Quotes about strike
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Martin Luther photo
Anne Frank photo
Hermann Grassmann photo
Morihei Ueshiba photo
Nikola Tesla photo
Abraham Lincoln photo
Epictetus photo
Robert H. Jackson photo
Barack Obama photo

“I believe that under the surface all people are the same. […] people are all essentially the same. Similar hopes, similar dreams, similar strengths, similar weaknesses. But we're also all bound by history and culture and habits. And so conflicts arise, in part, because of some weaknesses in human nature. When we feel threatened, then we like to strike out against people who are not like us. When change is happening too quickly, and we try to hang on to those things that we think could give us a solid foundation. And sometimes the organizing principles are around issues like race, or religion. When there are times of scarcity, then people can turn on each other.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2016, Young Leaders of the Americas Initiative Town Hall (March 2016)
Context: I believe that under the surface all people are the same. […] people are all essentially the same. Similar hopes, similar dreams, similar strengths, similar weaknesses. But we're also all bound by history and culture and habits. And so conflicts arise, in part, because of some weaknesses in human nature. When we feel threatened, then we like to strike out against people who are not like us. When change is happening too quickly, and we try to hang on to those things that we think could give us a solid foundation. And sometimes the organizing principles are around issues like race, or religion. When there are times of scarcity, then people can turn on each other. And so I don't underestimate the very real challenges that we continue to face, and I don't think it is inevitable that the world comes together in a common culture and common understanding. But overall, I am hopeful. And the reason I'm hopeful is, if you look at the trajectory of history, humanity has slowly improved.

Gregor Mendel photo

“The striking-regularity with which the same hybrid forms always reappeared whenever fertilisation took place between the same species induced further experiments to be undertaken”

Introductory paragraph
Experiments in plant-hybridisation (1865)
Context: Experience of artificial fertilisation, such as is effected with ornamental plants in order to obtain new variations in colour, has led to the experiments which will here be discussed. The striking-regularity with which the same hybrid forms always reappeared whenever fertilisation took place between the same species induced further experiments to be undertaken, the object of which was to follow up the developments of the hybrids in their progeny.

Mikhail Lermontov photo
Thucydides photo
Romain Rolland photo

“Thou art not alone, and thou dost not belong to thyself. Thou art one of My voices, thou art one of My arms. Speak and strike for Me.”

Romain Rolland (1866–1944) French author

Jean-Christophe (1904 - 1912), Journey's End: The Burning Bush (1911)
Context: "Thou art not alone, and thou dost not belong to thyself. Thou art one of My voices, thou art one of My arms. Speak and strike for Me. But if the arm be broken, or the voice be weary, then still I hold My ground: I fight with other voices, other arms than thine. Though thou art conquered, yet art thou of the army which is never vanquished. Remember that and thou wilt fight even unto death."
"Lord, I have suffered much!"
"Thinkest thou that I do not suffer also? For ages death has hunted Me and nothingness has lain in wait for Me. It is only by victory in the fight that I can make My way. The river of life is red with My blood."
"Fighting, always fighting?"
"We must always fight. God is a fighter, even He Himself. God is a conqueror. He is a devouring lion. Nothingness hems Him in and He hurls it down. And the rhythm of the fight is the supreme harmony. Such harmony is not for thy mortal ears. It is enough for thee to know that it exists. Do thy duty in peace and leave the rest to the Gods."

Martha Graham photo
Miyamoto Musashi photo
Theodore Roosevelt photo

“The slightest study of business conditions will satisfy anyone capable of forming a judgment that the personal equation is the most important factor in a business operation; that the business ability of the man at the head of any business concern, big or little, is usually the factor which fixes the gulf between striking success and hopeless failure.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

1900s, First Annual Message to Congress (1901)
Context: The captains of industry who have driven the railway systems across this continent, who have built up our commerce, who have developed our manufactures, have on the whole done great good to our people. Without them the material development of which we are so justly proud could never have taken place. Moreover, we should recognize the immense importance of this material development of leaving as unhampered as is compatible with the public good the strong and forceful men upon whom the success of business operations inevitably rests. The slightest study of business conditions will satisfy anyone capable of forming a judgment that the personal equation is the most important factor in a business operation; that the business ability of the man at the head of any business concern, big or little, is usually the factor which fixes the gulf between striking success and hopeless failure.

Publius Flavius Vegetius Renatus photo

“An army unsupplied with grain and other necessary provisions will be vanquished without striking a blow.”
Qui frumentum necessariaque non praeparat, uincitur sine ferro.

General Maxims
De Re Militari (also Epitoma Rei Militaris), Book III, "Dispositions for Action"

Theodore Roosevelt photo

“The thing that will strike you in just about a week is that there are a whole lot of able people sliding around this planet. The fact that the individual opposed to you does not wear a cravat, and does wear a saw-edge collar, does not imply that you are going to carry the convention against him!”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

1900s, Address at the Prize Day Exercises at Groton School (1904)
Context: Now, there are in our civic and social life very much worse creatures than snobs, but none more contemptible. [... ] If you have any stuff in you at all, and try to amount to anything in after life, you will not remain snobs even if you start as such. It will be taken out of you very soon and very roughly if you go into any real work. Go into politics, go to your district convention, and try to carry it on the snob basis and see how far you will get. The thing that will strike you in just about a week is that there are a whole lot of able people sliding around this planet. The fact that the individual opposed to you does not wear a cravat, and does wear a saw-edge collar, does not imply that you are going to carry the convention against him!

Thomas Paine photo

“It was the cause of America that made me an author. The force with which it struck my mind and the dangerous condition the country appeared to me in, by courting an impossible and an unnatural reconciliation with those who were determined to reduce her, instead of striking out into the only line that could cement and save her, A Declaration Of Independence, made it impossible for me, feeling as I did, to be silent: and if, in the course of more than seven years, I have rendered her any service, I have likewise added something to the reputation of literature, by freely and disinterestedly employing it in the great cause of mankind, and showing that there may be genius without prostitution. Independence always appeared to me practicable and probable, provided the sentiment of the country could be formed and held to the object: and there is no instance in the world, where a people so extended, and wedded to former habits of thinking, and under such a variety of circumstances, were so instantly and effectually pervaded, by a turn in politics, as in the case of independence; and who supported their opinion, undiminished, through such a succession of good and ill fortune, till they crowned it with success. But as the scenes of war are closed, and every man preparing for home and happier times, I therefore take my leave of the subject. I have most sincerely followed it from beginning to end, and through all its turns and windings: and whatever country I may hereafter be in, I shall always feel an honest pride at the part I have taken and acted, and a gratitude to nature and providence for putting it in my power to be of some use to mankind.”

Thomas Paine (1737–1809) English and American political activist

The Crisis No. XIII
1770s, The American Crisis (1776–1783)

George Washington photo
Jawaharlal Nehru photo
Carl Schmitt photo
Karl Marx photo
Abraham Lincoln photo
Abraham Lincoln photo
Abraham Lincoln photo
Virginia Woolf photo
Kim Jong-un photo

“Only when one is equipped with the formidable striking capabilities, overwhelming military power that cannot be stopped by anyone, one can prevent a war, guarantee the security of the country and contain and put under control all threats and blackmails by the imperialists.”

Kim Jong-un (1984) 3rd Supreme Leader of North Korea

As quoted in "Kim Jong Un Defends Nuclear Tests, Says 'powerful Weapons' Help Mitigate Threats" in Republic World https://www.republicworld.com/world-news/rest-of-the-world-news/kim-jong-un-defends-nuclear-tests-says-powerful-weapons-help-mitigate-threats-articleshow.html (28 March 2022)

Barbara Kingsolver photo
Dorothy L. Sayers photo
Roald Dahl photo
Nora Ephron photo
Ann Coulter photo
Charlaine Harris photo
Ruskin Bond photo
Leonard Cohen photo
Cassandra Clare photo

“Is this the part where you tell me you're secretly in love with me? Vampire mojo strikes again.”

Variant: I was following you.' - Jace
'Is this the part where you tell me you're secretly in love with me? Vampire mojo strikes again.' - Simon
Source: City of Fallen Angels

Nicholas Sparks photo

“That is the mysterious thing about tragedy- it often strikes at the happiest moment.”

Christopher Pike (1954) American author Kevin Christopher McFadden

Source: The Red Dice

Naomi Novik photo
Richard Russo photo
Werner Heisenberg photo

“Quantum theory provides us with a striking illustration of the fact that we can fully understand a connection though we can only speak of it in images and parables.”

Die Quantentheorie ist so ein wunderbares Beispiel dafür, daß man einen Sachverhalt in völliger Klarheit verstanden haben kann und gleichzeitig doch weiß, daß man nur in Bildern und Gleichnissen von ihm reden kann.
Der Teil und das Ganze. Gespräche im Umkreis der Atomphysik (1969); also in "Kein Chaos, aus dem nicht wieder Ordnung würde", Die Zeit No. 34 (22 August 1969) http://www.zeit.de/1969/34/kein-chaos-aus-dem-nicht-wieder-ordnung-wuerde/komplettansicht; as translated in Physics and Beyond : Encounters and Conversation (1971)

Julian Barnes photo
Anthony Doerr photo
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni photo
Jodi Picoult photo
H.L. Mencken photo
Rick Riordan photo
Anne McCaffrey photo
David Sedaris photo
George Sand photo

“Immodest creature, you do not want a woman who will accept your faults, you want the one who pretends you are faultless – one who will caress the hand that strikes her and kiss the lips that lie to her.”

George Sand (1804–1876) French novelist and memoirist; pseudonym of Lucile Aurore Dupin

Mais, fat impudent, tu ne veux pas qu'on te pardonne, tu veux qu'on croie ou qu'on prétende n'avoir rien à te pardonner. Tu veux qu'on baise la main qui frappe et la bouche qui ment.
Source: Letter (17 June 1837) in The Intimate Journal of George Sand (1929) translated and edited by Marie Jenney Howe; also quoted in The Quotable Woman, 1800-1975 (1978) by Elaine Partnow

Libba Bray photo
Holly Black photo
Doris Lessing photo

“All sanity depends on this: that it should be a delight to feel heat strike the skin, a delight to stand upright, knowing the bones moving easily under the flesh.”

Anna Wulf, in "The Golden Notebook"
The Golden Notebook (1962)
Context: I knew, and it was an illumination — one of those things one has always known, but never understood before — that all sanity depends on this: that it should be a delight to feel the roughness of a carpet under smooth soles, a delight to feel heat strike the skin, a delight to stand upright, knowing the bones are moving easily under flesh.
Context: I knew, and it was an illumination — one of those things one has always known, but never understood before — that all sanity depends on this: that it should be a delight to feel the roughness of a carpet under smooth soles, a delight to feel heat strike the skin, a delight to stand upright, knowing the bones are moving easily under flesh. If this goes, then the conviction of life goes too. But I could feel none of this. … I knew I was moving into a new dimension, further from sanity than I had ever been. <!-- p. 585

Jim Butcher photo

“Harry Dresden: Maybe it wasn't anything I'd done. Maybe the monsters had gone on strike. Yeah right.”

Source: The Dresden Files, Fool Moon (2001), Chapter 1
Source: Storm Front

Napoleon Hill photo

“Those who succeed in an outstanding way seldom do so before the age of 40. More often, they do not strike their real pace until they are well beyond the age of 50.”

Napoleon Hill (1883–1970) American author

Source: Think and Grow Rich: The Landmark Bestseller - Now Revised and Updated for the 21st Century

Patrick Rothfuss photo
Jane Austen photo
Rick Riordan photo
Rick Riordan photo
Richelle Mead photo
Gene Wolfe photo
Robert Greene photo

“Strike the shepherd and the sheep will scatter”

Source: The 48 Laws of Power

Steven Pressfield photo
Herman Melville photo

“Talk not to me of blasphemy, man; I'd strike the sun if it insulted me.”

Herman Melville (1818–1891) American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet

Source: Moby-Dick or, The Whale

Michael Pollan photo
Ingmar Bergman photo
Richelle Mead photo
Haruki Murakami photo

“People want to be bowled over by something special. Nine times out of ten you might strike out, but that tenth time, that peak experience, is what people want. That's what can move the world. That's art.”

Variant: People want to be bowled over by something special. Nine times out of ten you can forget, but that tenth time, that peak experience, is what people want. That's what can move the world. That's art.
Source: South of the Border, West of the Sun

Bret Easton Ellis photo
Marguerite Duras photo

“Banality is sometimes striking.”

Marguerite Duras (1914–1996) French writer and film director

Source: Hiroshima Mon Amour

Martin Luther King, Jr. photo

“Lightning makes no sound until it strikes.”

Source: Why We Can't Wait

John Piper photo
Thomas Hardy photo

“Did it never strike your mind that what every woman says, some women may feel?”

Thomas Hardy (1840–1928) English novelist and poet

Source: Tess of the D'Urbervilles

Mary Doria Russell photo

“There is a striking resemblance between the act of love and the ministrations of a torturer.”

Angela Carter (1940–1992) English novelist

Source: The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories

Laurie Halse Anderson photo
Graham Greene photo
Neal Shusterman photo

“Lord, if what I'm doing is wrong, then by all means strike me down. Otherwise set me free.”

Neal Shusterman (1962) American novelist

Source: UnWholly

John Keats photo

“Poetry should… should strike the reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts, and appear almost a remembrance".”

John Keats (1795–1821) English Romantic poet

Letter to John Taylor (February 27, 1818)
Letters (1817–1820)
Context: In Poetry I have a few axioms, and you will see how far I am from their centre. I think Poetry should surprise by a fine excess and not by singularity — it should strike the reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts, and appear almost a remembrance — Its touches of Beauty should never be halfway thereby making the reader breathless instead of content: the rise, the progress, the setting of imagery should like the Sun come natural to him — shine over him and set soberly although in magnificence leaving him in the luxury of twilight — but it is easier to think what Poetry should be than to write it — and this leads me on to another axiom. That if Poetry comes not as naturally as the leaves to a tree it had better not come at all.

Cassandra Clare photo
Roald Dahl photo
Patrick Rothfuss photo
Cesare Pavese photo

“The words that strike us are those that awake an echo in a zone we have already made our own—the place where we live—and the vibration enables us to find fresh starting points within ourselves.”

Cesare Pavese (1908–1950) Italian poet, novelist, literary critic, and translator

This Business of Living (1935-1950)
Source: Il mestiere di vivere: Diario 1935-1950
Context: When we read, we are not looking for new ideas, but to see our own thoughts given the seal of confirmation on the printed page. The words that strike us are those that awake an echo in a zone we have already made our own—the place where we live—and the vibration enables us to find fresh starting points within ourselves.

Marya Hornbacher photo
Suzanne Collins photo
Gwendolyn Brooks photo

“We real cool. We
Left school. We
Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We
Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We
Jazz June. We
Die soon.”

Gwendolyn Brooks (1917–2000) American writer

"We ReaI CooI" , The Bean Eaters (1960)
The "We"—you're supposed to stop after the "We" and think about their validity, and of course there's no way for you to tell whether it should be said softly or not, I suppose, but I say it rather softly because I want to represent their basic uncertainty, which they don't bother to question every day, of course.
"An Interview with Gwendolyn Brooks", Contemporary Literature 11:1 (Winter 1970)
The WEs in "We Real Cool" are tiny, wispy, weakly argumentative "Kilroy-is-here" announcements. The boys have no accented sense of themselves, yet they are aware of a semi-defined personal importance. Say the "We" softly.
Report from Part One (1972)
Source: Selected Poems

Chris Van Allsburg photo
Hunter S. Thompson photo
Samuel Johnson photo

“Read over your compositions, and wherever you meet with a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out.”

Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer

Recalling "what an old tutor of a college said to one of his pupils" April 30, 1773, p. 217
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol II
Source: The Life of Samuel Johnson LL.D. Vol 2

Tess Gerritsen photo