

“A day out from the bay of Saardos, Drokler honored the brass Rorn god in the prow with a pound of incense.
The blank god mask stared back at them through the pall of sweet blue smoke…. It gazed in myopic stillness out over the long shock of the waves, ignoring their words, their presence, their costly offering.”

Tanith Lee book The Storm Lord

Book 4, “Hell’s Blue Burning Seas” Chapter 15 (p. 208)
The Storm Lord (1976)

God

“Rance: How shocking! His abnormal condition has driven him to seek refuge in religion. Always the last ditch stand of a man on the brink of disaster.”

Joe Orton (1933–1967) English playwright and author

What the Butler Saw (1969), Act I

Religion

“It may be expecting too much to expect most intellectuals to have common sense, when their whole life is based on their being uncommon -- that is, saying things that are different from what everyone else is saying. There is only so much genuine originality in anyone. After that, being uncommon means indulging in pointless eccentricities or clever attempts to mock or shock.”

Thomas Sowell (1930) American economist, social theorist, political philosopher and author

Random Thought
2000s, Ever Wonder Why? and Other Controversial Essays (2006)

Life, Sense

“The realization that systems are integrated wholes that cannot be understood by analysis was even more shocking in physics than in biology. Ever since Newton, physicists had believed that all physical phenomena could be reduced to the properties of hard and solid material particles. In the 1920s, however, quantum theory forced them to accept the fact that the solid material objects of classical physics dissolve at the subatomic level into wavelike patterns of probabilities. These patterns, moreover, do not represent probabilities of things, but rather probabilities of interconnections. The subatomic particles have no meaning as isolated entities but can be understood only as interconnections, or correlations, among various processes of observation and measurement. In other words, subatomic particles are not “things” but interconnections among things, and these, in turn, are interconnections among other things, and so on. In quantum theory we never end up with any “things”; we always deal with interconnections.”

Fritjof Capra (1939) American physicist

Source: The Web of Life (1996), p. 30.

“It is shocking, It is quite obvious that security of the Sri Lankan players has been hopelessly inadequate. We condemn the shooting and we hope that players like Samaraweera and Mendis are safe and will recover.”

P. Chidambaram (1945) Indian politician

Security of Sri Lankan players hopelessly inadequate: Chidambaram, 3 March 2009, Times of India, Times of India, 3 March 2009, http://web.archive.org/20090306175548/timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/Security-of-Sri-Lankan-players-hopelessly-inadequate-Chidambaram/articleshow/4216798.cms?, 6 March 2009 http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/Security-of-Sri-Lankan-players-hopelessly-inadequate-Chidambaram/articleshow/4216798.cms,

Hope

“Driving is a spectacular form of amnesia. Everything is to be discovered, everything to be obliterated. Admittedly, there is the primal shock of the deserts and the dazzle of California, but when this is gone, the secondary brilliance of the journey begins, that of the excessive, pitiless distance, the infinity of anonymous faces and distances, or of certain miraculous geological formations, which ultimately testify to no human will, while keeping intact an image of upheaval. This form of travel admits of no exceptions: when it runs up against a known face, a familiar landscape, or some decipherable message, the spell is broken: the amnesic, ascetic, asymptotic charm of disappearance succumbs to affect and worldly semiology.”

Jean Baudrillard (1929–2007) French sociologist and philosopher

Vanishing Point (pp. 9-10)
1980s, America (1986)

Travel

“Then (in 1981) we did a book by Geoffrey Rips called "Unamerican Activities," which was a documentation of the subversion of the underground press. That was when the Freedom of Information Act made those files available. We were shocked, we couldn't believe that our government had been bombing people, infiltrating their organizations. In fact, I think one of the files listed Lawrence as a "beatnik rabble-rouser."”

Nancy Peters (1936) American writer and publisher

"And the beat goes on", http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/06/09/DD158147.DTL San Francisco Chronicle, 2003-06-09. 2000s

People, Books, Thinking, Freedom

“The bomb attack on the Grand Hotel early this morning was first and foremost an inhuman, undiscriminating attempt to massacre innocent unsuspecting men and women staying in Brighton for our Conservative Conference…But the bomb attack clearly signified more than this. It was an attempt not only to disrupt and terminate our Conference; It was an attempt to cripple Her Majesty's democratically-elected Government. That is the scale of the outrage in which we have all shared, and the fact that we are gathered here now—shocked, but composed and determined—is a sign not only that this attack has failed, but that all attempts to destroy democracy by terrorism will fail.”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

Speech to Conservative Party Conference (12 October 1984) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/105763 Second term as Prime Minister

Women, Men, Democracy

“There is a sort of enthusiasm in all projectors, absolutely necessary for their affairs, which makes them proof against the most fatiguing delays, the most mortifying disappointments, the most shocking insults; and, what is severer than all, the presumptuous judgement of the ignorant upon their designs.”

Edmund Burke (1729–1797) Anglo-Irish statesman

An account of the European Settlements in America (1757), pp. 19-20, in The Works of Edmund Burke in Nine Volumes, Vol. IX. Boston: Little, Brown (1839)
1750s

Disappointment

“When you write your own lyrics, you tend to be over-analytical. One second everything you do is brilliant, and the next, everything is garbage, and I want to be able to express personal things without being made to feel stupid. One of the first times I remember writing something personal was on tour. I was feeling really freaky and down, and I looked in the mirror and I was wearing a red T-shirt and some baggy tennis shorts. I remember thinking that as bummed as I felt, I looked like some beach kid. And then I came up with that line—’I’m looking California / And feeling Minnesota,’ from the song ‘Outshined’—and as soon as I wrote it down, I thought it was the dumbest thing. But after the record came out and we went on tour, everybody would be screaming along with that particular line when it came up in the song. The was a shock. How could anyone know that that was one of the most personally specific things I had ever written? It was just a tiny line. But somehow, maybe because it was personal, it just pushed that button.”

Chris Cornell (1964–2017) American singer-songwriter, musician

Interview with Details Magazine, December 1996 https://pitchfork.com/features/article/10081-chris-cornell-searching-for-solitude/, Soundgarden Era

Stupidity, Feeling, Thinking, Time

“The right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness means that each of us is free to go our own way, even if the ways some of us may choose to go seem sinful or shocking to our fellow citizens.”

Dan Savage book Skipping Towards Gomorrah

Source: Skipping Towards Gomorrah (2002), p. 299

Life, Happiness, Way

“The theory of economic shock therapy relies in part on the roleof expectations on feeding an inflationary process. Reining in inflation requires not only changing monetary policy but also changing the behavior of consumers, employers and workers. The role of a sudden, jarring policy shift is that it quickly alters expectations, signaling to the public that the rules of the game have changed dramatically - prices will not keep rising, nor will wages.”

Naomi Klein (1970) Canadian author and activist

The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism (2007)

Behavior, Game, Change, Parting

“I smiled at him but knew it did not reach my eyes. I smiled because he smiled at me, more reflex than emotion. Inside I was nothing. It was a little like being in shock. Shock is nature's insulation, the thing that shuts you down so you can heal, or sometimes so you can die without hurting, or being afraid…”

Laurell K. Hamilton (1963) Novelist

Unidentified edition/page
Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter series, Incubus Dreams (2004)

Smile, Nature, Hurt

“I own it gave my picturesque fancies at first a shock, to hear of a steam-boat on Loch Katrine; but I was wrong. Nothing could be a more decisive proof of the increased communication between England and Scotland — and communication is the regal road to improvement of every kind.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

The Monthly Magazine

Communication, Decision

“In a tribal nation, he’s just one more partisan mobilizing his troops…. Mr. Shapiro has always been deeply conservative and does not pretend to be objective. But he says his market niche is giving cleareyed reads of current events, not purely partisan rants. He is often compared to his former colleague at, Milo Yiannopoulos. On the surface, they seem the same. Both speak on college campuses. Both draw protests. Both used to work for Mr. Bannon at Breitbart. Both are young. In fact, they are very different. Mr. Yiannopoulos, a protégé of Mr. Bannon, was good at shocking audiences, saying things like “feminism is cancer.” But critics say that he was empty of ideas, a kind of nihilistic rodeo clown who was not even conservative. Mr. Shapiro broke with Mr. Bannon last year, saying Breitbart had become a propaganda tool for Mr. Trump. Mr. Yiannopoulos’s act collapsed this year. But the fact that it lasted so long says a lot about the right’s fury against mainstream liberalism, Mr. Shapiro said…. But Mr. Shapiro does it too. He thinks it’s easy to provoke the left, which he says has become intellectually flabby after decades of cultural dominance. It’s not good at arguing and relies instead on taboos and punishing people who violate them. That is the essence of his stump speech…. Critics say that is great red meat for his audience, but it’s nonsense. Even if straight white males are low on the left’s pecking order, they have most of the power in Washington, in statehouses, in every corporate boardroom. They run America. Mr. Shapiro says he’s about more than tribal polemics.”

Sabrina Tavernise (1971) American journalist

Ben Shapiro, a Provocative ‘Gladiator,’ Battles to Win Young Conservatives https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/23/us/ben-shapiro-conservative.html (November 23, 2017), '.

People, Idea, Thinking, Reading

“The freedom is far more important than the money. The endgame is to be an extremely famous artist in lots of museums all around the world so lots of people can see my work for free. I know what I'm making, I know it's good. I will reserve the right to paint the [bombed] bus or anything that is shocking in life. If someone wants to come and shoot me because they find that offensive, they can. As an artist, if you can't take that freedom, you're a wanker.”

Stella Vine (1969) English artist

Smith, David. "Art? It's like the sex trade" http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2006/apr/23/art3, The Observer, (2006-04-23) On artistic freedom.

Life, Money, People, World

“For we are not all equally afflicted with the same disease or all in need of the same severe cure. This is the reason why we see different persons disciplined with different crosses. The heavenly Physician takes care of the well-being of all his patients; he gives some a milder medicine and purifies others by more shocking treatments, but he omits no one; for the whole world, without exception, is ill”

John Calvin (1509–1564) French Protestant reformer

Deut 32:15
Page 55.
Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life (1551)

World, Disease, Affliction, Personality

“We may also, I think, congratulate ourselves on the part that the British Empire has played in this struggle, and on the position which it fills at the close. Among the many miscalculations of the enemy was the profound conviction, not only that we had a "contemptible little Army," but that we were a doomed and decadent nation. The trident was to be struck from our palsied grasp, the Empire was to crumble at the first shock; a nation dedicated, as we used to be told, to pleasure-taking and the pursuit of wealth was to be deprived of the place to which it had ceased to have any right, and was to be reduced to the level of a second-class, or perhaps even of a third-class Power. It is not for us in the hour of victory to boast that these predictions have been falsified; but, at least, we may say this—that the British Flag never flew over a more powerful or a more united Empire than now; Britons never had better cause to look the world in the face; never did our voice count for more in the councils of the nations, or in determining the future destinies of mankind. That that voice may be raised in the times that now lie before us in the interests of order and liberty, that that power may be wielded to secure a settlement that shall last, that that Flag may be a token of justice to others as well as of pride to ourselves, is our united hope and prayer.”

George Curzon, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston (1859–1925) British politician

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/lords/1918/nov/18/the-armistice-address-to-his-majesty in the House of Lords (18 November 1918).

Pleasure, Lie, World, Justice

“We watched some of the movie. It was shocking. Sex is apparently hard labor. Various persons supported crushing weights in agonizing positions for what seemed like endless blocks of time. Exhausted men grunted and toiled like movers trying to get a refrigerator into a fifth floor walk-up.”

Russell Baker (1925–2019) writer and satirst from the United States

"So This Is Depravity" (p.25)
So This Is Depravity (1980)

Men, Sex, Support, Time

“The sphinx atropos squeakes when hurt, nearly as loud as a mouse, which, when uttered in the most plaintive tone, naturally shocks the human heart, and makes it shudder at the thought of destroying inoffensive animals merely for the sake of curiosity. I cannot help reflecting on this tyranny, this wanton cruelty, exercised by thoughtless man, on many animals but especially in insects: 'tis certain, that every animal possessing life, has feeling; and, therefore, is as capable of suffering pain, as of enjoying pleasure; and, as Shakespeare humanely expresses “The poor beetle crushed beneath the foot, feels the pangs of death as great as when a monarch falls.””

James Barbut English painter and naturalist

Gentle reader, pardon this digression, my feelings commanded my pen.
The Genera Insectorum of Linnæus, Exemplified by Various Specimens English Insects drawn by Nature (1781)

Life, Death, Pain, Pleasure

“I remember being really shocked after Mellow Gold came out and going on tour, and all these kids were there. It totally disturbed me. Who are all these young people? I'd been playing Mississippi John Hurt covers in coffee shops to a bunch of thirty-, forty-, fifty-year olds. Then all of a sudden there were these teenagers.”

Beck (1970) American Musician (b.1970)

Rolling Stone magazine, 1997

People, Coffee, Hurt

“Strong language in Larkin is put in not to shock the reader but to define the narrator's personality. When Larkin's narrator in 'A Study of Reading Habits' (in The Whitsun Weddings) said 'Books are a load of crap' there were critics - some of them, incredibly, among his more appreciative - who allowed themselves to believe that Larkin was expressing his own opinion. (Kingsley Amis had the same kind of trouble, perhaps from the same kind of people, when he let Jim Dixon cast aspersions on Mozart.) It should be obvious at long last, however, that the diction describes the speaker.”

Clive James (1939–2019) Australian author, critic, broadcaster, poet, translator and memoirist

'Philip Larkin: 'Wolves of Memory'
Essays and reviews, At the Pillars of Hercules (1979)

People, Books, Study, Wedding

Quotes about shock page 2

Quotes about shock
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