Quotes about sound (2837 quotes, page 16)

“I really was keen on not doing his as a heinous arch-villain. But as person who was, at some state, a complex psychological being and a warrior on par with Van Helsing, and in fact a sort of brother in arms to Van Helsing. So one thing I attached myself to quite early was a kind of… because they come from the foothills of the Carpathians and nobody knows what the hell people looked like or spoke like back then, you know, 500 years ago. One thing that I kind of attached myself to was a sort of gypsy look. There's always been Romany going through that area. There's a look that's drawn from that history and apart from that, there are sound psychological reasons for why Dracula does the things that he does in this story, and I like that.”

Richard Roxburgh (1962) Australian actor

The Van Helsing Interviews: Richard Roxburgh http://www.horror.com/php/article-442-1.html (April 8, 2004)

People , History , Hell , Personality

“Triune, shaping, restless power,
Life-flow from life's natal hour,
No music chords are in thy sound;
By some thou'rt but a rattle found;
Yet, without thy ceaseless motion,
To ice would turn their dead devotion.”

Margaret Fuller (1810–1850) American feminist, poet, author, and activist

Life Without and Life Within (1859), Sistrum

Life , Music , Dead

“The ideal Ireland that we would have, the Ireland that we dreamed of, would be the home of a people who valued material wealth only as a basis for right living, of a people who, satisfied with frugal comfort, devoted their leisure to the things of the spirit – a land whose countryside would be bright with cosy homesteads, whose fields and villages would be joyous with the sounds of industry, with the romping of sturdy children, the contest of athletic youths and the laughter of happy maidens, whose firesides would be forums for the wisdom of serene old age. The home, in short, of a people living the life that God desires that men should live. With the tidings that make such an Ireland possible, St. Patrick came to our ancestors fifteen hundred years ago promising happiness here no less than happiness hereafter. It was the pursuit of such an Ireland that later made our country worthy to be called the island of saints and scholars. It was the idea of such an Ireland - happy, vigorous, spiritual - that fired the imagination of our poets; that made successive generations of patriotic men give their lives to win religious and political liberty; and that will urge men in our own and future generations to die, if need be, so that these liberties may be preserved. One hundred years ago, the Young Irelanders, by holding up the vision of such an Ireland before the people, inspired and moved them spiritually as our people had hardly been moved since the Golden Age of Irish civilisation. Fifty years later, the founders of the Gaelic League similarly inspired and moved the people of their day. So, later, did the leaders of the Irish Volunteers. We of this time, if we have the will and active enthusiasm, have the opportunity to inspire and move our generation in like manner. We can do so by keeping this thought of a noble future for our country constantly before our eyes, ever seeking in action to bring that future into being, and ever remembering that it is for our nation as a whole that future must be sought.”

Éamon de Valera (1882–1975) 3rd President of Ireland

Radio broadcast http://www.rte.ie/archives/exhibitions/eamon-de-valera/719124-address-by-mr-de-valera/, "On Language & the Irish Nation" (17 March 1943), often called "The Ireland that we dreamed of" speech

Life , Wisdom , Men , God

“There the telephone is ringing again - the engine, the machines [of the printing company] that call you with their sounds - those people who honor and tease [you] with their orders and admonitions - the chiefs who ask - the bills that have to be paid - the interest that force you to work.”

Hendrik Werkman (1882–1945) Dutch artist

version in original Dutch (origineel citaat van Hendrik Werkman, in het Nederlands): Daar heb je weer de telefoon, de motor de machines [ van de drukkerij] die met hun geluiden je roepen, die mensen die met hun orders en standjes vereeren en plagen, de chefs die vragen, de wissels die betaald moeten worden, de rente die je noodzaakt tot werken.
Quote of Hendrik Werkman, c. 1920's; as cited by Martin Werkman, in Pakketten voor Dames, quoted by Doeke Sijens in H. N. Werkman - Leven & Werk - 1882-1945, ed. A. de Vries, J. van der Spek, D. Sijens, M. Jansen; WBooks, Groninger Museum / Stichting Werkman, 2015 (transl: Fons Heijnsbroek), p. 35
1920's

People

“The art of painting is only the art of expressing the invisible by the visible. Whether its roads be great or small, they are sown with problems which it is permitted to sound for one's self as truth, but which it is well to leave in their darkness as mysteries.”

Eugène Fromentin (1820–1876) French painter

Quote from The Old Masters of Belgium and Holland - Les Maitres d’Autrefois, 'Preface', Eugène Fromentin; ed. Mary Caroline Robbins, publisher: J. R. Osgood and company, Boston 1882, p. iv

Truth , Art , Problem , Painting

“Intelligent investment is more a matter of mental approach than it is of technique. A sound mental approach toward stock fluctuations is the touchstone of all successful investment under present-day conditions.”

Benjamin Graham (1894–1976) American investor

Source: The Intelligent Investor: The Classic Text on Value Investing (1949), Chapter II, The Investor and Stock-Market Fluctuations, p. 21

Intelligence , Success

“These people so scared of silence. These are my neighbors. These sound-oholics. These quiet-ophobics.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Lullaby

Source: Lullaby (2002), Chapter 3

People , Silence

“People mistake it for a guy's name or a nick name. Gift is my real name and that is where I got the G in Muma Gee, forget the fact that I added double ‘e’ to it, just as it sounds Gee but the G is just the G in Gift. For the Muma, the Jamaicans will call mother Muma and papa Pupa. The Muma in my name means 'do good' in my language.”

Muma Gee (1978) Nigerian singer and songwriter

In " I am single, apply within – Muma Gee http://www.nigeriafilms.com/content.asp?contentid=3376&ContentTypeID=2" by Funmi Salome Johnson on nigeriafilms.com, October 25, 2008: On the meaning behind her stage name

People , Guy , Forgetting

“The more faithfully you listen to the voices within you, the better you will hear what is sounding outside.”

Dag Hammarskjöld (1905–1961) Swedish diplomat, economist, and author

As quoted in Sacred Seasonings (2003) by Sherri Purdom

“All of a sudden he knew. Shadrach was rabbit's name. It even sounded black! He tried it on his tongue. He listened to it. Shadrach.”

Meindert DeJong book Shadrach

Shadrach (1957)

“A price decline is of no real importance to the bona fide investor unless it is either very substantial—say, more than a third from cost—or unless it reflects a known deterioration of consequence in the company's position. In a well-defined bear market many sound common stocks sell temporarily at extraordinary low prices. It is possible that the investor may then have a paper loss of fully 50 per cent on some of his holdings, without any convincing indication that the underlying values have been permanently affected.”

Benjamin Graham (1894–1976) American investor

Source: The Intelligent Investor: The Classic Text on Value Investing (1949), Chapter II, The Investor and Stock-Market Fluctuations, p. 25

Loss

“Perhaps the wind
Wails so in winter for the summers dead,
And all sad sounds are nature's funeral cries
For what has been and is not.”

George Eliot (1819–1880) English novelist, journalist and translator

Book 1
The Spanish Gypsy (1868)

Sadness , Nature , Winter , Summer

“A profession is a body of men who voluntarily measure their work by a higher standard than their clients demand. To be professionally acceptable, a policy must be sound as well as salable. Wildlife administration, in this respect, is not yet a profession.”

Aldo Leopold (1887–1948) American writer and scientist

"Chukaremia" [1938]; Published in The River of the Mother of God and Other Essays by Aldo Leopold, Susan L. Flader and J. Baird Callicott (eds.) 1991, p. 246.
1930s

Men

“My heart is torn with the sound of raucous voices,
They shout from the slums, from the streets, from the crowded places,
And tunes from the hurdy-gurdy that coldly rejoices
Shoot arrows into my heart.”

Conrad Aiken (1889–1973) American novelist and poet

Source: Discordants (1916), II

Heart

“When the principle of hereditary dominion shall be extinguished in all the institutions of France; when government shall no longer be considered as property transmissible from sire to son, but as a trust committed for a limited time, and then to return to the people whence it came; as a burdensome duty to be discharged, and not as a reward to be abused; when a claim, any claim, to political power by inheritance shall, in the estimation of the whole French people, be held as it now is by the whole people of the North American Union — then will be the time for contemplating the character of Lafayette, not merely in the events of his life, but in the full development of his intellectual conceptions, of his fervent aspirations, of the labors and perils and sacrifices of his long and eventful career upon earth; and thenceforward, till the hour when the trump of the Archangel shall sound to announce that Time shall be no more, the name of Lafayette shall stand enrolled upon the annals of our race, high on the list of the pure and disinterested benefactors of mankind.”

John Quincy Adams (1767–1848) American politician, 6th president of the United States (in office from 1825 to 1829)

Oration on Lafayette (1834)

Life , People , Time

“And silence sounds no worse than cheers
After earth has stopped the ears.”

A.E. Housman book A Shropshire Lad

No. 19 ("To an Athlete Dying Young"), st. 4.
A Shropshire Lad (1896)

Silence

“The sounds of early night die down. Mingled with the darkness of his kinsman Death and dripping with Stygian dew, Sleep enfolds the doomed city, pouring heavy ease from his unforgiving horn, and separates the men.”
Primae decrescunt murmura noctis, cum consanguinei mixtus caligine Leti rore madens Stygio morituram amplectitur urbem Somnus et implacido fundit grauia otia cornu secernitque viros.

Statius book Thebaid

Source: Thebaid, Book V, Line 196

Death , Men , Sleep , Night

“He felt as if someone far away below in the darkness was chipping away at the pillars of his mind, and the steady crack…crack…crack of it was the only sound in the universe.”

Tim Powers book The Drawing of the Dark

Source: The Drawing of the Dark (1979), Chapter 9 (p. 129)

Universe

“Th' Old Man a feeble Javelin threw,
Which could not pierce his sounding Target through,
But on the Margin hung the harmless Spear.”

John Ogilby (1600–1676) Scottish academic

The Works of Publius Virgilius Maro (2nd ed. 1654), Virgil's Æneis

“It must be admitted that many people were conscious and willing dupes. But many more were unconscious and were sincere in their patriotic zeal. Finding now that elaborately and carefully staged deceptions were practised on them, they feel a resentment which has not only served to open their eyes but may induce them to make their children keep their eyes open when next the bugle sounds.”

Arthur Ponsonby (1871–1946) British Liberal and later Labour politician and pacifist

Falsehood in Wartime (1928), Introduction

Children , People , Feeling , Sincerity

“Rhythmical music is that which is made by instruments which render the sound by touch.”

Johannes Tinctoris (1435–1511) Flemish composer

Dictionary of Musical Terms (1475)

Music

“Leaves glowing in the sun, zealous hum of bumblebees,
From afar, from somewhere beyond the river, echoes of lingering voices
And the unhurried sounds of a hammer gave joy not only to me.
Before the five senses were opened, and earlier than any beginning
They waited, ready, for all those who would call themselves mortals,
So that they might praise, as I do, life, that is, happiness.”

Czeslaw Milosz (1911–2004) Polish, poet, diplomat, prosaist, writer, and translator

"An Hour" (1972), trans. Czesŀaw Miłosz and Lillian Vallee
From the Rising of the Sun (1974)

Life , Sense , Waiting , Sun

““Love the others and you will be loved!” is a saying that might sound as a terrible and unjust accusation against all the innocents that have been hated and perhaps even tortured and killed.”

Fausto Cercignani (1941) Italian scholar, essayist and poet

Examples of self-translation (c. 2004), Quotes - Zitate - Citations - Citazioni

Love , Hate

“I will propose a Highway Safety Act of 1966 to seek an end to this mounting tragedy. We must also act to prevent the deception of the American consumer—requiring all packages to state clearly and truthfully their contents—all interest and credit charges to be fully revealed—and keeping harmful drugs and cosmetics away from our stores. It is the genius of our Constitution that under its shelter of enduring institutions and rooted principles there is ample room for the rich fertility of American political invention. We must change to master change. I propose to take steps to modernize and streamline the executive branch, to modernize the relations between city and state and nation. A new Department of Transportation is needed to bring together our transportation activities. The present structure—35 government agencies, spending $5 billion yearly—makes it almost impossible to serve either the growing demands of this great nation or the needs of the industry, or the right of the taxpayer to full efficiency and real frugality. I will propose in addition a program to construct and to flight-test a new supersonic transport airplane that will fly three times the speed of sound—in excess of 2,000 miles per hour. I propose to examine our federal system-the relation between city, state, nation, and the citizens themselves. We need a commission of the most distinguished scholars and men of public affairs to do this job. I will ask them to move on to develop a creative federalism to best use the wonderful diversity of our institutions and our people to solve the problems and to fulfill the dreams of the American people. As the process of election becomes more complex and more costly, we must make it possible for those without personal wealth to enter public life without being obligated to a few large contributors. Therefore, I will submit legislation to revise the present unrealistic restriction on contributions—to prohibit the endless proliferation of committees, bringing local and state committees under the act—to attach strong teeth and severe penalties to the requirement of full disclosure of contributions—and to broaden the participation of the people, through added tax incentives, to stimulate small contributions to the party and to the candidate of their choice.”

Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–1973) American politician, 36th president of the United States (in office from 1963 to 1969)

1960s, State of the Union Address (1966)

Life , Men , People , Penalty

“You can say for me that I will not play with the Red Sox unless I get $20,000. You may think that sounds like a pipe dream, but it is the truth. I feel that I made a bad move last year when I signed a three years' contract to play for $30,000. The Boston club realized much on my value and I think I am entitled to twice as much as my contract calls for. The contract has two years to run, I know. It may be ironbound as far as the Boston club is concerned, but I think with the 10-day clause in it I am entitled to the same privileges as the club. Well, that is a matter for the owners to right, and as my business is in another direction just at present I am going to wait to hear from them.”

Babe Ruth (1895–1948) American baseball player

As quoted in "$20,000 Yearly the Figure Ruth Names; Cheering Message to Frazee On His Way to Films" by John J. Hallahan, in The Boston Globe (October 25, 1919), p. 5

Truth , Dreams , Feeling , Business

“Here is a list of some of the questions and their short answers (…) The interesting thing is to recognize how totally unavoidable they are, provided you place your confidence in science to provide the answers
Is there a God? No.
What is the nature of reality? What physics says it is.
What is the purpose of the universe? There is none.
What is the meaning of life? Ditto.
Why am I here? Just dumb luck.
Does prayer work? Of course not.
Is there a soul? Is it immortal? Are you kidding?
Is there free will? Not a chance!
What happens when we die? Everything pretty much goes on as before, except us.
What is the difference between right and wrong, good and bad? There is no moral difference between them.
Why should I be moral? Because it makes you feel better than being immoral.
Is abortion, euthanasia, suicide, paying taxes, foreign aid, or anything else you don't like forbidden, permissible, or sometimes obligatory? Anything goes.
What is love, and how can I find it? Love is the solution to a strategic interaction problem. Don't look for it; it will find you when you need it.
Does history have any meaning or purpose? It's full of sound and fury, but signifies nothing.
Does the human past have any lessons for our future? Fewer and fewer, if it ever had any to begin with.”

Alexander Rosenberg (1946) American philosopher

The Atheist's Guide to Reality (2011)

Love , Life , God , Feeling

“The bells they sound on Bredon
And still the steeples hum.
"Come all to church, good people," —
Oh, noisy bells, be dumb;
I hear you, I will come.”

A.E. Housman book A Shropshire Lad

No. 21, st. 7.
A Shropshire Lad (1896)

People

“The diplomacy of the present administration has sought to respond to modern ideas of commercial intercourse. This policy has been characterized as substituting dollars for bullets. It is one that appeals alike to idealistic humanitarian sentiments, to the dictates of sound policy and strategy, and to legitimate commercial aims.”

William Howard Taft (1857–1930) American politician, 27th President of the United States (in office from 1909 to 1913)

Idea

“Aristotle's pupil already realized that we have no power at all over our passions as long as we do not know their true causes. Many men have refuted fear, and with sound arguments. But a man who is afraid does not listen to arguments; he listens to the beating of his heart and the pulsating of his blood.”

Alain (1868–1951) French philosopher

Bucephalus
Alain On Happiness (1928)

Men , Fear , Passion , Heart

“For the intimate fusion of touch, temperature and sometimes also taste and smell sensations into a single unified total impression raises the question of whether we do not have here Gestalt qualities which are built up upon a foundation belonging to several sensory regions. As can easily be recognized, it is just as possible that a complex of, say, touch and temperature sensations should provide the foundation for a Gestalt quality as should a complex of sound sensations. Indeed no a priori objection can be raised even against the idea that there should exist sound-colour-Gestalten spanning the data of the senses of sound and vision as something like a bridge - even though we do not believe that we can detect anything of this sort in sensation.”

Christian von Ehrenfels (1859–1932) Austrian philosopher

Source: "On Gestalt Qualities," 1890, p. 97

Idea , Question , Sense

“Just because Beethoven doesn’t sound like currently popular art doesn’t mean his music is worthless.”

John Varley (1947) American science fiction author

"The Phantom of Kansas" (1976), The World Treasury of Science Fiction (ed. David Hartwell), p. 375

Art , Music

“The real menace in dealing with a five-year-old is that in no time at all you begin to sound like a five-year-old.”

Jean Kerr book Please Don't Eat the Daisies

"How to Get the Best of Your Children"
Please Don't Eat the Daisies (1957)

Family , For Parents , Time

“In their effort to misinform students, evolutionists often point out that feathers and scales are both made of the same protein, keratin. They will tell you that this proves that feathers evolved from scales. The book will use fancy terms to make it sound official such as, "dinosaurs had some avian characteristics." Well, a bicycle has certain "automotive characteristics," like a frame and tires; but this does not prove that bicycles turned into cars over millions of years!”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

Source: Are you being brainwashed?: Propaganda in science textbooks (2007), p. 20

Books , Cars , Effort

“There is yet one place of shelter,
Where the foeman cannot come,
Where the summons never sounded
Of the trumpet or the drum.
There again we'll meet our children,
Who, on Flodden's trampled sod,
For their king and for their country
Rendered up their souls to God.
There shall we find rest and refuge,
With our dear departed brave;
And the ashes of the city
Be our universal grave!”

William Edmondstoune Aytoun (1813–1865) British writer and lawyer

Edinburgh after Flodden, stanza XV, from Lays of The Scottish Cavaliers (1848)

God , Children , Soul , Universe

“"Just go and feed yourselves on a wide array of products containing high-fructose corn sugar. Zheesh."
"That wasn't funny, Evil Mark. It sounded fake and hollow. You're terrible at being ironic, and you've been rehearsing that line, haven't you?"”

Douglas Coupland book JPod

JPod (2006)

Evil

“I think I gave indications early on that mine wasn't just going to be a commercial, er, career. If that were the case, then the first record would have been 10 versions of 'Loser.' I always thought it would be interesting if there was no such thing as gold and platinum records, or record deals, and people were just making music. What would the music sound like?”

Beck (1970) American Musician (b.1970)

Blender magazine, October 2002

People , Music , Thinking

“I can imagine anything! That's the trouble with me. I can imagine things now — this minute. I could even make them sound all right, but of course none of them would be true.”

Agatha Christie book Dead Man's Folly

Ariadne Oliver
Dead Man's Folly (1956)

Imagination

“This patchwork of largely fictional works makes the Protocols an incoherent text that easily reveals its fabricated origins. It is hardly credible, if not in a roman feuilleton or in a grand opera, that the “bad guys” should express their evil plans in such a frank and unashamed manner, that they should declare, as the Elders of Zion do, that they have “boundless ambition, a ravenous greed, a merciless desire for revenge and an intended hatred.” If at first the Protocols was taken seriously, it is because it was presented as a shocking revelation, and by sources all in all trustworthy. But what seems incredible is how this fake arose from its own ashes each time someone proved that it was, beyond all doubt, a fake. This is when the “novel of the Protocols” truly starts to sound like fiction. Following the article that appeared in 1921 in the Times of London revealing that the Protocols was plagiarized, as well as every other time some authoritative source confirmed the spurious nature of the Protocols, there was someone else who published it again claiming its authenticity. And the story continues unabated on the Internet today. It is as if, after Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler, one were to continue publishing textbooks claiming that the sun travels around the earth.
How can one explain resilience against all evidence, and the perverse appeal that this book continues to exercise? The answer can be found in the works of Nesta Webster, an antisemetic author who spent her life supporting this account of the Jewish plot. In her Secret Societies and Subversive Movements, she seems well informed and knows the whole story as Eisner narrates it here, but this is her conclusion:
The only opinion I have committed myself is that, whether genuine or not, the Protocols represent the programme of a world revolution, and that in view of their prophetic nature and of their extraordinary resemblance to the protocols of certain secret societies of the past, they were either the work of some such society or of someone profoundly versed in the lore of secret society who was able to reproduce their ideas and phraseology.
Her reasoning is flawless: “since the Protocols say what I said in my story, they confirm it,” or: “the Protocols confirm the story that I derived from them, and are therefore authentic.” Better still: “the Protocols could be fake, but they say exactly what the Jews think, and must therefore be considered authentic.””

Will Eisner (1917–2005) American cartoonist

In other words, it is not the Protocols that produce antisemetism, it is people’s profound need to single out an Enemy that leads them to believe in the Protocols.
I believe that-in spite of this courageous, not comic but tragic book by Will Eisner- the story is hardly over. Yet is is a story very much worth telling, for one must fight the Big Lie and the hatred it spawns.
Umberto Eco, Milan Italy December 2004 translated by Allesandra Bastagli, p. vi-vii
The Plot: The Secret Story of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (10/2/2005)

Life , People , Lie , Secret

“As for drugs, my impression is that their effect was almost completely negative, simply removing people from meaningful struggle and engagement. Just the other day I was sitting in a radio studio waiting for a satellite arrangement abroad to be set up. The engineers were putting together interviews with Bob Dylan from about 1966-7 or so (judging by the references), and I was listening (I'd never heard him talk before — if you can call that talking). He sounded as though he was so drugged he was barely coherent, but the message got through clearly enough through the haze. He said over and over that he'd been through all of this protest thing, realized it was nonsense, and that the only thing that was important was to live his own life happily and freely, not to "mess around with other people's lives" by working for civil and human rights, ending war and poverty, etc. He was asked what he thought about the Berkeley "free speech movement" and said that he didn't understand it. He said something like: "I have free speech, I can do what I want, so it has nothing to do with me. Period."”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

If the capitalist PR machine [term used in the question] wanted to invent someone for their purposes, they couldn't have made a better choice.
Reply (via email) to Douglas Lain, June 1994 https://web.archive.org/web/20021214024709/http://www.douglaslain.com/diet-soap.html
Quotes 1990s, 1990-1994

Life , War , People , Understanding

“Listen. Listening is one of those dynamics that sounds like the easiest thing in the world to do, but in reality is one of the hardest.”

Don Soderquist (1934–2016)

Don Soderquist “ Live Learn Lead to Make a Difference https://books.google.com/books?id=s0q7mZf9oDkC&lpg=pg=PP1&dq=Don%20Soderquist&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false, Thomas Nelson, April 2006 p. 87.
On Listening

World , Reality

“It will be seen that what I desire of a poem is a clear understanding of motive, and a just evaluation of feeling; the justice of the evaluation persisting even into the sound of the least important syllable. Such a poem is a perfect and complete act of the spirit; it calls upon the full life of the spirit; it is difficult of attainment, but I am aware of no good reason to be contented with less.”

Yvor Winters (1900–1968) American poet and literary critic

The Influence of Meter on Poetic Convention : Section III : The Scansion of Free Verse
Primitivism and Decadence : A Study of American Experimental Poetry (1937)

Life , Justice , Feeling , Motivation

“What is the sound of Perl? Is it not the sound of a wall that people have stopped banging their heads against?”

Larry Wall (1954) American computer programmer and author, creator of Perl

[1992Aug26.184221.29627@netlabs.com, 1992]
Usenet postings, 1992

People

“As autumn's dark storms pour from two echoing hills, toward each other approached the heroes.—As two dark streams from high rocks meet, and mix and roar on the plain; loud, rough and dark in battle met Lochlin and Innis-fail. Chief mixed his strokes with chief, and man with man; steel, clanging, sounded on steel, helmets are cleft on high. Blood bursts and smokes around. … As the troubled noise of the ocean when roll the waves on high; as the last peal of the thunder of heaven, such is the noise of battle.”

James Macpherson (1736–1796) Scottish writer, poet, translator, and politician

Book I
The Poems of Ossian, Fingal, an ancient Epic Poem

Autumn

“Scarcely any step had been made in approximating to sound theories since the time of Fracastoro, more than a hundred years having been lost, in writing down the dogma that organized fossils were mere sports of nature. An additional period of a century and a half was now destined to be consumed in exploding the hypothesis, that organized fossils had all been buried in the solid strata by the Noachian flood. Never did a theoretical fallacy, in any branch of scienc, interfere more seriously with accurate observation and the systematic classification of facts.”

Charles Lyell book Principles of Geology

Chpt.3, p. 33
Principles of Geology (1832), Vol. 1

Nature , Sport , Science , Time

“Beyond the cloud-wrapt chambers of western gloom and Aethiopia's other realm there stands a motionless grove, impenetrable by any star; beneath it the hollow recesses of a deep and rocky cave run far into a mountain, where the slow hand of Nature has set the halls of lazy Sleep and his untroubled dwelling. The threshold is guarded by shady Quiet and dull Forgetfulness and torpid Sloth with ever drowsy countenance. Ease, and Silence with folded wings sit mute in the forecourt and drive the blustering winds from the roof-top, and forbid the branches to sway, and take away their warblings from the birds. No roar of the sea is here, though all the shores be sounding, nor yet of the sky; the very torrent that runs down the deep valley nigh the cave is silent among the rocks and boulders; by its side are sable herds, and sheep reclining one and all upon the ground; the fresh buds wither, and a breath from the earth makes the grasses sink and fail. Within, glowing Mulciber had carved a thousand likenesses of the god: here wreathed Pleasure clings to his side, here Labour drooping to repose bears him company, here he shares a couch with Bacchus, there with Love, the child of Mars. Further within, in the secret places of the palace he lies with Death also, but that dread image is seen by none. These are but pictures: he himself beneath humid caverns rests upon coverlets heaped with slumbrous flowers, his garments reek, and the cushions are warm with his sluggish body, and above the bed a dark vapour rises from his breathing mouth. One hand holds up the locks that fall from his left temple, from the other drops his neglected horn.”
Stat super occiduae nebulosa cubilia Noctis Aethiopasque alios, nulli penetrabilis astro, lucus iners, subterque cavis graue rupibus antrum it uacuum in montem, qua desidis atria Somni securumque larem segnis Natura locavit. limen opaca Quies et pigra Oblivio servant et numquam vigili torpens Ignauia vultu. Otia vestibulo pressisque Silentia pennis muta sedent abiguntque truces a culmine ventos et ramos errare vetant et murmura demunt alitibus. non hic pelagi, licet omnia clament litora, non ullus caeli fragor; ipse profundis vallibus effugiens speluncae proximus amnis saxa inter scopulosque tacet: nigrantia circum armenta omne solo recubat pecus, et nova marcent germina, terrarumque inclinat spiritus herbas. mille intus simulacra dei caelaverat ardens Mulciber: hic haeret lateri redimita Voluptas, hic comes in requiem vergens Labor, est ubi Baccho, est ubi Martigenae socium puluinar Amori obtinet. interius tecti in penetralibus altis et cum Morte jacet, nullique ea tristis imago cernitur. hae species. ipse autem umentia subter antra soporifero stipatos flore tapetas incubat; exhalant vestes et corpore pigro strata calent, supraque torum niger efflat anhelo ore vapor; manus haec fusos a tempore laevo sustentat crines, haec cornu oblita remisit.

Statius book Thebaid

Source: Thebaid, Book X, Line 84 (tr. J. H. Mozley)

Love , Death , God , Pleasure

“I leave you but the sound of many a word
In mocking echoes haply overheard,
I sang to heaven. My exile made me free,
from world to world, from all worlds carried me.”

George Santayana (1863–1952) 20th-century Spanish-American philosopher associated with Pragmatism

The Poet's Testament http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-poet-s-testament/
Other works

World

“There are certain devices that one uses in Romantic music that are appropriate only for Romantic or subsequent music. If you take those devices and apply them to earlier music, then it’s totally inappropriate, and it makes the Classical music sound silly. However, if you were to use what you might call ‘Classical devices’ on Romantic music, historically, that would be correct! It very often benefits Romantic music, which is sometimes rather disjunctive, rather shapeless in comparison with Classical symphonic or sonata form. Romantic music very often benefits from that tighter organization that you get from Classical music.”

Leon Fleisher (1928) American conductor and pianist

Interview with pianist Leon Fleisher http://www.examiner.com/article/interview-with-pianist-leon-fleisher by Elijah Ho (October 1, 2014)

Music

“It was the calm and silent night!
Seven hundred years and fifty-three
Had Rome been growing up to might,
And now was queen of land and sea.
No sound was heard of clashing wars,
Peace brooded o’er the hushed domain;
Apollo, Pallas, Jove, and Mars
Held undisturbed their ancient reign
In the solemn midnight,
Centuries ago.”

Alfred Domett (1811–1887) Prime Minister of New Zealand

Christmas Hymn (1833), reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

War , Peace , Sea , Night

“It is no small mischief to a boy, that many of the best years of his life should be devoted to the learning of what can never be of any real use to any human being. His mind is necessarily rendered frivolous and superficial by the long habit of attaching importance to words instead of things; to sound instead of sense.”

William Cobbett (1763–1835) English pamphleteer, farmer and journalist

“To Mr. Benbow,” Political Register (29 November 1817).

Life , Boy , Sense , Learning

“Like the use of the word 'concupiscence' in an earlier age to describe sexual desire, the use of the word 'pollution' to describe essential aspects of the productive activities of an industrial society represents an attempt to defame an entirely proper human capacity by means of using an evil sounding name for it.”

George Reisman (1937) American economist

Capitalism: A Treatise on Economics (1996)

Age , Evil

“My paint is like a rocket, which describes its own space. I try to make the impossible possible. What is happening I cannot foresee, it is a surprise. Painting, like passion, is an emotion full of truth and rings a living sound, like the roar coming from the lion's breast.”

Karel Appel (1921–2006) Dutch painter, sculptor, and poet

Karel Appel's excerpt', c. 1953

Truth , Passion , Painting

“Then there were motorcycles. I learned to ride one in Tallahassee when I was about 14 or 15. … I got to know the town pretty well, and soon I felt confident about riding round. Tallahassee was full of hills, and I loved racing up and down 'em, sometimes trailing my friend or riding next to him, so I could hear the sound of the exhaust and make sure to follow closely and yet not too closely.
I know it sounds strange — a blind teenager buzzin' round on a motorcycle — but I liked that; that was me. I had always been nervy, and I always had a lot of faith in my ability not to break my neck.”

Ray Charles (1930–2004) American musician

Summers in Tallahassee, p. 48
Brother Ray : Ray Charles' Own Story (1978)

Love , Faith , Confidence , Learning

“Fire made Joey powerful. He could cause ordinary, boring people to wake in fright. He made the alarms sound. Made the fire trucks race down the road, sirens wailing. And right behind them stampeded the television cameras and reporters. All of them eager to look upon his handiwork…. Without fire, Joey was nothing.”

Lis Wiehl (1961) American legal scholar

Source: Heart of Ice A Triple Threat Novel with April Henry (Thomas Nelson), pp. 1, 2

People

“The star of that year's conference was undoubtedly the Swedish conservative leader—since Prime Minister—who delivered a speech of such startling Thatcherite soundness that in applauding I felt as if I was giving myself a standing ovation.”

Margaret Thatcher book The Downing Street Years

On Carl Bildt's speech to the International Democratic Union.
The Downing Street Years (1993)

Star

“I was on an airplane last year when a talk show began playing on the TVs. I decided to start narrating for the people, which is a really great game if you're ever bored enough. I realized a time will probably come when television will watch us if we're watching it, if that hasn't already happened, figuratively or literally. It sounded like some sort of pseudo-Big Brother nightmare, so I wrote it down.”

Brandon Boyd (1976) American rock singer, writer and visual artist

His influence on writing the song Talk Shows on Mute

People , Game , Time

“Ideology critique raises a claim that it shares with hermeneutics, namely, the claim to understand an “author” better than he understands himself. What at first sounds arrogant about this claim can be methodologically justified. Others often really do perceive things about me that escape my attention—and conversely. They possess the advantage of distance, which I can profit from only retrospectively through dialogic mirroring. This, of course, would presuppose a functioning dialogue, which is precisely what does not take place in the process of ideology critique.
An ideology critique that does not clearly accept its identity as satire can, however, easily be transformed from an instrument in the search for truth into one of dogmatism. All too often, it interferes with the capacity for dialogue instead of opening up new paths for it.”

Peter Sloterdijk (1947) German philosopher

Source: Kritik der zynischen Vernunft [Critique of Cynical Reason] (1983), p. 19

Truth , Search , Understanding

“Fear is proverbially a poor adviser for human action; for a party it is destruction. Fear of the labor movement and socialism has caused the political downfall of the German bourgeoisie; and the days of the Social Democracy are numbered as soon as the cry of fear finds a response in us. We should not challenge, but we should not sound the alarm and be misled by fear into taking steps that do not accord with the principles, the nature and the honor of our party. One does not disarm an enemy through timidity and gentleness; one simply emboldens him. Not that we should seek to run our heads through a wall. We wish to be and must be “practical.””

Wilhelm Liebknecht (1826–1900) German socialist politician

No Compromise – No Political Trading (1899)

Fear , Democracy , Nature , Cry

“In general, the primary aim of this cleansing process is only to restore a certain sound and natural balance, and, secondly, to remove from official positions of national significance those elements to which one cannot entrust Germany’s survival or destruction. For it will not be possible to avoid, in the next few years, [the need] to make sure that certain processes which must not be communicated to the rest of the world for reasons of the highest national interest, will indeed remain secret. This can only be guaranteed by the inner homogeneity of the administrative bodies concerned.”

Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) Führer and Reich Chancellor of Germany, Leader of the Nazi Party

Letter to President Hindenberg http://alphahistory.com/nazigermany/hindenburg-and-hitler-on-jewish-war-veterans/, (April 5th 1933)
1930s

Secret , World , Communication , Nature

“If I sound grumpy, it is only because I have come across too many idiots of the "it can't be done" persuasion lately, the kind of managers who have an aquarium in their office because fifteen brains think better than one.”

Erik Naggum (1965–2009) Norwegian computer programmer

Re: Upper limits of CL http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/b3b24fb7512f220f (Usenet article).
Usenet articles, Miscellaneous

Thinking

“All clear and transparent words appear to be beautiful sounds. Yes and no are not precisely clear words, but definite words. In clear words, there is more light than movement or attitude.”

Joseph Joubert (1754–1824) French moralist and essayist

Beauty , Light , Appearance

“Though mainstream economics began by assuming that his hedonistic, individualistic approach to analysing consumer demand was intellectually sound, it ended up proving that it was not.”

Steve Keen (1953) Australian economist

Source: Debunking Economics - The Naked Emperor Of The Social Sciences (2001), Chapter 2, The Calculus Of Hedonism, p. 23

“A homeostat constantly seeks to establish a balance which is perpetually disrupted, and performs a statistical exploration of all the possible combinations of inputs.
The actual research on the apparatus is guided by a triple determinism which integrates:
#. one element of uncertainty created by an "indifferent cell," which systematically makes use of chance;
#. one element of "sensorial reactions" which integrates the effects of the sound atmosphere, of the light atmosphere and of the heat atmosphere;
#. an "internal determinism" created by the feedbacks of the various active chains among one another, in order to liberate the machine progressively. Its degree of liberty can easily be modified.
The objective sought is above all of an experimental order. As for electronic animals, the synthesis of the faculties must be effected very gradually, and the behavior of the "models" man makes of himself must be observed. This exploration by the "models" of physiology, psychology and sociology marks the opening of a new path in research.”

Nicolas Schöffer (1912–1992) French sculptor and plastician

Source: André Giraud-Bours (1963). Nicolas Schöffer. p. 45 ; cited in: " 1956 – CYSP-1 – Nicolas Schöffer – (Hungarian/French) http://cyberneticzoo.com/cyberneticanimals/1956-cysp-1-nicolas-schoffer-hungarianfrench/" in: cyberneticzoo.com, 2015.

Behavior , Light , Chance , Animals

“Life – the break of dawn, the sound of a stream.Twilight.Dusk. Silent or loud, eloquent scream of joy or despair or just an ecstatic dream…<Br”

Manav Gupta (1967) Indian artist

Referenced from TEDx Talk (19 October, 2012) http://lingayasuniversity.edu.in/tedx/?page_id=77
"on my eyot", Manav Gupta (Anthology of poems, 2012)
2010s

Life , Dreams , Joy , Despair

“His feet were like fine copper when glowing in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of many waters.”

John the Evangelist (10–98) author of the Gospel of John; traditionally identified with John the Apostle of Jesus, John of Patmos (author o…

1:15 http://www.jw.org/en/publications/bible/nwt/books/revelation/1/
Revelation

Water

“Bernie Sanders' election campaign had given rise to much hope. By daring to introduce a socialist perspective into the debate, Sanders initiated the sound politicization of public opinion, which is no more impossible in the United States than elsewhere. We can only deplore, under these conditions, Sanders' capitulation and his rallying to the support of Clinton.”

Samir Amin (1931–2018) Egyptian economist

The Election of Donald Trump https://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2016/amin301116.html (30 November 2016), Monthly Review Magazine (MRzine)

Hope , Support

“If it really were the case, as popular opinion has tried to establish, that the genius were separated from ordinary men by a thick wall through which no sound could penetrate, then all understanding of the efforts of genius would be denied to ordinary men, and their works would fail to make any impression on them. All hopes of progress depend on this being untrue. And it is untrue. The difference between men of genius and the others is quantitative not qualitative, of degree not of kind.”

Otto Weininger book Sex and Character

Source: Sex and Character (1903), p. 121.

Men , Hope , Understanding , Effort

“I am not afraid of reprisals, I have no children, no wife, no car, no debt. It might sound a bit pompous, but I'd prefer to die on my feet than to live on my knees.”

Charb (1967–2015) French caricaturist and journalist

Xavier Ternisien, A "Charlie Hebdo", on n'a "pas l’impression d’égorger quelqu’un avec un feutre" http://www.lemonde.fr/actualite-medias/article/2012/09/20/je-n-ai-pas-l-impression-d-egorger-quelqu-un-avec-un-feutre_1762748_3236.html, Le Monde, 20 september 2012.

Children , Cars

“You can't save free markets by socialism, I don't know where this idea ever came from. You save free markets by promoting free markets and sound money and balanced budgets. The whole reason why nobody wants to address the real problem is, we're spending a trillion dollars a year overseas running an empire, and it's coming to an end. This country is bankrupt, and we won't admit it. Eventually though, the dollar will go bust, and we will bring our troops home, and we will live within our means, but we ought to do it sensibly, rather than waiting for the collapse of the dollar, and this is what we're doing, we're on the verge of destroying our dollar. And then, you think we have problems now, problems then will be a lot worse, it'd look like the Weimar Republic, or a third world nation. And a lot of people know that, and they're scared to death, but we don't need to be making the problem worse by just propping up everything with more government programs, more inflation, and more helicopters, it won't work.”

Ron Paul (1935) American politician and physician

Fox Business Network, October 14, 2008 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qzUtPq8pLE
2000s, 2006-2009

Death , Money , People , World

“IV. Thesis. Freedom is very well compatible with sound lawfulness of the course of nature. But the concept of a timeless God is then untenable. But the restriction which omnipotence and omniscience suffer through freedom of the creature in the sense above determined, must be eliminated by the assumption of a temporally acting God, of a ruler of the hearts and destinies of men; the concept of Providence must be supplemented and in part replaced by the notion of government of the world.”

Bernhard Riemann (1826–1866) German mathematician

No Antithesis indicated.
Gesammelte Mathematische Werke (1876)

Men , God , World , Law

“The wage earner. Two very important policies have been adopted by this country which, while extending their benefits also in other directions, have been of the utmost importance to the wage earners. One of these is the protective tariff, which enables our people to live according to a better standard and receive a better rate of compensation than any people, any time, anywhere on earth, ever enjoyed. This saves the American market for the products of the American workmen. The other is a policy of more recent origin and seeks to shield our wage earners from the disastrous competition of a great influx of foreign peoples. This has been done by the restrictive immigration law. This saves the American job for the American workmen. I should like to see the administrative features of this law rendered a little more humane for the purpose of permitting those already here a greater latitude in securing admission of members of their own families. But I believe this law in principle is necessary and sound, and destined to increase greatly the public welfare. We must maintain our own economic position, we must defend our own national integrity.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, Second State of the Union Address (1924)

People , Family , Law , Time

“With regard to the principle [of using symbols to represent sounds], it matters little whether the symbol is an elaborately detailed picture, a slightly stylized drawing, or a drastically abbreviated symbol of essentially abstract form. What is crucial is to recognize that the diverse forms perform the same function in representing sound. To see that writing has the form of pictures and to conclude that it is pictographic is correct in only one sense -- that of the form, but not the function, of the symbols. We can put it this way:
QUESTION: When is a pictograph not a pictograph?
ANSWER: When it represents a sound.”

John DeFrancis book The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy

The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy (1984, p. 140) http://www.pinyin.info/readings/texts/ideographic_myth.html
The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy (1984)

Way , Question , Sense , Drawing

“My arguments were beginning to sound a little strained to me, too. I was in the position of a priest trying to sell religion.”

Glen Cook book Shadows Linger

Source: Shadows Linger (1984), Chapter 32, “Juniper: Visitors” (p. 365)

Religion

“Detente sounds a fine word. And, to the extent that there really has been a relaxation in international tension, it is a fine thing. But the fact remains that throughout this decade of detente, the armed forces of the Soviet Union have increased, are increasing, and show no signs of diminishing.”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

Speech to Chelsea Conservative Association (26 July 1975) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/102750
Leader of the Opposition

““When material needs are largely satisfied,” writes Carl Rogers, “as they tend to be for many people in this affluent society, individuals are turning to the psychological world, groping for a greater degree of authenticity and fulfillment.” The clear distinction between material and psychic needs is already the mystification; it capitulates to the ideology of the affluent society which affirms the material structure is sound, conceding only that some psychic and spiritual values might be lacking. Exactly this distinction sets up “authenticity” and “fulfillment” as so many more commodities for the shopper. Rather it is the fissure itself which is the source of the ills—between work and “free” time, material structure and psychological “world,” producers and consumers.”

Russell Jacoby (1945) American historian

Source: Social Amnesia: A Critique of Conformist Psychology from Adler to Laing (1975), p. 48-49

People , World , Time

““They’re absolutely necrotic, aren’t they?” Colin whispered behind his order of service.
“It’s late twentieth century atonal,” Dunworthy whispered back. “It’s supposed to sound dreadful.””

Connie Willis book Doomsday Book

Source: Doomsday Book (1992), Chapter 14 (p. 219)

“No matter how close and familiar the temple or cathedral were to the people who lived around them, they remained in terrifying or elevating contrast to the daily life of the slave, the peasant, and the artisan—and perhaps even to that of their masters. Whether ritualized or not, art contains the rationality of negation. In its advanced positions, it is the Great Refusal—the protest against that which is. The modes in which man and things are made to appear, to sing and sound and speak, are modes of refuting, breaking, and recreating their factual existence. But these modes of negation pay tribute to the antagonistic society to which they are linked. Separated from the sphere of labor where society reproduces itself and its misery, the world of art which they create remains, with all its truth, a privilege and an illusion. In this form it continues, in spite of all democratization and popularization, through the nineteenth and into the twentieth century. The “high culture” in which this alienation is celebrated has its own rites and its own style. The salon, the concert, opera. theater are designed to create and invoke another dimension of reality. Their attendance requires festive-like preparation; they cut off and transcend everyday experience. Now this essential gap between the arts and the order of the day, kept open in the artistic alienation, is progressively closed by the advancing technological society. And with its closing, the Great Refusal is in turn refused; the “other dimension” is absorbed into the prevailing state of affairs. The works of alienation are themselves incorporated into this society and circulate as part and parcel of the equipment which adorns and psychoanalyzes the prevailing state of affairs.”

Herbert Marcuse book One-Dimensional Man

Source: One-Dimensional Man (1964), pp. 63-64

Life , People , Truth , World

“I never heard a thrown ball make that sound before. The ball seemed to accelerate as it came close; an accelerating, impossibly fast pitch that made the noises of hornets and snakes.”

Roger Kahn (1927–2020) American baseball writer

Source: The Boys Of Summer, Chapter 1, The Trolley Car That Ran By Ebbets Field, p. 55

“You cannot spend your way out of a recession or borrow your way out of debt. And when you repeat, in that wooden and perfunctory way, that our situation is better than others, that we are well placed to weather the storm, I have to tell you, you sound like a Brezhnev era apparatchik giving the party line. You know, and we know, and you know that we know that it's nonsense. Everyone knows that Britain is worse off than any other country as we go into these hard times. The IMF has said so. The European Commission has said so. The markets have said so, which is why our currency has devalued by thirty percent. And soon, the voters too will get their chance to say so. They can see what the markets have already seen: that you are the devalued Prime Minister of a devalued Government”

Daniel Hannan (1971) British politician

Speech to Gordon Brown in the European Parliament, 24 March 2009 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94lW6Y4tBXs
2000s

Way , Chance , Time , Weather

“You're so much more endearing with the sound turned off.”

Brandon Boyd (1976) American rock singer, writer and visual artist

Lyrics, A Crow Left of the Murder... (2004)

“Once, along with The Transfigured Night, he played a class Rachmaninoff’s Isle of the Dead. Most of the class had not seen the painting, so he went to the library and returned with a reproduction of it. Then he pointed, with a sober smile, to a painting which hung on the wall of the classroom (A Representation of Several Areas, Some of Them Grey, one might have called it; yet this would have been unjust to it—it was non-representational) and played for the class, on the piano, a composition which he said was an interpretation of the painting: he played very slowly and very calmly, with his elbows, so that it sounded like blocks falling downstairs, but in slow motion. But half his class took this as seriously as they took everything else, and asked him for weeks afterward about prepared pianos, tone-clusters, and the compositions of John Cage and Henry Cowell; one girl finally brought him a lovely silk-screen reproduction of a painting by Jackson Pollock, and was just opening her mouth to—
He interrupted, bewilderingly, by asking the Lord what land He had brought him into. The girl stared at him open-mouthed, and he at once said apologetically that he was only quoting Mahler, who had also diedt from America; then he gave her such a winning smile that she said to her roommate that night, forgivingly: “He really is a nice old guy. You never would know he’s famous.””

Randall Jarrell book Pictures from an Institution

“Is he really famous?” her roommate asked. “I never heard of him before I got here. ...”
Source: Pictures from an Institution (1954) [novel], Chapter 4, pp. 138–139

Love , Smile , Guy , Quotes

“The never-ceasing boom of the great ocean as it breaks on the beach, drowns all smaller sounds.”

Alexander Maclaren (1826–1910) British minister

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 277.

“Looking back the great American ‘stabilisation’ [and boom] of 1922-1929 was really a vast attempt to destabilise the value of money in terms of human effort by means of a colossal programme of investment [driven by too easy credit]… which succeeded for a surprisingly long period, but which no human ingenuity could have managed to direct indefinitely on sound and balanced lines. [and therefore it ended dramatically in the huge 1929 stock market crash followed by the Great Depression. ]”

Dennis Holme Robertson (1890–1963) British economist

D.H. Robertson in "How Do We Want Gold to Behave?." The International Gold Problem, Humphrey Milford (1932): As cited in imagi-natives.com; Also cited in: Murray N. Rothbard (2013) America's Great Depression (LFB) p. 1921.

Money , Effort

“Faith is a myth and beliefs shift like mists on the shore; thoughts vanish; words, once pronounced, die; and the memory of yesterday is as shadowy as the hope of to-morrow….
In this world – as I have known it – we are made to suffer without the shadow of a reason, of a cause or of guilt….
There is no morality, no knowledge and no hope; there is only the consciousness of ourselves which drives us about a world that… is always but a vain and fleeting appearance….
A moment, a twinkling of an eye and nothing remains – but a clod of mud, of cold mud, of dead mud cast into black space, rolling around an extinguished sun. Nothing. Neither thought, nor sound, nor soul. Nothing.”

Joseph Conrad (1857–1924) Polish-British writer

Letter to Robert Bontine Cunninghame Graham, quoted in Joseph Conrad: A Biography (1991) by Jeffrey Meyers, p. 166

World , Faith , Hope , Soul

“You are doing an excellent thing, one which will be wholesome for you, if, as you write me, you are persisting in your effort to attain sound understanding; it is foolish to pray for this when you can acquire it from yourself. We do not need to uplift our hands towards heaven, or to beg the keeper of a temple to let us approach his idol's ear, as if in this way our prayers were more likely to be heard. A god is near you, with you, and in you. This is what I mean, Lucilius: there sits a holy spirit within us, one who marks our good and bad deeds, and is our a guardian.”
Facis rem optimam et tibi salutarem, si, ut scribis, perseveras ire ad bonam mentem, quam stultum est optare, cum possis a te impetrare. Non sunt ad caelum elevandae inarms nee exorandus aedituus, ut nos ad aurem simulacri, quasi magis exaudiri possimus, admittat; Prope est a te deus, tecum est, intus est. Ita dico, Lucili: sacer intra nos spiritus sedet, malorum bonorumque nostrorum observator et custos...

Seneca the Younger (-4–65 BC) Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, and dramatist

Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter XLI: On the god within us

God , Way , Understanding , Effort

“In my opinion the third sound principle is this—to strive to cultivate and maintain, ay, to the very uttermost, what is called the concert of Europe; to keep the Powers of Europe in union together. And why? Because by keeping all in union together you neutralize and fetter and bind up the selfish aims of each. I am not here to flatter either England or any of them. They have selfish aims, as, unfortunately, we in late years have too sadly shown that we too have had selfish aims; but then common action is fatal to selfish aims. Common action means common objects; and the only objects for which you can unite together the Powers of Europe are objects connected with the common good of them all. That, gentlemen, is my third principle of foreign policy.”

William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) British Liberal politician and prime minister of the United Kingdom

Speech in West Calder, Scotland (27 November 1879), quoted in W. E. Gladstone, Midlothian Speeches 1879 (Leicester University Press, 1971), pp. 115-116.
1870s

Selfishness

“Beautiful dreamer, wake unto me,
Starlight and dewdrops are waiting for thee;
Sounds of the rude world heard in the day,
Lull'd by the moonlight have all pass'd away.”

Stephen Foster (1826–1864) American songwriter

Beautiful Dreamer, Firth, Pond & Co. (1862).

World , Beauty , Waiting

“Then silence is sawn in half by a dragonfly
as eels sign their names along the bottom-sand
when the sunrise brightens the river's memory and waves of huge ferns are nodding to the sea's sound.
Although the smoke forgets the earth from which is ascends
and the nettles guard the holes where the laurels were killed an iguana hears the axes, clouding each lens
over its lost name, when the hunched island was called
'Iounalao' 'Where it iguana is from' But, taking its own time, the iguana will scale
the rigging of vines in a year, its dewlap fanned,
its elbows akimbo, its deliberate tail moving with the island. The slit pods of its eyes
ripened in a pause that lasted for centuries,
that rose with the Aruacs' smoke till a new race unknown to the lizard stood measuring the trees.
These were their pillars that fell, leaving a blue space
for a single God where the old gods stood before, The first god was a gommier. The generator
began with a whine, and a shark, with sidewise jaw,
sent the chips flying like mackrel over water into trembling weeds”

Derek Walcott book Omeros

"A Far Cry from Africa" (1962), Omeros

God , Tree , Silence , Water

“Lying in my tent
I can hear your cry
Echoing round the mountainside
You sound lonely”

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

Song lyrics, 50 Words for Snow (2011)

Lying , Cry

“Our missionaries are going forth to different nations, and in Germany, Palestine, New Holland, the East Indies, and other places, the standard of truth has been erected: no unhallowed hand can stop the work from progressing, persecutions may rage, mobs may combine, armies may assemble, calumny may defame, but the truth of God will go forth boldly, nobly, and independent till it has penetrated every continent, visited every clime, swept every country, and sounded in every ear, till the purposes of God shall be accomplished and the great Jehovah shall say the work is done.”

Joseph Smith, Jr. book History of the Church

History of the Church, 4:540 (1 March 1842)
1840s

God , Truth , Rage , Country

“Today begins my walk with you." They spoke together, their voices sounding softly in the cold air. "Where you go, I go. Where you stay, I stay. When you sleep, I will sleep. When you rise, I will rise. I will pass my days within the sound of your voice, and my nights within the reach of your hand. And none shall come between us.”

William Nicholson (1948) British screenwriter, playwright and novelist

Source: The "Wind on Fire" Trilogy (2000-2003), Slaves of the Mastery (Book 2), p. 581

Sleep , Night

“Let us first examine that nightmare to many Americans, especially our friends in California, the growing population of Japanese on the Pacific slope. It is undoubtedly true that in the past many thousands of Japanese have legally or otherwise got into the United States, settled here and raised up children who became American citizens. Californians have properly objected on the sound basic ground that Japanese immigrants are not capable of assimilation into the American population. If this had throughout the discussion been made the sole ground for the American attitude all would have been well, and the people of Japan would today understand and accept our decision.

Anyone who has traveled in the Far East knows that the mingling of Asiatic blood with European or American blood produces, in nine cases out of ten, the most unfortunate results. There are throughout the East many thousands of so-called Eurasians—men and women and children partly of Asiatic blood and partly of European or American blood. These Eurasians are, as a common thing, looked down on and despised, both by the European and American who reside there, and by the pure Asiatic who lives there.”

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

Editorial for Macon Telegraph, April 30, 1925
1920s

Women , Men , Children , People

“The Alfa Romeo GTV6 had the worst gearbox I've ever encountered, and the worst driving position and the worst record for reliability. Nevertheless, I bought one. I knew it was a hopeless basket case but I'd become smitten by the noise its engine made: a rumble in the jungle at low revs and almost an eerie howl as it neared the red line. I would put up with the massive bouts of truculence, the deep discomfort and the absurdly heavy steering because no car before, or since, has ever made such a glorious sound. It was music to the enthusiast's ears, like a cross between 'Ode to Joy' and 'Nessun Dorma.”

Jeremy Clarkson book Born to be Riled

Source: Born to be Riled (1999), p. 6

Music , Cars , Joy

“In every sound convert the judgment is brought to approve of the laws and ways of Christ, and subscribe to them as most righteous and reasonable; the desire of the heart is to know the whole mind of Christ; the free and resolved choice of the heart is determined for the ways of Christ, before all the pleasures of sin, and prosperities of the world; it is the daily care of his life to walk with God.”

Joseph Alleine (1634–1668) Pastor, author

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 163.

Life , God , Pleasure , World

“We busted out of class had to get away from those fools;
We learned more from a three minute record than we ever learned in school.
Tonight I hear the neighborhood drummer sound;
I can feel my heart begin to pound.
You say you're tired and you just want to close your eyes and follow your dreams down.”

Bruce Springsteen (1949) American singer and songwriter

"No Surrender"
Song lyrics, Born in the U.S.A. (1984)

School , Dreams , Fools , Feeling

“The only road, the sure road to unquestioned credit and a sound financial condition is the exact and punctual fulfilment of every pecuniary obligation, public and private, according to its letter and spirit.”

Rutherford B. Hayes (1822–1893) American politician, 19th President of the United States (in office from 1877 to 1881)

Speech at New England Society Dinner, Brooklyn (21 December 1880)

“You can give him a ukulele and he can make it sound like a Stradivarius.”

Bob Ezrin (1949) Canadian music producer and keyboardist

Regarding David Gilmour
Guitar World article on Bob Ezrin by Alan Di Perna, Feb. 1993 http://utopia.knoware.nl/users/ptr/pfloyd/interview/cc.html (url accessed on October 16, 2008)