Quotes about shoes
page 4

“O city ladies'
Your coats wrapped,
Your hips a possession
Your shoes arched
Your walk is sharp
Your breasts
Pertain to lingerie”

George Oppen (1908–1984) American poet

from "Discrete Series", 1934; New Collected Poems, New Directions, 2002, ISBN 0-811-21488-5

Jehst photo

“Gazelle accelerate away from my Puma shoes, it's like Noah's Ark, embarking two by two”

Jehst (1979) British rapper

Manimals Featuring Usmaan & The Sundragon
The Return of the Drifter EP (2002), Falling Down LP (2003)

James Smith photo

“I saw them go: one horse was blind,
The tails of both hung down behind,
Their shoes were on their feet.”

Rejected Addresses, "The Baby's Début", reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Jopie Huisman photo

“These are the shoes of old Yde, a bachelor. He has worn them for forty years. He repaired them from below and above, from the inside and the outside. He gave me his shoes, for a bottle of brandy. They protected his feet for forty years. When they broke down, he tore them up and put them back on again. He could have bought new ones, because he already got state pension. But he was married with his shoes.”

Jopie Huisman (1922–2000) Dutch painter

translation, Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018
version in original Dutch / citaat van Jopie Huisman, in het Nederlands: Dit zijn de schoenen van oude Yde, een vrijgezel. Veertig jaar lang heeft hij ze gedragen. Van onder en van boven, van binnen en van buiten heeft hij ze opgelapt. Ik mocht ze van hem hebben, hij een liter brandewijn, ik de schoenen. Ze beschermden zijn voeten veertig jaar lang. Gingen ze stuk, hij lapte ze op en trok ze weer aan. Hij had wel nieuwe kunnen kopen, want hij trok al van Drees, maar hij was met zijn schoenen getrouwd.
Source: Jopie Huisman', 1981, p. 37

Ai Weiwei photo
Dylan Moran photo
John R. Commons photo
Harry Turtledove photo
Prince photo
Sufjan Stevens photo

“Found myself on Spencer's Butte
Traced your shadow with my shoe
Empty outline changed my view
Now all of me thinks less of you”

Sufjan Stevens (1975) American singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist

"All of Me Wants All of You"
Lyrics, Carrie and Lowell (2015)

Zooey Deschanel photo
Tom Petty photo
Margaret Cho photo
Harlan Ellison photo
Ezra Pound photo
Plutarch photo
John Leguizamo photo
Gene Wolfe photo
Firuz Shah Tughlaq photo
Brandon Boyd photo
Michelle Obama photo

“Now young people can get insurance for as little as $50 a month, less than the cost of gym shoes.”

Michelle Obama (1964) lawyer, writer, wife of Barack Obama and former First Lady of the United States

During appearance on "Tonight Show" (21 February 2014) http://washingtonexaminer.com/michelle-obama-young-people-are-knuckleheads/article/2544377
2010s

Howard Dean photo

“We are the great grassroots campaign of the modern era, built from mousepads, shoe leather and hope.”

Howard Dean (1948) American political activist

From his official declaration of candidacy, June 23, 2003

Ralf Metzenmacher photo

“About 80 percent of our customers buy our shoes not to compete in, but to wear in their leisure time.”

Ralf Metzenmacher (1964) German artist, designer and painter

The New York Times, March 12, 2004

Austin Grossman photo
Joseph Joubert photo

“many seemingly independent businessmen or craftsman are more or less well paid retainers of larger corporations, such as the cobbler, operating a United States shoe machine or an automobile dealer holding a license of the General Motors Corporation.”

Paul A. Baran (1909–1964) American Marxist economist

Source: The Political Economy Of Growth (1957), Chapter Four, Standstill and Movement Under Monopoly Capitalism, II, p. 84

Luther H. Gulick photo
Joseph Addison photo

“Round-heads and Wooden-shoes are standing jokes.”

Joseph Addison (1672–1719) politician, writer and playwright

prologue, l. 8.
The Drummer (1716)

Thomas Fuller (writer) photo

“1596. For want of a Nail the Shoe is lost; for want of a Shoe the Horse is lost; for want of a Horse the Man is lost.”

Thomas Fuller (writer) (1654–1734) British physician, preacher, and intellectual

Compare Poor Richard's Almanack (1752) : For Want of a Nail the Shoe is lost; for want of a Shoe, the Horse is Lost; for want of a Horse the Rider is lost. ; also Poor Richard's Almanack (1758) : For Want of a Nail the Shoe was lost; for want of a Shoe, the Horse was Lost; and for want of a Horse the Rider was lost, being overtaken and slain by the Enemy, all for want of Care about a Horse-shoe Nail.
Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727), Gnomologia (1732)

Corneliu Zelea Codreanu photo
Robin Williams photo
George Herbert photo

“495. For want of a naile the shoe is lost, for want of a shoe the horse is lost, for want of a horse the rider is lost.”

George Herbert (1593–1633) Welsh-born English poet, orator and Anglican priest

Jacula Prudentum (1651)

Stevie Ray Vaughan photo
Robert Smith (musician) photo
Basil of Caesarea photo
Chuck Hagel photo

“If you wanted a safe job, go sell shoes. This is a tough business.”

Chuck Hagel (1946) United States Secretary of Defense

Asking his fellow Senators to support a joint resolution opposing President George W. Bush's troop deployment plan, Hagel Ponders White House Run As War Criticism Raises His Profile, The Washington Post, 26 January 2007, 2007-01-29 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/25/AR2007012502086_2.html,
2007

Robert S. Kaplan photo

“Effective leadership begins with having the right mindset; in particular, it begins with having an ownership mind-set. This means a willingness to put oneself in the shoes of a decision maker and think through all of the considerations that the decision maker must factor into his or her thinking and actions.
Having an ownership mind-set is essential to developing into an effective leader. By the same token, the absence of an ownership mind-set often explains why certain people with great promise ultimately fail to reach their leadership potential.
An ownership mind-set involves three essential elements, which I will put in the form of questions:”

Robert S. Kaplan (1940) American accounting academic

Can you figure out what you believe, as if you were an owner?
Can you act on those beliefs?
Do you act in a way that adds value to someone else: a customer, a client, a colleague, or a community? Do you take responsibility for the positive and negative impact of your actions on others?
These elements are not a function of your formal position in an organization. They are not a function of title, power, or wealth, although these factors can certainly be helpful in enabling you to act like an owner. These elements are about what you do. They are about taking ownership of your convictions, actions, and impact on others. In my experience, great organizations are made up of executives who focus specifically on these elements and work to empower their employees to think and act in this way.
Source: What You're Really Meant To Do, 2013, p. 22-23

Louis-ferdinand Céline photo
Heidi Klum photo
Daniel Dennett photo

“My shoe has caught a Pig
I am a Pig Trap”

Spike Hawkins (1943) British writer

Pig poetry http://www.porkopolis.org/lib/poetry/hawkins-s.htm

Samuel Butler (poet) photo

“I feel the need to be naked with you.
Take off my pants, my shirt, my socks and my shoes.
I need to be naked with you.”

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

"The Need to Be Naked", from Naked (2002).

L. Frank Baum photo
Mr. T photo
Jef Raskin photo

“Imagine if every Thursday your shoes exploded if you tied them the usual way. This happens to us all the time with computers, and nobody thinks of complaining.”

Jef Raskin (1943–2005) American computer scientist

Interview in Doctor Dobb's Journal, also quoted in The Mammoth Book of Zingers, Quips, and One-Liners (2004) by Geoff Tibballs, p. 128

Louis Untermeyer photo
Hariprasad Chaurasia photo
Michael Palin photo

“Tomkinson: What are these?
Mother: Shoe trees, dear…”

Michael Palin (1943) British comedian, actor, writer and television presenter

"Tomkinson's Schooldays"
Ripping Yarns (1976 - 1979)

Joseph Beuys photo
Nycole Turmel photo
Hugh Laurie photo
Mike Lange photo

“And you can spit-shine your shoes Pittsburgh, you're going dancing with the Lord of Lords, Lord Stanley!”

Mike Lange (1948) Canadian sportscaster

"Eddie Spaghetti! The Story Behind Mike Lange-isms"

Peter Greenaway photo

“Shoes: gloves for the feet.”

Peter Greenaway (1942) British film director

Rosa: The Death of a Composer

John Dos Passos photo
Anil Kumble photo

“It is very difficult for somebody to get into his shoes. He is a cricketer who never compromised his dignity and always played with determination.”

Anil Kumble (1970) Former Indian cricketer

By Ian Chappell.
Kumble Calls it a Day: Quotes... For and By Kumble...

Tucker Carlson photo

“Don't take a leak on my shoes and tell me it's raining.”

Tucker Carlson (1969) American political commentator

source needed
Date unidentified

George William Curtis photo

“The country does want rest, we all want rest. Our very civilization wants it — and we mean that it shall have it. It shall have rest — repose — refreshment of soul and re-invigoration of faculty. And that rest shall be of life and not of death. It shall not be a poison that pacifies restlessness in death, nor shall it be any kind of anodyne or patting or propping or bolstering — as if a man with a cancer in his breast would be well if he only said he was so and wore a clean shirt and kept his shoes tied. We want the rest of a real Union, not of a name, not of a great transparent sham, which good old gentlemen must coddle and pat and dandle, and declare wheedlingly is the dearest Union that ever was, SO it is; and naughty, ugly old fanatics shan't frighten the pretty precious — no, they sha'n't. Are we babies or men? This is not the Union our fathers framed — and when slavery says that it will tolerate a Union on condition that freedom holds its tongue and consents that the Constitution means first slavery at all costs and then liberty, if you can get it, it speaks plainly and manfully, and says what it means. There are not wanting men enough to fall on their knees and cry: 'Certainly, certainly, stay on those terms. Don't go out of the Union — please don't go out; we'll promise to take great care in future that you have everything you want. Hold our tongues? Certainly. These people who talk about liberty are only a few fanatics — they are tolerably educated, but most of 'em are crazy; we don't speak to them in the street; we don't ask them to dinner; really, they are of no account, and if you'll really consent to stay in the Union, we'll see if we can't turn Plymouth Rock into a lump of dough'. I don't believe the Southern gentlemen want to be fed on dough. I believe they see quite as clearly as we do that this is not the sentiment of the North, because they can read the election returns as well as we. The thoughtful men among them see and feel that there is a hearty abhorrence of slavery among us, and a hearty desire to prevent its increase and expansion, and a constantly deepening conviction that the two systems of society are incompatible. When they want to know the sentiment of the North, they do not open their ears to speeches, they open their eyes, and go and look in the ballot-box, and they see there a constantly growing resolution that the Union of the United States shall no longer be a pretty name for the extension of slavery and the subversion of the Constitution. Both parties stand front to front. Each claims that the other is aggressive, that its rights have been outraged, and that the Constitution is on its side. Who shall decide? Shall it be the Supreme Court? But that is only a co-ordinate branch of the government. Its right to decide is not mutually acknowledged. There is no universally recognized official expounder of the meaning of the Constitution. Such an instrument, written or unwritten, always means in a crisis what the people choose. The people of the United States will always interpret the Constitution for themselves, because that is the nature of popular governments, and because they have learned that judges are sometimes appointed to do partisan service.”

George William Curtis (1824–1892) American writer

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

Saadi photo
Harold Lloyd photo
Johannes Tauler photo
Jopie Huisman photo

“As far as transience is concerned... You see the whole story in those shoes, that's why I paint them so accurate. The physical attitude; crooked legs, a lump. Those shoes were talking to me, and then I thought: I can see that you were so and so big, but did you also had a wife? Children? What were you doing? And what really mattered to me is my own place between them. Between those stories, that mystery. That pitch-black background [in Jopie's paintings, till c.1979-80] - I had found it. A cry for attention. Those pants, that shirt, that background, that was: here I am. But then it become mannerism. So I carried on realistically but avoiding the black background at all costs. It is as Rutger Kopland says: Whoever found it did not look well. Now I want to paint people like this, like they are made of colored mud. Color spiritualizes.”

Jopie Huisman (1922–2000) Dutch painter

translation, Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018
version in original Dutch / citaat van Jopie Huisman, in het Nederlands: Wat de vergankelijkheid betreft.. .Je ziet het hele verhaal in die schoenen, daarom schilder ik ze zo scherp. De lichamelijke houding; kromme poten, een knobbel. Die schoenen praatten tegen me, en dan dacht ik: ik kan zien dat je zo en zo groot was, maar had je ook een vrouw? Kinderen? Wat deed je? En waar het me in wezen dan om ging is mijn plekkie daartussen. Tussen die verhalen, dat mysterie. Die pikzwarte achtergrond [in zijn schilderijen, tot c. 1979-80]; ik had het gevonden. Een schreeuw om aandacht. Die broek, dat hemd, die achtergrond, dat was: hier ben ik. Maar dan word je een maniërist. Dus ik ben realistisch doorgegaan, maar koste wat het kost die zwarte achtergrond vermijdend. Het is zoals nl:Rutger Kopland zegt: Wie het gevonden heeft, heeft niet goed gezocht. Nu wil ik de mensen zo schilderen, als zijn ze van gekleurde modder. De kleur die vergeestelijkt.
Mens & Gevoelens: Jopie Huisman', 1993

“Again, when Allaudin Khalji sacked Deogiri, hundreds of Sufis betook themselves to the South and established monasteries, to finance which fat sums were extracted from the local chiefs. Hajji Sayyid alias Sarwar Makhdum, Husam ad-Din, and several other Sufis took part in offensive wars openly, on account of which they were entitled Qattal (the great slayers) and Kuffar-bhanjan (destroyers of the Kafirs). Shaykh Jalal ad-Din Tabrizi demolished a large temple and constructed a Takiyah (khanqah) at Devatalla (Deva Mahal) in Bengal…. Mir Sayyid ‘Ali Hamadani (1314-1385) began to get Hindu temples demolished and the Hindus converted by reckless use of force throughout his sojourn in Kashmir… Thanks to the influence of Hamadani’s Sufi son Mir Muhammad (b. 1372), who stepped into his father’s shoes after the latter had left Kashmir after failing to pull on well with Qutb ad-Din, Sikandar (1389-1413), a liberal Sultan of Kashmir, turned into a ferocious Sultan for the Hindus and began to be known as Sikandar Butshikan (iconoclast), and his powerful Brahmana noble Suhabhatta embraced Islam under the name Sayf ad-Din and became a terror for the Brahmanas. Guided by the teachings of Mir Muhammad, Sikandar played havoc with the Hindus through Sayf ad-Din, destroyed their temples, undertook forcible conversions, and imposed Jizyah on them for the first time in Kashmir. Indeed, he out-Aurangzebed Aurangzeb in his Hindu-persecution-mania.”

Harsh Narain (1921–1995) Indian writer

Myths of Composite Culture and Equality of Religions (1990)

John Fante photo
Daniel Handler photo
Apollonius of Tyana photo
Douglas Adams photo
Charlie Brooker photo
Eugene Field photo

“Wynken, Blynken, and Nod one night
Sailed off in a wooden shoe—
Sailed on a river of crystal light,
Into a sea of dew.”

Eugene Field (1850–1895) American writer

Wynken, Blynken, and Nod http://www.amherst.edu/~rjyanco94/literature/eugenefield/poems/poemsofchildhood/wynkenblynkenandnod.html, st. 1
Love Songs of Childhood (1894)

Anita Sarkeesian photo

“Buying 1,000 dollar shoes ….”

Anita Sarkeesian (1983) American blogger

@anitasarkeesian

From a crudely faked screenshot http://www.reddit.com/r/rage/comments/18dkt1/instead_of_making_the_movies_that_she_promised/c8dum3g, c. February 12, 2013.
Misattributed

Donald Barthelme photo

““How does one conquer fear, Don B.?”
“One takes a frog and sews it to one’s shoe,” he said.
“The left or the right?”
Don B. gave me a pitying look.
“Well, you’d look mighty funny going down the street with only one frog sewed to your shoes, wouldn’t you?" he said. “One frog on each shoe.””

Donald Barthelme (1931–1989) American writer, editor, and professor

“The Teachings of Don B.: A Yankee Way of Knowledge”, pp. 7–8.
The Teachings of Don. B: Satires, Parodies, Fables, Illustrated Stories, and Plays of Donald Barthelme (1992)

John Fante photo
Dylan Moran photo
Henry Rollins photo
Ernest Flagg photo
Paul Simon photo
Peter Greenaway photo
Romário photo

“"Pelé shut up is a poet. On the field, he was our Father; outside it, he should put a shoe in his mouth"”

Romário (1966) Brazilian association football player

O Pelé calado é um poeta. Dentro de campo, ele foi o nosso pai. Fora dele, tem de colocar um sapato na boca.
Source: Veja Magazine; 1895 Edition. March 9th, 2005.
Context: Angry answer after Pele told different sources that Romário should retire from pro soccer.

Gautama Buddha photo
Emma Goldman photo
Ayumi Hamasaki photo

“I feel that
these glass shoes are too fragile
for running through this era.”

Ayumi Hamasaki (1978) Japanese recording artist, lyricist, model, and actress

Beautiful Fighters
Lyrics, Secret

Prem Rawat photo
Philip K. Dick photo
Tom Rath photo

“Hector had always been known as a great shoemaker. In fact, customers from such far-off places as France claimed that Hector made the best shoes in the world. Yet for years, he had been frustrated with his small shoemaking business. Although Hector knew he was capable of making hundreds of shoes per week, he was averaging just 30 pairs. When a friend asked him why, Hector explained that while he was great at producing shoes, he was a poor salesman -- and terrible when it came to collecting payments. Yet he spent most of his time working in these areas of weakness.
So, Hector's friend introduced him to Sergio, a natural salesman and marketer. Just as Hector was known for his craftsmanship, Sergio could close deals and sell. Given the way their strengths complemented one another, Hector and Sergio decided to work together. A year later, this strengths-based duo was producing, selling, and collecting payment for more than 100 pairs of shoes per week -- a more than threefold increase.
While this story may seem simplistic, in many cases, aligning yourself with the right task can be this easy. When we're able to put most of our energy into developing our natural talents, extraordinary room for growth exists. So, a revision to the "You-can-be-anything-you-want-to-be" maxim might be more accurate.”

Tom Rath (1975) American author

StrengthsFinder 2.0, 2007
Source: Tom Rath, "The Fallacy Behind the American Dream," Business Journal, Feb. 8, 2007 (Excerpted from StrengthsFinder 2.0)

“The muse in charge of fantasy wears good, sensible shoes.”

Lloyd Alexander (1924–2007) American children's writer

"The Flat-Heeled Muse" http://www.hbook.com/1965/04/choosing-books/horn-book-magazine/flat-heeled-muse/, Horn Book Magazine (1 April 1965)

Giovannino Guareschi photo