Quotes about sickness
page 5

Thomas Wolfe photo
Fyodor Dostoyevsky photo

“I am a sick man… I am a wicked man. An unattractive man.”

Я человек больной... Я злой человек. Непривлекательный я человек.
Part 1, Chapter 1 (page 7)
Notes from Underground (1864)

William Golding photo
Gottfried Feder photo
Ray Comfort photo
H.L. Mencken photo
Wafa Sultan photo
Frida Kahlo photo

“I am not sick. I am broken. But I am happy to be alive as long as I can paint.”

Frida Kahlo (1907–1954) Mexican painter

Quoted in Time Magazine, "Mexican Autobiography" (27 April 1953)
1946 - 1953

Julian of Norwich photo
Toni Morrison photo
Anna Akhmatova photo
Alexander Blok photo
Tanith Lee photo
Herbert A. Simon photo
Morrissey photo

“I could never really make the connection between Christian and Catholic. I always imagined that Christ would look down upon the Catholic church and totally disassociate himself from it. I went to severe schools, working class schools, where they would almost chop your fingers off for your own good, and if you missed church on Sunday and went to school on a Monday and they quizzed you on it, you'd be sent to the gallows. It was like 'Brush you teeth NOW or you will DIE IN HELL and you will ROT and all these SNAKES will EAT you'. And I remember all these religious figures, statues, which used to petrify every living child. All these snakes trodden underfoot and blood everywhere. I thought it was so morbid. I mean the very idea of just going to church anyway is really quite absurd. I always felt that it was really like the police, certainly in this country at any rate, just there to keep the working classes humble and in their place. Because of course nobody else but the working class pays any attention to it. I really feel quite sick when I see the Pope giving long, overblown, inflated lectures on nuclear weapons and then having tea with Margaret Thatcher. To me it's total hypocrisy. And when I hear the Pope completely condemning working class women for having abortions and condemning nobody else… to me the whole thing is entirely class ridden, it's just really to keep the working classes in perpetual fear and feeling total guilt.”

Morrissey (1959) English singer

from "All men have secrets and these are Morrissey’s", interview by Neil McCormick,Hot Press (4 May 1984)
In interviews etc., About life and death

George Maciunas photo
Susan Cooper photo

“Nearly every tale that men tell of magic and witches and such is born out of foolishness and ignorance and sickness of mind—or is a way of explaining things they do not understand.”

Susan Cooper (1935) English fantasy writer

Source: The Dark Is Rising (1965-1977), The Dark Is Rising (1973), Chapter 6 “The Book of Gramarye” (p. 101)

Linda McCartney photo
Lord Randolph Churchill photo

“Your iron industry is dead; dead as mutton. Your coal industries, which depend greatly upon the iron industries, are languishing. Your silk industry is dead, assassinated by the foreigner. Your woollen industry is in articulo mortis, gasping, struggling. Your cotton industry is seriously sick. The shipbuilding industry, which held out longest of all, is come to a standstill. Turn your eyes where you like, survey any branch of British industry you like, you will find signs of mortal disease. The self-satisfied Radical philosophers will tell you it is nothing; they point to the great volume of British trade. Yes, the volume of British trade is still large, but it is a volume which is no longer profitable; it is working and struggling. So do the muscles and nerves of the body of a man who has been hanged twitch and work violently for a short time after the operation. But death is there all the same, life has utterly departed, and suddenly comes the rigot mortis…But what has produced this state of things? Free imports? I am not sure; I should like an inquiry; but I suspect free imports of the murder of our industries much in the same way as if I found a man standing over a corpse and plunging his knife into it I should suspect that man of homicide, and I should recommend a coroner's inquest and a trial by jury…”

Lord Randolph Churchill (1849–1895) British politician

Speech in Blackpool (24 January 1884), quoted in Robert Rhodes James, Lord Randolph Churchill (London: Phoenix, 1994), p. 137

Berenice Abbott photo
RZA photo
John F. Kerry photo

“I'm sick and tired of these despicable Republican attacks that always seem to come from those who never can be found to serve in war, but love to attack those who did. I'm not going to be lectured by a stuffed suit White House mouthpiece standing behind a podium.”

John F. Kerry (1943) politician from the United States

Unidentified 31 October 2006 statement
Quoted in [Jennifer, Loven, http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061031/ap_on_go_pr_wh/white_house_kerry, White House spokesman slams Kerry remark, Associated Press (via Yahoo! News), 2006-10-31, 2006-10-31, http://web.archive.org/web/20061109183304/news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061031/ap_on_go_pr_wh/white_house_kerry, 2006-11-09]

Benjamin Franklin photo

“strong>The good particular men may do separately, in relieving the sick, is small, compared with what they may do collectively.</strong”

Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) American author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, inventor, civic activist, …

Appeal for the Hospital The Pennsylvania Gazette (8 August 1751).
1760s

Rick Santorum photo
Jordin Sparks photo

“I'm sick of playing all of these games
It's not about taking ties.”

Jordin Sparks (1989) American singer, winner of 2007 American Idol

Tattoo

George Fitzhugh photo

“What a glorious thing to man is slavery, when want, misfortune, old age, debility and sickness overtake him.”

George Fitzhugh (1806–1881) American activist

Source: Sociology For The South: Or The Failure Of A Free Society (1854), p. 68

John Gray photo
Martin Buber photo

“When we see a great man desiring power instead of his real goal we soon recognize that he is sick, or more precisely that his attitude to his work is sick.”

Martin Buber (1878–1965) German Jewish Existentialist philosopher and theologian

Source: What is Man? (1938), p. 180
Context: When we see a great man desiring power instead of his real goal we soon recognize that he is sick, or more precisely that his attitude to his work is sick. He overreaches himself, the work denies itself to him, the incarnation of the spirit no longer takes place, and to avoid the threat of senselessness he snatches after empty power. This sickness casts the genius on to the same level as those hysterical figures who, being by nature without power, slave for power, in order that they may enjoy the illusion that they are inwardly powerful, and who in this striving for power cannot let a pause intervene, since a pause would bring with it the possibility of self-reflection and self-reflection would bring collapse.

Francis Quarles photo
John Gay photo

“Is there no hope? the sick man said;
The silent doctor shook his head.”

John Gay (1685–1732) English poet and playwright

Fable, The Sick Man and the Angel
Fables (1727)

Robert Jordan photo
Bill Bryson photo
Cassandra Clare photo
Jim Morrison photo

“I'm sick of dour faces
Staring at me from the T. V.
Tower.
I want roses in
my garden bower; dig?”

Jim Morrison (1943–1971) lead singer of The Doors

An American Prayer (1978)

“"Mrs. M., you seem to be very sick." " Yes," said she, "I am dying." "And are you ready to die?" "Sir, God knows I have taken Him at His word, and I am not afraid to die."”

Ichabod Spencer (1798–1854) American minister

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 601.

Robert A. Heinlein photo
John Fletcher photo

“O great corrector of enormous times,
Shaker of o'er-rank states, thou grand decider
Of dusty and old titles, that healest with blood
The earth when it is sick, and curest the world
O' the pleurisy of people.”

John Fletcher (1579–1625) English Jacobean playwright

The Two Noble Kinsmen (with William Shakespeare; c. 1613; published 1634), Act V, scene 1.

William Blake photo
Bill Hicks photo
Dave Eggers photo

“I am sorry Chris is late this morning. I could make something up about an appointment or a sickness, but the fact is that we woke up late. Go figure
Best,
Brother of Toph.”

Dave Eggers (1970) memoirist, novelist, short story writer, editor, publisher

A Heartbreaking Work Of Staggering Genius (2000)

William S. Burroughs photo
Peter Kropotkin photo

“The day has not only passed, it has long since passed, when we could visualize a healthy psychiatrist confronting a sick patient.”

Martti Siirala (1889–1948) Finnish philosopher

Medicine in Metamorphosis (2003).

Walter Slezak photo

“You have to work years in hit shows to make people sick and tired of you, but you can accomplish this in a few weeks on television.”

Walter Slezak (1902–1983) actor

As quoted in Return of the Portable Curmudgeon (1995), edited by Jon Winokur, p. 290

Poul Anderson photo
George Frisbie Hoar photo
Lois McMaster Bujold photo

“Three cheers for literacy… I feel sick.”

Vorkosigan Saga, Brothers in Arms (1989)

Phil Brooks photo

“Last week, i… i extended a hand to the WWE Universe in a much needed intervention. You know, i don't know if you people know this or not, but i'm not the only one who knows that pills and cigarettes and alcohol are harmful. Medical science has proven this, so there's a surgeon general put in place to put warning labels on all of these products. I guess he's just there to warn the smart people that already know, huh? This is my crusade, and i will continue my crusade for as long as there are people who need help, as long as there are people out there who need change in their lives. One person in particular i've been helping for quite some time now, i'd like to introduce him to the world. Ladies and gentlemen, i give you… Luke Gallows. (Gallows raises his fist) That's right, some of you may recognize him as "Festus", but that was a lifetime ago. And it's a lifetime that he'd just as soon regret. It's a lifetime of torturous drug abuse and neglect, you see, it started just like it started for all of you people, one, one little pill. Just one little pill to take the edge off, one painkiller. And then one turns to two, two turns to four, four turns to eight, so on and so forth. And sure, his friends, his family were there, but they enabled him. They didn't help him, they thought they were but they were slowly rotting him from the inside out. But then i helped him, just like i could help all of you. Trust me, this is just the start, this doesn't end here, it begins here and now. I will continue to reach out and help those who can't help themselves. Holds up brown paper bag On December 1st, this is scary, people, pay attention. On December 1st, a very dangerous addictive new drug hits the streets. Now this scares me because it's a socially accepted over-the-counter drug and it's gonna be widely available all over the world. And it's scary because it's more dangerous than any prescribed medication, it's more harmful than chain smoking an entire carton of unfiltered cigarettes, it is more dangerous than corroding your liver with a fifth of gin or vodka and then chasing it with your Daddy's favorite beer. (Punk pulls a Jeff Hardy DVD out of the bag) "Jeff Hardy, My Life, My Rules" And what an appropriate title, for a loser who destroyed his life and his career living by his rules. And what makes me sick to my stomach is Jeff didn't just ruin his life, he didn't just end his career. (Crowd chants Hardy) He ruined the lives of all his fans because he's planted seeds of destruction in all of the people, all of the drug addicts like yourself who actually looked up to the Charismatic Enabler like he was some sort of a prophet. Well, if you people have any brain-cells left, if there's anything left of your memory that's not burnt out, all you need to know is that the last chapter of this DVD is the most important one you need to watch because it tells the whole story. It's a cage match between myself and Jeff Hardy, where i ended Jeff's career in the WWE… FOREVER! I'm the reason he's not here! And I know how hard it is to deprogram your weak little brains from all the lies you've been fed all over the years, but you owe it to yourselves. Look yourself in the mirror, search inside yourself for that shred of self-respect that might be left, and when it comes to this, when it comes to this garbage, (Holds up DVD) just say no.”

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

November 27, 2009
Friday Night SmackDown

Thomas Gainsborough photo
Thomas Szasz photo
Chuck Palahniuk photo

“oh nothin, i was just buying some ear medication for my sick uncle… *LOWERS SHADES TO LOOK YOU DEAD IN THE EYE* who's a Model by the way”

Dril Twitter user

[ Link to tweet https://twitter.com/dril/status/197502223226384387]
Tweets by year, 2012

Fannie Lou Hamer photo

“I am sick and tired of being sick and tired.”

Fannie Lou Hamer (1917–1977) American civil rights activist (October 6, 1917 – March 14, 1977)

Widely quoted, including Freedomways, p. 240 (Second quarter, 1965). This quote was later employed as her epitaph, and used by American singer and songwriter Anastacia at her song Sick and Tired.

Conrad Black photo

“The present government of Quebec is the most financially and intellectually corrupt in the history of the province. There are the shady deals, brazenly conducted, and the broken promises, most conspicuously that of last October to retain Bill 63… The government dragged out the ancient and totally fictitious spectre of assimilation to justify Bill 22 and its rejection of the right of free choice in education, its its reduction of English education to the lowest echelon of ministerial whim, its assault upon freedom of expression through the regulation of the internal and external language of businesses and other organizations, and its creation of a fatuous new linguistic bureaucracy that will conduct a system of organized denunciation, harassment, and patronage… There is a paralytic social sickness in Quebec. In all this debate, not a single French Quebecker has objected to Bill 22 on the grounds that it was undemocratic or a reduction of liberties exercised in the province. The Quebec Civil Liberties Union, founded by Pierre Trudeau, from which one might have expected such sentiments, has instead demanded the abolition of English education, and this through the spokemanship of Jean-Louis Roy, who derives his income from McGill University…. It is clear that Mr. Bourassa… is now going to try to eliminate the Parti Quebecois by a policy of gradual scapegoatism directed against the non-French elements in the province… The English community here, still deluding itself with the illusion of Montreal as an incomparably fine place to live, is leaderless and irrelevant, except as the hostage of a dishonest government. Last month one of the most moderate ministers, Guy St-Pierre, told an English businessman's group, 'If you don't like Quebec, you can leave it.”

Conrad Black (1944) Canadian-born newspaper publisher

With sadness but with certitude, I accept that choice.
radio broadcast on 26 July 1974, the day Black left Quebec for good
The Establishment Man by Peter Newman

Vachel Lindsay photo
John Armstrong photo
Camille Paglia photo
Winston S. Churchill photo
Thomas Browne photo
Wilfred Thesiger photo
Andrew Ure photo
Ann Coulter photo
John Gray photo
Lauren Anderson (model) photo
André Maurois photo
Neal Stephenson photo
Bob Dylan photo

“Hey, hey, Woody Guthrie, I wrote you a song,
'Bout a funny ol' world that's a-comin' along
Seems sick an' it's hungry, it's tired an' it's torn
It looks like it's a-dyin' an' it's hardly been born”

Bob Dylan (1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist

Song lyrics, Bob Dylan (1962), Song to Woody

Alan Grayson photo

“Don’t get sick. And if you do get sick, die quickly.”

Alan Grayson (1958) American politician

Grayson on health care reform http://listenonrepeat.com/watch/?v=-usmvYOPfco (2009).
2009
Context: Now, the Democrats have a different plan. The Democrats say that: “If you have health insurance, we’re going to make it better. If you don’t have health insurance, we going to provide it to you. If you can’t afford health insurance, then we’ll help you afford health insurance.” So America gets to decide. Do you want the Democratic plan, or do you want the Republican plan? Remember, the Republican plan: "Don’t get sick. And if you do get sick, die quickly."

Bill Hicks photo
Annika Sörenstam photo

“My heart was beating. I got sick in my stomach and my hands were sweating — everything you feel when you are under pressure. I've been nervous before, but nothing like this.”

Annika Sörenstam (1970) Swedish golfer

Comments about the first tee pressure after first round of the Bank of America Colonial PGA Tournament - May 2003 http://www.usatoday.com/sports/golf/pga/2003-05-22-colonial_x.htm

Robert Burton photo
Ignatius of Loyola photo
Samuel Johnson photo

“Sir, you have but two topicks, yourself and me. I am sick of both.”

Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer

May 1776 http://books.google.com/books?id=8DcUAAAAYAAJ&q=%22Sir+you+have+but+two+topicks+yourself+and+me+I+am+sick+of+both%22&pg=PA53#v=onepage, p. 313
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol III

Richard Henry Dana Jr. photo
Thomas Szasz photo
Olaudah Equiano photo

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

Olaudah Equiano (1745–1797) African abolitionist

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

Richard Feynman photo
Mitt Romney photo

“But from the beginning, this nation trusted in God, not man. Religious liberty is the first freedom in our Constitution. And whether the cause is justice for the persecuted, compassion for the needy and the sick, or mercy for the child waiting to be born, there is no greater force for good in the nation than Christian conscience in action.”

Mitt Romney (1947) American businessman and politician

Liberty University, Lynchburg, VA, , quoted in [2012-05-13, In LU Speech, Romney Boldly Touts Faith, and Traditional American Values, Jason, Johnson, Bearing Drift, http://bearingdrift.com/2012/05/13/in-lu-speech-romney-boldly-touts-faith-and-traditional-american-values/, 2012-05-15]
2012

Ilana Mercer photo

“In the postmodern tradition, the pseudo-academics behind the concept of white privilege have invented for themselves an artificial, political construct. Political constructs confer power on those who dream them up. For politics is the predatory process through which the figment of sick minds is weaponized.”

Ilana Mercer South African writer

"The Demonization Of Whites By Mrs. Bill Gates & Other Dangerous Idiots," https://constitution.com/the-demonization-of-whites-by-mrs-bill-gates-other-dangerous-idiots/ Constitution.com, June 8, 2018
2010s, 2018

Babe Ruth photo

“To My Friend John Sylvester,
Just a few words reminding you that I have not forgotten my sick little pal. Sorry I couldn’t get out to see you but here’s hoping this little message of cheer finds you well on the road to recovery. I will try to knock you another homer maybe two today.
Best regards from your friend and rooter,
“Babe” Ruth.”

Babe Ruth (1895–1948) American baseball player

Handwritten note http://greyflannelauctions.com/lot-31264.aspx, written on October 9, 1926, just prior to Game 6 of the World Series, reproduced in "Bambino's Death Stirs Prayers; Baseball Memories Roused; Message Recalls Story of Homers in '26" https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/10924759/, The Salt Lake Tribune (August 18, 1948), p. 24

Shi Nai'an photo

“What excites pleasure in me is the meeting and conversing with old friends. But it is very galling when my friends do not visit me because there is a biting wind, or the roads are muddy through the rain, or perhaps because they are sick. Then I feel isolated. Although I myself do not drink, yet I provide spirits for my friends, […]. In front of my house runs a great river, and there I can sit with my friends in the shadow of the lovely trees. […] When they come they drink and chat, just as they please, but our pleasure is in the conversation and not in the liquor. We do not discuss politics because we are so isolated here that our news is simply composed of rumors, and it would only be a waste of time to talk with untrustworthy information. We also never talk about other people's faults, because in this world nobody is wrong, and we should beware of backbiting. We do not wish to injure anyone, and therefore our conversation is of no consequence to anyone. We discuss human nature about which people know so little because they are too busy to study it.”

Shi Nai'an (1296–1372) Chinese writer

Variant translation by Lin Yutang: "When all my friends come together to my house, there are sixteen persons in all, but it is seldom that they all come. But except for rainy or stormy days, it is also seldom that none of them comes. Most of the days, we have six or seven persons in the house, and when they come, they do not immediately begin to think; they would take a sip when they feel like it and stop when they feel like it, for they regard the pleasure as consisting in the conversation, and not in the wine. We do not talk about court politics, not only because it lies outside our proper occupation, but also because at such a distance most of the news is based upon hearsay; hearsay news is mere rumour, and to discuss rumours would be a waste of our saliva. We also do not talk about people's faults, for people have no faults, and we should not malign them. We do not say things to shock people and no one is shocked; on the other hand, we do wish people to understand what we say, but people still don't understand what we say. For such things as we talk about lie in the depths of the human heart, and the people of the world are too busy to hear them." (The Importance of Living, 1937; pp. 218–219)
Preface to Water Margin

Ron Paul photo

“Well, gays in San Francisco do not obey the dictates of good sense. […] First, these men don't really see a reason to live past their fifties. They are not married, they have no children, and their lives are centered on new sexual partners. These conditions do not make one's older years the happiest. Second, because sex is the center of their lives, they want it to be as pleasurable as possible, which means unprotected sex. Third, they enjoy the attention and pity that comes with being sick.”

Ron Paul (1935) American politician and physician

1994
January
AIDS Dementia
Ron Paul Survival Report
5
http://www.tnr.com/sites/default/files/SR_Jan94_p5.pdf, quoted in * 2011-12-23
TNR Exclusive: A Collection of Ron Paul's Most Incendiary Newsletters
New Republic
http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/98883/ron-paul-incendiary-newsletters-exclusive
Disputed, Newsletters, Ron Paul Survival Report

“We are sick today for lack of simple ideas which can help us be what we want to be.”

Lancelot Law Whyte (1896–1972) Scottish industrial engineer

The Universe of Experience: A Worldview Beyond Science and Religion (1974)

Robert Jordan photo

“Pride fills me. I am sick with the pride that destroyed me.”

Robert Jordan (1948–2007) American writer

Lews Therin Telamon
(15 October 1994)

Max Scheler photo
Thomas Hardy photo
Herbert Hoover photo

“When we are sick, we want an uncommon doctor; when we have a construction job to do, we want an uncommon engineer, and when we are at war, we want an uncommon general. It is only when we get into politics that we are satisfied with the common man.”

Herbert Hoover (1874–1964) 31st President of the United States of America

From an article originally published in the February 6, 1949 issue of "This Week" Magazine, from "Addresses Upon the American Road,Volume: Volume 8: 1955-1960." Developed in speech entitled "Moral and Spiritual Recovery from War" presented October 13, 1945, at 75th Anniversary of Wilson College at Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. "The Crusade Years, 1933–1955: Herbert Hoover's Lost Memoir of the New Deal Era and Its Aftermath", edited by George Nash
The Uncommon Man

Ludwig Feuerbach photo
Norman Tebbit photo
Nicole Oresme photo
John Banville photo
Anthony Bourdain photo
Susie Bright photo
Amir Taheri photo