Quotes about stroke
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Henri Matisse photo
Jean Paul Sartre photo
Donald Barthelme photo
James Nasmyth photo

“My first essay at making a steam engine was when I was fifteen. I then made a real working; steam-engine, 1 3/4 diameter cylinder, and 8 in. stroke, which not only could act, but really did some useful work; for I made it grind the oil colours which my father required for his painting. Steam engine models, now so common, were exceedingly scarce in those days, and very difficult to be had; and as the demand for them arose, I found it both delightful and profitable to make them; as well as sectional models of steam engines, which I introduced for the purpose of exhibiting the movements of all the parts, both exterior and interior. With the results of the sale of such models I was enabled to pay the price of tickets of admission to the lectures on natural philosophy and chemistry delivered in the University of Edinburgh. About the same time (1826) I was so happy as to be employed by Professor Leslie in making models and portions of apparatus required by him for his lectures and philosophical investigations, and I had also the inestimable good fortune to secure his friendship. His admirably clear manner of communicating a knowledge of the fundamental principles of mechanical science rendered my intercourse with him of the utmost importance to myself. A hearty, cheerful, earnest desire to toil in his service, caused him to take pleasure in instructing me by occasional explanations of what might otherwise have remained obscure.”

James Nasmyth (1808–1890) Scottish mechanical engineer and inventor

James Nasmyth in: Industrial Biography: Iron-workers and Tool-makers https://books.google.nl/books?id=ZMJLAAAAMAAJ, Ticknor and Fields, 1864. p. 337

Richard Stallman photo

“Andrew Holland was prosecuted in the UK for possessing "extreme pornography", a term which appears to mean porn that judges and prosecutors consider shocking. He had received a video showing a tiger having sex with a woman, or at least apparently so.
He was found innocent because the video he received was a joke. I am glad he was not punished, but this law is nonetheless a threat to other people. If Mr Holland had had a serious video depicting a tiger having sex with a woman, he still would not deserve to go to prison. … I've read that male dolphins try to have sex with humans, and female apes solicit sex from humans. What is wrong with giving them what they want, if that's what turns you on, or even just to gratify them?
But this law is not concerned with protecting animals, since it does not care whether the animal really had sex, or really existed at all. It only panders to the prejudice of censors.
A parrot once had sex with me. I did not recognize the act as sex until it was explained to me afterward, but being stroked on the hand by his soft belly feathers was so pleasurable that I yearn for another chance. I have a photo of that act; should I go to prison for it?
Perhaps I am spared because this photo isn't "disgusting", but "disgusting" is a subjective matter; we must not imprison people merely because someone feels disgusted. I find the sight of wounds disgusting; fortunately surgeons do not. Maybe there is someone who considers it disgusting for a parrot to have sex with a human. Or for a dolphin or tiger to have sex with a human. So what? Others feel that all sex is disgusting. There are prejudiced people that want to ban all depiction of sex, and force all women to cover their faces. This law and the laws they want are the same in spirit.
Threatening people with death or injury is a very bad thing, but violence is no less bad for being nonsexual. Is it worse to shoot someone while stroking that person's genitals than to shoot someone from a few feet away? If I were going to be the victim, and I were invited to choose one or the other, I would choose whichever one gave me the best chance to escape.
Images of violence can be painful to see, but they are no better for being nonsexual. I saw images of gruesome bodily harm in the movie Pulp Fiction. I do not want to see anything like that again, sex or no sex. That is no reason to censor these works, and would still not be a reason even if most people reacted to them as I do.
Since the law doesn't care whether a real human was really threatened with harm, it is not really concerned about our safety from violence, any more than it is concerned with avoiding suffering for corpses or animals. It is only prejudice, taking a form that can ruin people's lives.”

Richard Stallman (1953) American software freedom activist, short story writer and computer programmer, founder of the GNU project

"Extreme Pornography Law in the UK" (2010) http://stallman.org/articles/extreme.html
2010s

Paul Morphy photo
William A. Dembski photo
Nathaniel Hawthorne photo
Karel Appel photo

“My brush-strokes start in nothing and they end in nothing, and in-between you find the image.”

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

Quote from 'The eye of the beholder', Carlo McCormick
Karel Appel – the complete sculptures,' (1990) not-paged

Aurangzeb photo

“Little more black, little more blue. And we'll just put that in using little crisscross strokes or--or little X's, whatever you want to call them. Whatever.”

Bob Ross (1942–1995) American painter, art instructor, and television host

David Brancaccio (May 12, 2003) "Legacy of Bob Ross lives on through his TV show still airing on public television stations", Marketplace, American Public Media.
Attributed

Charles Taze Russell photo
Robinson Duckworth photo

“I rowed stroke and he rowed bow in the famous Long Vacation voyage to Godstow, when the three Miss Liddells were our passengers, and the story was actually composed and spoken over my shoulder.”

Robinson Duckworth (1834–1911) British priest

Of the origin of Alice in Wonderland.
The Lewis Carroll Picture Book (1899), p. 358

Lewis Pugh photo

“Most Channel crossings are won or lost before the first stroke is even taken.”

Lewis Pugh (1969) Environmental campaigner, maritime lawyer and endurance swimmer

16 January 2016, Lewis Pugh's blog
Speaking & Features

Theresa May photo
David Ben-Gurion photo
Luís de Camões photo

“What care, what wisdom, is of suffisance
The stroke of secret mischief to prevent,
Unless the Sovereign Guardian from on high
Supply the strength of frail Humanity?”

Luís de Camões (1524–1580) Portuguese poet

Quem poderá do mal aparelhado
Livrar-se sem perigo sabiamente,
Se lá de cima a Guarda soberana
Não acudir à fraca força humana?
Stanza 30, lines 5–8 (tr. Richard Fanshawe)
Epic poetry, Os Lusíadas (1572), Canto II

“My chief, let Fate cry on or back,
'Tis ours to follow, nothing slack:
Whate'er betide, he only cures
The stroke of Fortune who endures.”

John Conington (1825–1869) British classical scholar

Source: Translations, The Aeneid of Virgil (1866), Book V, p. 175

Abraham Cowley photo
George Herbert photo

“177. One stroke fells not an oke.”

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

Jacula Prudentum (1651)

Yasunari Kawabata photo

“"Among those who give thoughts to things, is there one who does not think of suicide?" With me was the knowledge that that fellow Ikkyu twice contemplated suicide. I have "that fellow", because the priest Ikkyu is known even to children as a most amusing person, and because anecdotes about his limitlessly eccentric behavior have come down to us in ample numbers. It is said of him that children climbed his knee to stroke his beard, that wild birds took feed from his hand. It would seem from all this that he was the ultimate in mindlessness, that he was an approachable and gentle sort of priest. As a matter of fact he was the most severe and profound of Zen priests. Said to have been the son of an emperor, he entered a temple at the age of six, and early showed his genius as a poetic prodigy. At the same time he was troubled with the deepest of doubts about religion and life. "If there is a god, let him help me. If there is none, let me throw myself to the bottom of the lake and become food for fishes." Leaving behind these words he sought to throw himself into a lake, but was held back. … He gave his collected poetry the title "Collection of the Roiling Clouds", and himself used the expression "Roiling Clouds" as a pen name. In his collection and its successor are poems quite without parallel in the Chinese and especially the Zen poetry of the Japanese middle ages, erotic poems and poems about the secrets of the bedchamber that leave one in utter astonishment. He sought, by eating fish and drinking spirits and having commerce with women, to go beyond the rules and proscriptions of the Zen of his day, and to seek liberation from them, and thus, turning against established religious forms, he sought in the pursuit of Zen the revival and affirmation of the essence of life, of human existence, in a day civil war and moral collapse.”

Yasunari Kawabata (1899–1972) Japanese author, Nobel Prize winner

Japan, the Beautiful and Myself (1969)

David Mitchell photo

“I am not deceived. It is the hardest of worlds to make real. Torturous advances won over generations can be lost by a single stroke of a myopic president’s pen or a vainglorious general’s sword.”

The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing, Monday, 13th January —, p. 528
Cloud Atlas (2004)
Context: Scholars discern motions in history & formulate these motions into rules that govern the rises & falls of civilizations. My belief runs contrary, however. To wit: history admits no rules; only outcomes.
What precipitates outcomes? Vicious acts & virtuous acts.
What precipitates acts? Belief.
Belief is both prize & battlefield, within the mind & in the mind’s mirror, the world. If we believe humanity is a ladder of tribes, a colosseum of confrontation, exploitation & bestiality, such a humanity is surely brought into being, & history’s Horroxes, Boer-haaves & Gooses shall prevail. You & I, the moneyed, the privileged, the fortunate, shall not fare so badly in this world, provided our luck holds. What of it if our consciences itch? Why undermine the dominance of our race, our gunships, our heritage & our legacy? Why fight the “natural” (oh, weaselly word!) order of things?
Why? Because of this: — one fine day, a purely predatory world shall consume itself. Yes, the Devil shall take the hindmost until the foremost is the hindmost. In an individual, selfishness uglifies the soul; for the human species, selfishness is extinction.
Is this the doom written within our nature?
If we believe that humanity may transcend tooth & claw, if we believe divers races & creeds can share this world as peaceably as the orphans share their candlenut tree, if we believe leaders must be just, violence muzzled, power accountable & the riches of the Earth & its Oceans shared equitably, such a world will come to pass. I am not deceived. It is the hardest of worlds to make real. Torturous advances won over generations can be lost by a single stroke of a myopic president’s pen or a vainglorious general’s sword.

Algernon Charles Swinburne photo

“Though they be
Ill rulers of this household, be not thou
Too swift to strike ere time be ripe to strike,
Nor then by darkling stroke, against them: I
Have erred, who thought by wrong to vanquish wrong,
To smite by violence violence, and by night
Put out the power of darkness: time shall bring
A better way than mine, if God's will be —
As how should God's will be not?”

Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909) English poet, playwright, novelist, and critic

to redeem
Venice. I was not worthy — nor may man,
Till one as Christ shall come again, be found
Worthy to think, speak, strike, foresee, foretell,
The thought, the word, the stroke, the dawn, the day,
That verily and indeed shall bid the dead
Live, and this old dear land of all men's love
Arise and shine for ever: but if Christ
Came, haply such an one may come, and do
With hands and heart as pure as his a work
That priests themselves may mar not.
Faliero, Act V. Sc. 3.
Marino Faliero (1885)

“Tender-handed stroke a nettle,
And it stings you for your pains”

Aaron Hill (writer) (1685–1750) British writer

Verses Written on a Window in Scotland.
Context: Tender-handed stroke a nettle,
And it stings you for your pains;
Grasp it like a man of mettle,
And it soft as silk remains.’Tis the same with common natures:
Use ’em kindly, they rebel;
But be rough as nutmeg-graters,
And the rogues obey you well.

William James photo
Honoré de Balzac photo

“This camaraderie (the word is a stroke of genius) corrodes the noblest minds; it eats into their pride like rust, kills the germ of great deeds, and lends a sanction to moral cowardice.”

Source: A Daughter of Eve (1839), Ch. 4: A Man of Note.
Context: This surface good-nature which captivates a new acquaintance and is no bar to treachery, which knows no scruple and is never at fault for an excuse, which makes an outcry at the wound which it condones, is one of the most distinctive features of the journalist. This camaraderie (the word is a stroke of genius) corrodes the noblest minds; it eats into their pride like rust, kills the germ of great deeds, and lends a sanction to moral cowardice.

Richard Wright photo
Yagyū Munenori photo

“A stroke of the sword that does not hit its target is the sword stroke of death; you reach over it to strike the winning blow.”

Yagyū Munenori (1571–1646) samurai and daimyo of the early Edo period

A Hereditary Book on the Art of War (1632)
Context: A stroke of the sword that does not hit its target is the sword stroke of death; you reach over it to strike the winning blow. Your adversary's initiative having missed its mark, you turn the tables around and get the jump on your adversary.

Ward Cunningham photo

“In creating wiki, I wanted to stroke that story-telling nature in all of us.”

Ward Cunningham (1949) American computer programmer who developed the first wiki

A Conversation with Ward Cunningham (2003), Exploring with Wiki
Context: I think there's a compelling nature about talking. People like to talk. In creating wiki, I wanted to stroke that story-telling nature in all of us. Second, and perhaps most important, I wanted people who wouldn't normally author to find it comfortable authoring, so that there stood a chance of us discovering the structure of what they had to say.

Joyce Brothers photo

“In strong families, positive strokes out-number negative broadsides by a wide margin.”

Joyce Brothers (1927–2013) Joyce Brothers

10 Keys to a Strong Family (2002)
Context: In strong families, positive strokes out-number negative broadsides by a wide margin. Members regularly express appreciation: "Thanks for fixing the drainpipe." "You look so nice in that dress." "The dinner was great." Criticism is offered gently. After all, strong families figure, if we can be kind to strangers, why not to one another?

Kirk Douglas photo
Toni Morrison photo
P. V. Narasimha Rao photo
William H. McRaven photo
Santiago Martínez Delgado photo

“Young Columbian Santiago Martinez argues a bit much about the the stroke of this project; nevertheless, Taliesin needs more like him, to make the debates stand the transient of the facts.”

Santiago Martínez Delgado (1906–1954) Colombian Muralist, Painter and Illstrator

Frank Lloyd Wright
Edgar Kaufmann conversation, letter to Edgar Kaufmann Jr, 1932, Wis.
About Martinez

Aldo Leopold photo
June Downey photo
Joyce Brothers photo

“In strong families, positive strokes out-number negative broadsides by a wide margin. Members regularly express appreciation: "Thanks for fixing the drainpipe." "You look so nice in that dress." "The dinner was great."”

Joyce Brothers (1927–2013) Joyce Brothers

Criticism is offered gently. After all, strong families figure, if we can be kind to strangers, why not to one another?
10 Keys to a Strong Family (2002)

Stephen Vincent Benét photo
Bruno Heller photo
Boris Yeltsin photo
Tenzin Gyatso photo
Bolesław Prus photo
Ted Nugent photo
Prevale photo

“Game pad game pad, | game game pad pad, | game pad game pad, | game game pad pad, | Tarquini and Prevale challenge each other with joypads, | joypad strokes, | joypad strokes, | joypad strokes, | joypad strokes, | Gamepad the virtual console.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: (it) Game pad game pad, | game game pad pad, | game pad game pad, | game game pad pad, | Tarquini e Prevale si sfidano a colpi di joypad, | colpi di joypad, | colpi di joypad, | colpi di joypad, | colpi di joypad, | Gamepad la consolle virtuale. (from Game Pad – Tarquini & Prevale vs. Vodka)

Source: Tarquini & Prevale vs. Vodka – Game Pad https://www.musixmatch.com/lyrics/Vodka-Tarquini-Prevale/Game-Pad-Tarquini-Prevale-vs-Vodka-Extended, Musixmatch.com, October 26, 2017

Prevale photo

“I wish I could be next to you stroking your hair, warning the scent of your skin and looking into your eyes, sweetly bite your lips.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: Vorrei poter essere accanto a te accarezzandoti i capelli, avvertendo il profumo della tua pelle e guardandoti negli occhi, mordere dolcemente le tue labbra.
Source: prevale.net