Quotes about tell
page 37

“What neurology tells us is that the self consists of many components, and the notion of one unitary self may well be an illusion.”

V.S. Ramachandran book The Tell-Tale Brain

Source: The Tell-Tale Brain (2010), p. 247

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

Susan Cooper (1935) English fantasy writer

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

Men, Way, Understanding

“"You can say the Jesus Prayer from now till doomsday, but if you don't realize that the only thing that counts in the religious life is detachment, I don't see how you'll ever even move an inch. Detachment, buddy, and only detachment. Desirelessness. 'Cessation from all hankerings.' It's this business of desiring, if you want to know the goddam truth, that makes an actor in the first place. Why're you making me tell you things you already know? Somewhere along the line — in one damn incarnation or another, if you like — you not only had a hankering to be an actor or an actress but to be a good one. You're stuck with it now. You can't just walk out on the results of your own hankerings. Cause and effect, buddy, cause and effect. The only thing you can do now, the only religious thing you can do, is act. Act for God, if you want to — be God's actress, if you want to. What could be prettier? You can at least try to, if you want to — there's nothing wrong in trying." There was a slight pause. "You'd better get busy, though, buddy. The goddam sands run out on you every time you turn around. I know what I'm talking about. You're lucky if you get time to sneeze in this goddam phenomenal world."”

Jerome David Salinger book Franny and Zooey

Franny and Zooey (1961), Zooey (1957)

Life, God, Truth, World

“How do you measure a man? How can you compare one man with another unless you’ve seen them both? I cannot tell about other men who played long ago. I saw Mays. To me, Willie Mays is the greatest who ever played. But he is forty and has had his days – he is tired. San Francisco is all tired. For them it was not easy. For twenty days, they were in a tight pennant race and don’t know where they are. Mentally, they were going to be tight. You could see Mays is tired.”

Roberto Clemente (1934–1972) Puerto Rican baseball player

Roberto Clemente, speaking with reporters after the 1971 NLCS, as quoted in Clemente! (1973) by Kal Wagenheim, pp. 194-195
Baseball-related, <big><big>1970s</big></big>, <big>1971</big>

Men

“What, O Kunti, am I to give thee? Tell me what is in thy heart.”

Kunti character from Indian epic Mahabharata

Vayu to Kunti when Kunti invoked him.
The Mahabharata/Book 1: Adi Parva/Section CXXIII

Heart

“I'm no preacher but I can tell you this-the lives that people lead are driving them crazy and their insanity comes out in the way they drive.”

Charles Bukowski book Factotum

Source: Factotum (1975), Ch. 72, Janeway Smithson

People, Way

“Few people in the world get to hit their bosses but those who do will tell you it is better than sex.”

Chetan Bhagat book One Night @ the Call Center

Source: One Night @ the Call Center (2005), P. 248

People, World, Sex

“A very remarkable work… in the present state of light literature in England, a novel that actually tells a story. It 's quite incredible, I know. Try the book. It has another extraordinary merit, it isn't written by a woman.”

Wilkie Collins (1824–1889) British writer

The Works of Wilkie Collins: The Black Robe [P.F. Collier, 1900] (p. 328) Also in Wilkie Collins: A Literary Life by Graham Law & Andrew Maunder [Springer, 2008, ISBN 0-230-22750-3] ( p. 15 https://books.google.com/books?id=kKyHDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA15&f=false)

Books, Literature, Light

“I flung Churchgoing over early in life, from religious conviction. I did not believe in Church doctrine, as preached by the parson. I did not believe either in ordering myself "lowly and reverently to all my betters," because they were never able to tell me who my betters were. Those they called my betters I did not think my betters in any respect.”

Joseph Arch (1826–1919) British politician

Source: The Story of his Life Told by Himself (1898), p. 48

Life, Thinking

“She (Monica Lewinsky) is the kinda girl who'll blow a guy and call you and tell you all about it.”

Kathy Griffin (1960) American actress and comedian

Hot Cup Of Talk (1998)

Guy, Girl

“When people say to me, you must have a very strong mind to swim across the North Pole, or off Antarctica or on Mount Everest, I tell them that endurance swimming builds good mental strength.”

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

p 16
21 Yaks And A Speedo (2013)

People, Strong

“I hung Baziote's [painting] show with him at Peggy's in 1944. After it was up and we had stood in silence looking at it for a while, I noticed he had turned white... Suddenly he [Baziotes] looked at me and said: 'You're the one I trust; if you tell me the show is no good, I'll take it right down and cancel it.'.... you see, at the opposite side of the coin of the abstract expressionist's ambition and of out not giving a damn, was also not knowing whether our pictures were even pictures, let alone whether they were any good…”

Robert Motherwell (1915–1991) American artist

William Baziotes – paintings and drawings, curated by Michael Preble, Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice, 2004, p. 181
after 1970

Silence, Painting

“Don't tell your kids you had an easy birth or they won't respect you. For years I used to wake up my daughter and say, 'Melissa, you ripped me to shreds. Now go back to sleep.”

Joan Rivers (1933–2014) American comedian, actress, and television host

As quoted in On Being Blonde: Wit and Wisdom from the World's Most Infamous Blondes (2004), by P. Munier, p. 83

Birth, Sleep, Daughters

“On the other hand, you can chose to be an insider, to play the game… if you chose to be an insider you'll be given information that outsiders don't have, you'll be given… an opportunity… to make some… small tiny changes within the inside, but the one rule that you must respect, is that insiders do not tell outsiders the truth, and they do not turn against other insiders…”

Yanis Varoufakis (1961) Greek-Australian political economist and author, Greek finance minister

Truth, Game, Change

“O tell me, friends, while yet we part,
And heart can yet be heard of heart,
O tell me then, for what is it
Our early plan of life we quit;
From all our old intentions range,
And why does all so wholly change?
O tell me, friends, while yet we part!”

Arthur Hugh Clough (1819–1861) English poet

Parting http://whitewolf.newcastle.edu.au/words/authors/C/CloughArthurHugh/verse/poemsproseremains/parting.html, st. 1.

Life, Change, Heart, Parting

“Surely the most comically deluded people on this planet, outside creationists, Jehovah's Witnesses and Scientologists, are idealistic left-wing gay people who think they share a common cause with Muslims as two oppressed minorities, when opinion polls tell us that most Muslims are disgusted by homosexuality and think it's completely unacceptable. Among U. K. Muslims, disapproval is 100%. Admittedly, that's from a sample of only 500 people, who all happened to agree unanimously, but that's hardly representative. After all, not all Muslims were included, so we can't reasonably extrapolate anything from it without being racist. That's a relief. I thought we might have to face an unpleasant truth there for a second, didn't you?”

Pat Condell (1949) Stand-up comedian, writer, and Internet personality

"How gay is Islam?" (11 November 2013) https://youtube.com/watch?v=nLbltj-tD1Y 2013

People, Truth, Thinking

“They had a hi-fi phono, boy, did they let it blast
Seven hundred little records,
all rock, rhythm and jazz
But when the sun went down,
the rapid tempo of the music fell
"C'est la vie", say the old folks,
it goes to show you never can tell”

Chuck Berry (1926–2017) American rock-and-roll musician

"You Never Can Tell" (1964)
Song lyrics

Music, Boy, Sun

“Tell your king (Xerxes), who sent you, how his Greek viceroy of Macedonia has received you hospitably.”

Alexander I of Macedon vassal of Achaemenid Persia

Herodotus V, 20, 4; Loeb edition

“Who ran to help me when I fell,
And would some pretty story tell,
Or kiss the place to make it well?
My mother.”

Ann Taylor (poet) (1782–1866) British female poet and literary critic

"My Mother," from Original Poems for Infant Minds (1804)

Kiss, Help

“How tell what remains? But it’s the end. Or have I been dreaming, am I dreaming? No no, none of that, for dream is nothing, a joke, and significant what is worse.”

Samuel Beckett (1906–1989) Irish novelist, playwright, and poet

The Calmative (1946)

Dreams

“I'm struggling to … change a lot of people's minds about buying and wearing fur. To tell you the truth, when I was younger growing up, I thought it was all fake … So once I found out what really happens, I had the opportunity to do this, so I really wanted to become part of it. I wanted to get involved with the campaign basically because I’m an avid animal lover. You know, I have pets of my own―I’ve had them since I was a little kid. Animals always want to pick you up, no matter what.”

Chad Johnson (1978) American football player, wide receiver

"Chad Ochocinco's Exclusive Interview" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XP5QkHkmBlc, PETA (22 November 2010)

People, Truth, Lovers, Change

“Alcibiades had a very handsome dog, that cost him seven thousand drachmas; and he cut off his tail, "that," said he, "the Athenians may have this story to tell of me, and may concern themselves no further with me."”

Plutarch (46–127) ancient Greek historian and philosopher

50 Alcibiades
Apophthegms of Kings and Great Commanders

Dogs

“She tells enough white lies to ice a wedding cake.”

Margot Asquith (1864–1945) Anglo-Scottish socialite, author and wit

Quoted by her step-daughter Violet in The Listener, June 11, 1953.
Of Lady Desborough.

Wedding

“I've had about fifty people tell me that I fear intimacy. And it is true. I fear what people will think of me, and that is the reason I don't date very often. People really like me a lot when they only know me a little, but I have this great fear that if they knew me a lot they wouldn't like me. That is the number one thing that scares me about having a wife because she would have to know me pretty well in order to marry me and I think if she got to know me pretty well she wouldn't like me anymore.”

Donald Miller book Blue Like Jazz: nonreligious thoughts on Christian spirituality

Blue Like Jazz (2003, Nelson Books)

People, Fear, Thinking

“They tell us it will be about “emotions” and “friendship,” that it will be a night of joy. Who are they kidding?”

Ai Weiwei (1957) Chinese concept artist

2000-09, Happiness Can’t Be Faked, 2008

Friendship, Joy, Night

“…Do I have to tell you about the spiritual cannibalism of the culture, our culture, which has been bombarding us with ultrasensory overstimulation aiming to reprocess us into fulltime consumption machines, stealing above all from us our time (not an inch of time without an imprint of message), and even our very sense of time (to be measured in lengths of no more than one message unit each) under the guise of entertainment, and even of 'art,' commoditizing the eternal, hyping the primal? Our time is the sine qua non of our identity. We need to take extreme measures to reclaim it for ourselves and each other.”

Benjamin Boretz (1934) American composer

from Open Space 1 audio CD, 1988 March.

Art, Sense, Time

“Tell me, George, if you had it to do all over, would you fall in love with yourself again?”

Oscar Levant (1906–1972) American comedian, composer, pianist and actor

Oscar Levant, as recounted by Levant in A Smattering of Ignorance (1940); quoted in "Books and Things" by Lewis Gannett, in The New York Herald Tribune (January 13, 1940), p. 11

Love

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

Lord Randolph Churchill (1849–1895) British politician

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

Life, Death, Disease, Way

“I am a-goin' for to tell you here to-day; yes, I'm a-goin for to tell you all, that I'm a plebian! I glory in it; I am a plebian! The people — yes, the people of the United States have made me what I am; and I am a-goin' for to tell you here to-day — yes, to-day, in this place — that the people are everything.”

Andrew Johnson (1808–1875) American politician, 17th president of the United States (in office from 1865 to 1869)

First address as Vice-President, widely reported as having been delivered while he was inebriated. (5 March 1865).
Quote

People

“It is a parable of pure capitalism, never jam today and a case of jam tomorrow; but as any of the Smiths will tell you, anyone who has ever sold IBM has regretted it.”

George Goodman (1930–2014) American author and economics commentator

Source: The Money Game (1968), Chapter 6, What Are They In It For?, p. 68

“In Braque and Gris, they seemed to have idea of the organization beforehand in their mind. With Bonnard, he is organizing in front of you. You can tell in Leger just when he discovered how to make it like an engine.... What's wrong with that? You see it in Barney (=Barnett Newman) too, that he knows what a painting should be. He paints as he thinks painting should be, which is pretty heroic..”

Franz Kline (1910–1962) American painter

1950's, Evergreen Review, 1958

Idea, Thinking, Painting

“There's just one thing that's permanent in this world, and that's change. And when a man gets too old to change, why, then, he dies. And after that, who knows? Do we go on somewhere else? We'd all like to think so; it seems sometimes as though something inside us was telling us that we do. But if we do live on, then one thing is sure: The fellows who are afraid all the time that they may lose what they've got will lose out over there just the way they lose out here. And the big prizes will keep right on going to the fellows who do their duty and have faith. That's all there is to happiness, according to my way of thinking—just doing your duty and having faith.”

Henry Ford (1863–1947) American industrialist

Interview with Bruce Barton, "It Would Be Fun To Start Over Again," The American Magazine https://books.google.com/books?id=CspZAAAAYAAJ&dq=Henry%20Ford%20Bruce%20Barton%20american%20Magazine&pg=RA3-PA7#v=onepage&q=Henry%20Ford%20Bruce%20Barton%20american%20Magazine&f=false, April 1921

Happiness, World, Faith, Way

“As a man exhibits himself in physical forms and actions, so there is one other Spirit, a great, wide, mighty, infinite, eternal Spirit back there in the depths of space, and in the present, and in the future, and in the abysses of space, who at His will wrestles into existence great globes, and keeps them in their position. He builds them, and places on them these mysterious forms of earth which are signals hung out over these abysses to tell coming spirits who He is, what He is, what He does, how high is His throne, and how vast is His power from eternity to eternity, from infinity to infinity through all ages of all time; He is holding forth to men and angels these external tokens of His almighty power, of His infinite skill, and of His everlasting love.”

Randolph Sinks Foster (1820–1903) American bishop

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 258.

Love, Men, Age, Angels

“Nilus: This is a program of Jewish world conquest…proof of who is behind this revolution!
Palace official 2: Hmm!
Nilus: It must be shown to the tsar at once. …Rebellion is filled with Jewish influence.
Palace official 1: Where did you get this document Nilus?
Nilus: It was given to me by Sukhotin, who secured it from our Okhrana' in Paris…beyond that I cannot tell you!
Palace official 2: Yes indeed. …This will be of great interest to the tsar.
Nilus: The sanctity of our monarchy is the will of God…Christians must defend it!
Palace official 2: Get him out of here!”

Will Eisner (1917–2005) American cartoonist

Source: The Plot: The Secret Story of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (10/2/2005), p.64

God, World

“Lysenkoism is held up by bourgeois commentators as the supreme demonstration that conscious ideology cannot inform scientific practice and that "ideology has no place in science." On the other hand, some writers are even now maintaining a Lysenkoist position because they believe that the principles of dialectical materialism contradict the claims of genetics. Both of these claims stem from a vulgarisation of Marxist philosophy through deliberate hostility, in the first case, or ignorance, in the second. Nothing in Marx, Lenin or Mao contradicts the particular physical facts and processes of a particular set of natural phenomena in the objective world, because what they wrote about nature was at a high level of abstraction. The error of the Lysenkoist claim arises from attempting to apply a dialectical analysis of physical problems from the wrong end. Dialectical materialism is not, and has never been, a programmatic method for solving particular physical problems. Rather, dialectical analysis provides an overview and a set of warning signs against particular forms of dogmatism and narrowness of thought. It tells us, "Remember that history may leave an important trace. Remember that being and becoming are dual aspects of nature. Remember that conditions change and that the conditions necessary to the initiation of some process may be destroyed by the process itself. Remember to pay attention to real objects in space and time and not lose them utterly in idealized abstractions. Remember that qualitative effects of context and interaction may be lost when phenomena are isolated."”

Richard C. Lewontin (1929) American evolutionary biologist

And above all else, "Remember that all the other caveats are only reminders and warning signs whose application to different circumstances of the real world is contingent."
"The Problem of Lysenkoism" by Richard Lewontin and Richard Levins, in Hilary and Steven Rose (eds.), The Radicalisation of Science, Macmillan, 1976, p. 58.

Hostility, World, Error, History

“What work have I got to do, then?” said Will, but went on at once, “No, on second thought, don’t tell me. I shall decide what I do. If you say my work is fighting, or healing, or exploring, or whatever you might say, I'll always be thinking about it. And if I do end up doing that, I'll be resentful because it’ll feel as if I didn’t have a choice, and if I don’t do it, I'll feel guilty because I should. Whatever I do, I will choose it, no one else.”

Philip Pullman His Dark Materials trilogy

“Then you have already taken the first steps toward wisdom,” said Xaphania.
Source: His Dark Materials, The Amber Spyglass (2000), Ch. 37 : The Dunes

Wisdom, Feeling, Thinking, Fight

“You don’t have conversations with microprocessors. You tell them what to do, then helplessly watch the disaster when they take you literally!”

David Brin book Startide Rising

Source: Startide Rising (1983), Chapter 46 (p. 238)

“In response to a question about what "keeps her up at night", I worry about the fact that in K-12 education I can look at your zip code and tell whether or not you're going to get a good education.”

Condoleezza Rice (1954) American Republican politician; U.S. Secretary of State; political scientist

Interview by Donna Shalala C-Span Video Library No Higher Honor http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/302536-1 University of Miami, School of Business Administration, November 3, 2011.

Education, Question, Night

“Every time that I sell myself to you
I feel a little bit cheaper than I need to
I will tear the petals off of you
Rose red, I will make you tell the truth”

Courtney Love (1964) American punk singer-songwriter, musician, actress, and artist

"Asking for It"
Song lyrics, Live Through This (1994)

Truth, Feeling, Tear, Time

“Some tell me "Preach the pure gospel!" This reminds me that the Communist secret police also told me to preach Christ, but not to mention communism. Is it really so, that those who are for what is called "a pure gospel" are inspired by the same spirit as those of the Communist secret police?”

Richard Wurmbrand (1909–2001) Romanian Christian minister of Jewish descent

Source: Tortured For Christ (1967), p. 75.

Secret, Communication, Christ

“In response, Acheson wrote to "tell a tale of large conceptions, great achievements…Its hero is the American people."”

Dean Acheson book Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department

Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department (1969), Purpose of the Book

People

“The factors that laid low so whooping and puissant an empire as the old Hollywood are many. I can think of a score, including the barbarian hordes of Television. But there is one that stands out for me in the post-mortem…. The factor had to do with the basis of movie-making: ‘Who shall be in charge of telling the story.”

Ben Hecht (1894–1964) American screenwriter

from "Elegy for Wonderland", by Ben Hecht, Esquire Magazine, March 1959

Thinking

“I mean, there is a certain amount of exposition you have to have in films and how that exposition is handled tells you whether it's a good script or not, whether it's a good filmmaker or not. You know, the more exposition that can be handled without a character speaking it, the more thematic metaphors that you can do visually, to me that’s a better situation.”

Clancy Brown (1959) American actor and voice actor

“She keeps trying and you’ve got to be careful or you’ll find yourself believing her, not because she seems to be telling the truth, but simply because you’re tired of disbelieving her.”

Dashiell Hammett book The Thin Man

Nick Charles
The Thin Man (1929)

Truth

“It is fit and proper to raise the question sharply, what is this rigid color-bar in the administration of justice? Why is it that in this courtroom I face a white magistrate, am confronted by a white prosecutor, and escorted into the dock by a white orderly? Can anyone honestly and seriously suggest that in this type of atmosphere the scales of justice are evenly balanced?
Why is it that no African in the history of this country has ever had the honor of being tried by his own kith and kin, by his own flesh and blood?
I will tell Your Worship why: the real purpose of this rigid color-bar is to ensure that the justice dispensed by the courts should conform to the policy of the country, however much that policy might be in conflict with the norms of justice accepted in judiciaries throughout the civilised world.”

Nelson Mandela (1918–2013) President of South Africa, anti-apartheid activist

1960s, First court statement (1962)

World, Justice, Color, History

“I still wanted to tell our teacher about how the Indian people who’d worked on the ranch for us had explained to me that Shep, who’d always loved my brother more than life itself, had disappeared, because he’d run off to the highest hilltop to intercept my brother’s soul so he could lead my brother’s soul back to heaven.”

Victor Villaseñor (1940) American writer

Burro Genius: A Memoir (2004)

Love, Life, People, Soul

“You could not tell a potential customer, expecting a learned and ancient magician, that you were not eve fully grown. Magnus had started lying about his age young, and had never dropped the habit.
It did get a little embarrassing sometimes when he forgot what lie he'd told to whom. Someone had once asked him what Julius Caeser was like, and Magnus had stared at him for much too long and said, 'Not tall?”

Cassandra Clare The Bane Chronicles

Source: The Bane Chronicles, What Really Happened in Peru (2013), p. 20.

Lie, Age, Lying, Learning

“Never tell your resolution beforehand.”

John Selden (1584–1654) English jurist and scholar of England's ancient laws and constitution, and of Jewish law

Wisdom.
Table Talk (1689)

New Year

“Darker grows the valley, more and more forgetting:
So were it with me if forgetting could be willed.
Tell the grassy hollow that holds the bubbling well-spring,
Tell it to forget the source that keeps it filled.”

George Meredith (1828–1909) British novelist and poet of the Victorian era

Love in the Valley, st. 5.

Spring, Forgetting

“Long ago, some 12 or 13 years before Partition, I had a chance to pass by a meeting of Muslims in Delhi. The chaste Urdu and the weighty voice of the man making the speech at the moment, made me stand and stare. It was a bearded mullah wearing a fez. He was narrating some history which was new for me. The mullah mentioned several dates on which some decisive battles had been fought and won by the armies of Islam. …There were repeated references to swords and spears and horses and hoofs and countless clashes in which human blood had flowed copiously. In between, some one from the audience stood up and shouted ‘nãra-i-takbîr’. And the whole assembly roared back Allãh-o-Akbar with full-throated frenzy. Then the speaker moved to Sind and Hind. …And then, all of a sudden, the mullah’s voice sank and became almost a whimper. His face too must have fallen, though I could not see it from the distance at which I was standing. He was now telling, in very mournful tones, how Islam had failed to fulfil its mission in this ‘kambakht (unfortunate) mulk (country)’ which was still crawling with kufr (infidelism) in spite of all those arduous endeavours undertaken by the heroes of Islam. A funeral silence fell on the audience, and no one now stood up any more to invite another nãra-i-takbîr.”

Sita Ram Goel (1921–2003) Indian activist

Muslim Separatism – Causes and Consequences (1987)

History, Decision, Silence, Chance

“If you look at any great fashion photograph out of context, it will tell you just as much about what's going on in the world as a headline in The New York Times.”

Anna Wintour (1949) English editor-in-chief of American Vogue

Reported, quoted by Emma Brockes; May 27, 2006; " What lies beneath http://media.guardian.co.uk/site/story/0,,1784390,00.html"; The Guardian; retrieved March 23, 2007.

World, Fashion, Time

“Nothing like one honest look, one honest thought of Christ upon His cross. That tells us how much He has been through, how much He endured, how much He conquered, how much God loved us, who spared not His only begotten Son, but freely gave Him for us. Dare we doubt such a God? Dare we murmur against such a God?”

Charles Kingsley (1819–1875) English clergyman, historian and novelist

Source: Attributed, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 72.

Love, God, Christ

“14:06> …Of course I made it quite clear to the women that I thought that that the way that they had been abused was terrible and completely unjustifiable. However, I thought that it was very important that they should understand their own complicity in it; so that, for example, they understood that the way they chose men, and their refusal to see signs (which they were capable of seeing) resulted in their misery… <14:40> To give you a concrete example, I would say to them, ‘This man of yours, who’s very nasty to you, and drags you across the floor, and puts your head through the window, and sometimes even hangs you out of the window by your ankles: How long do you think it would take me to realise he was no good, as he came through the door? Would it take me a second, or half a second, or an eighth of a second, or would I not notice that there was anything wrong with him at all?’ And they’d say, ‘Oh, an eighth of a second, you’d know immediately.’ And I would say to them, ‘Well, if you know that I would know immediately, then you knew immediately as well.’ It’s a logical consequence, really. And they would accept that. ‘And yet, you chose to associate with him, knowing full well that he was no good; and I tell you this, because it’s very necessary you should understand your own part in the predicament you now find yourself in, because if you don’t understand it, or don’t think about it, you’re just going to repeat it.’ which is of course, a very, very common pattern.”

Theodore Dalrymple (1949) English doctor and writer

Daniels http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Daniels_(psychiatrist) on helping victims of abuse understand how they can help to break the cycle. CBC Ideas Interview (podcast) (September 25, 2006)

Women, Men, Way, Understanding

“Wealth often takes away chances from men as well as poverty. There is none to tell the rich man to go on striving, for a rich man makes the law that hallows and hollows his own life.”

Sean O`Casey (1880–1964) Irish writer

Rose and Crown (New York: Macmillan, 1952) p. 282.

Life, Men, Law, Chance

“The moment this brilliant young producer Miss Verity Lambert started telling me about Doctor Who, I was hooked. I remember telling her, "This is going to run for five years."”

William Hartnell (1908–1975) English actor

And look what's happened!
I Felt Like the Pied Piper

““We’re in danger of losing the ship generation.”
“I’m aware of the problems,” she said. “‘You can’t tell the boys from the girls, they have no respect for their elders, their user interfaces are garish and unwieldy, everybody is writing a book, and their music is just noise.’ Found scratched on a potsherd in Sumer.””

Ken MacLeod book Learning the World

Source: Learning the World (2005), Chapter 15 “Hollow Spaces of the Forward Cone” (p. 248)

Books, Music, Girl, Boy

“What a social welfare system does is enable people to live with dignity if they don’t have the means on their own. It enables households that are relatively low-income to have a place for their children to get a quality education. It allows everybody to have a dignity of work by having some vacation time or paid leave or maternity leave or father’s leave. And this is decency. This is what it means. We’re rich countries now. We should have the decency to provide dignity for everybody. I happen to live in a country that doesn’t believe it. We soaked up the libertarian ideas. I can tell you what it’s like. We have a large part of our population living in duress, in extreme poverty in the United States. It’s horrible. Because we have this philosophy, “You’re on your own.” Well, “you’re on your own” in this world means living in misery, dying many years earlier, children having no chance in the educational system. People working round the clock, no time off, no paid leave, no opportunities. It’s horrible.”

Jeffrey D. Sachs (1954) American economist

Climate, Welfare..., Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 15 October, 2018 http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/txt/s4892252.htm

Children, People, World, Education

“The snow fell solemnly, enlarging the silence; it came straight down from heaven, bringing an inexplicable mystery. Now and again a flake or two would alight on the windowpane, and those flakes were like little stars filled with light; other snowflakes would fall on the windowsill, slowly covering the crumbs that had been put out for the birds. I would ask: "Grandmama, would you tell me some things about heaven too?" And Grandmother would say: "Why do you say 'too'?"”

Adrienne von Speyr (1902–1967) Swiss doctor and mystic

"Because the snow comes from there, and it seems to be telling me that everything in heaven is white."
Les Tilleuls, p. 21
My Early Years (1968)

Star, Bird, Light, Silence

“I decide who's right and who's wrong, and go from there. But I can't just comment on an issue. I've got to take an editorial position. Too many cartoonists simply illustrate the news. Well, the readers know the news, and a cartoon that illustrates doesn't tell them a thing they don't already know. So, I formulate an opinion and draw it.”

Paul Conrad (1924–2010) German theologian

Paul Conrad. (2010) [1992]. Contemporary Authors Online. Gale. As quoted in Lebo, Harlan H. (December 1977). Writer's Digest.

Drawing

“Today it's possible to paint one canvas with the calmness of an ancient Greek and the next with the anxiety of a Van Gogh. Either of these emotions, and any in between, is valid to me... I work on many canvasses at once. In the morning I line them up against the wall of my studio. Some speak, some do not. They are my mirrors. They tell me what I am like at that moment.”

William Baziotes (1912–1963) American painter

I Cannot Evolve Any Concrete Theory, William Baziotes, in Possibilities, Vol. I, no. 1, New York, winter 1947-48, p. 2
1940s

Painting

“It seems as if there are almost two different kinds of religion, one of which brutally divides, and one of which unites (or can unite). How do we tell them apart, and how might we begin to switch allegiance from the former to the latter?”

Ken Wilber (1949) American writer and public speaker

Why Do Religions Teach Love and Yet Cause So Much War?

Religion

“My definition of "good" is that you understand that this is a question of power, that you be willing to give up some power, that you be willing to give up some resources, that you be willing to pay black people reparations for our years and years of service in this country, that you be willing to go home and tell your white mother and father about white racism and how it affects and kills black people in our communities. That's my definition of good white people and I haven't met any like that.”

Sister Souljah (1964) American hip hop-generation author, activist, recording artist, and film producer

Television special, The Issue is Race: A Crisis in Black and White (1992)

People, Home, Communication, Understanding

“We are still a model in ways economic and non-economic. When I say things non-economic, I would include governance — and rule of law is a key element. Many, I sincerely believe they tell the truth, say that they still look to Hong Kong for inspiration.”

Leung Chun-ying (1954) Hong Kong politician

2012

Truth, Law, Way, Sincerity

“Our government has the weirdest bias against cannabis. There's no reason for everybody to be so afraid of it. It's not the antichrist the DEA makes it out to be. Industrial hemp is a very useful plant. I challenged the attorney general to get rid of the criminal stigma associated with hemp so we can look at it in terms of how it might be useful. And government has no business telling us what we can and can't use for pain relief.”

Jesse Ventura (1951) American politician and former professional wrestler

I Ain't Got Time To Bleed (1999)

Pain, Business

“Now look at them yo-yo's, that's the way you do it
You play the guitar on the MTV.
That ain't workin', that's the way you do it.
Money for nothin' and chicks for free.
Now that ain't workin', that's the way you do it
Lemme tell ya them guys ain't dumb.
Maybe get a blister on your little finger;
Maybe get a blister on your thumb.”

Mark Knopfler (1949) English guitarist

Money for Nothing, written with Sting
Song lyrics, Brothers in Arms (1985)

Money, Way, Guy

“Hey porter! Hey porter!
Would you tell me the time?
How much longer will it be till we cross that Mason Dixon Line?
At daylight would ya tell that engineer to slow it down?
Or better still, just stop the train,
Cause I wanna look around.”

Johnny Cash (1932–2003) American singer-songwriter

Hey, Porter
Song lyrics, Now Here's Johnny Cash (1961)

Time, Training

“I began to reconcile myself to my forlorn condition, but still I was not what I wished to be: the worst of all was, I had no friend; not a human being that understood me. I wrote daily to my friend Leisewitz; he resided in Hanover, and was just as unhappy as myself, except that he had some friends, and plenty of money. In this respect I was differently situated, and although in want of money to buy books, I was determined not to be any expense to my father. Some watches, snuff-boxes, and rings, presents I had received in Gottingen, soon found their way to the hands of Jews at half price. I was even, against my will, driven to the necessity of accepting small fees from mechanics and peasants. This cut me to the heart; but I could not help myself. The following circumstance, however, overcame me more than all: My father was a man of great knowledge and experience, but, like all old men, he remained faithful to the old method of practice. I visited many of his patients, and without telling me exactly what mode of treatment I was to pursue, he only observed, "You will act so and sohowever, I saw the patients had confidence in my father only, and not in me; they wished me to be his tool, and I therefore followed his mode of practice, and thus lost several of his patients, who could have been saved had I followed my own method.”

Albrecht Thaer (1752–1828) German agronomist and an avid supporter of the humus theory for plant nutrition

My Life and Confessions, for Philippine, 1786

Men, Money, Books, Faith

“You can tell how uninteresting a person is by asking him whom he finds interesting.”

Nassim Nicholas Taleb book The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms

Source: The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms (2010), p. 28

Personality

“The spire is the simplest part of the romanesque or gothic architecture, and needs least study in order to be felt. It is a bit of sentiment almost pure of practical purpose. It tells the whole of its story at a glance, and its story is the best that architecture had to tell, for it typified the aspirations of man at the moment when man's aspirations were highest.”

Henry Adams (1838–1918) journalist, historian, academic, novelist

Mont Saint Michel and Chartres (1904)

Study, Parting

“If you want to tell me I'm a bum, that's okay.”

Tom Clancy (1947–2013) American author

2000s, In Depth with Tom Clancy (2002)

“The customer is usually wrong; but statistics indicate that it doesn't pay to tell him so.”

Aleister Crowley book Magick Without Tears

Ch XXI.
Magick Without Tears (1954)

“This gets better, it really does. The odd thing is, I actually think you might be telling the truth. If you were going to lie, you’d at least come up with something that made sense.”

Alastair Reynolds book Redemption Ark

Source: Redemption Ark (2002), Chapter 21 (p. 367)

Truth, Lie, Thinking, Sense

“By giving women training to sue a company for a ‘hostile environment’ if someone tells a dirty joke, we are training women to run to the Government as Substitute Husband (or Father). This gets companies to fear women, but not to respect women. The best preparation we can give women to succeed in the workplace is the preparation to overcome barriers rather than to sue: successful people don’t sue, they succeed.”

Warren Farrell book The Myth of Male Power

Source: The Myth of Male Power (1993), Part III: Government as substitute husband, p. 351.

Women, Hostility, People, Fear

“The correct understanding of life, let me tell you, is love despite everything. Love despite everything, that is the aim and object of life. Love, you see, is the only thing that pays in the long run, even though it might seem a dead loss in the short run.”

Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) Icelandic author

Pétur Þríhross
Heimsljós (World Light) (1940), Book Two: The Palace of the Summerland

Love, Life, Understanding, Loss

“For the people. And truly I desire their Liberty and Freedom as much as any Body whomsoever. But I must tell you, That their Liberty and Freedom, consists in having of Government; those Laws, by which their Life and their goods may be most their own. It is not for having a share in government (Sir) that is nothing pertaining to them. A subject and a sovereign are clean different things, and therefore until they do that, I mean, that you do put the people in that liberty as I say, certainly they will never enjoy themselves.
Sirs, It was for this that now I Have come here. If I would have given way to an Arbitrary way, for to have all Laws changed according to the power of the Sword, I needed not to have come here; and therefore, I tell you, (and I pray God it be not laid to your charge) That I Am the Martyr of the People.”

Charles I of England (1600–1649) monarch of the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland

On the scaffold before his execution. ( 30 January, 1649 http://anglicanhistory.org/charles/charles1.html).

Life, God, People, Law

“There are some occasions in which a man must tell half his secret, in order to conceal the rest; but there is seldom one in which a man should tell all. Great skill is necessary to know how far to go, and where to stop.”

Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield (1694–1773) British statesman and man of letters

15 January 1753
Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman (1774)

Secret

“I do not endorse them [Landmark Education] - never have. The SOBs have already sued me once. I'm afraid to tell you what I really think about them because I'm not covered by any lawyers like I was when I wrote my book.”

Margaret Singer (1921–2003) clinical psychology

Quoted in Drive through Deliverance http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/Issues/2000-10-19/news/feature_print.html, Phoenix New Times, October 19, 2000 2000

Books, Education, Thinking

“The polls are the place where Politicians claim the lime-light. They fulminate with garnished oratory, display inherent and affected charm and poise and ingenuity in tackling hecklers and evading responses to tricky questions and acquire the knack of telling an untruth with utmost conviction.”

Peter de Noronha (1897–1970) Indian businessman

The Pageant of Life (1964), On Politicians

Question, Light

“I think we are in the end game. The next six to nine months are going to tell whether we can produce a decent outcome in Iraq.”

Thomas Friedman (1953) American journalist and author

Today, March 2, 2006
"The next … months" in Iraq

Game, Thinking

“I tried. I tried so hard to empathize with all of your weaknesses. I implored every single one of you to just say "no," and all my empathy got was for you to love Jeff Hardy that much more than you already did. But this will not deter me. I will stay the course; I still believe in teaching you people the difference between right and wrong. (Audience chants "Hardy!") Oh, obviously it's gonna be challenging, listening to you people, and by the looks of some of you, it's gonna be a big challenge. But just like any other challenge that's come down the pipe in my lifetime, I'm gonna meet that challenge head on like a man, just like I did last week. Let's take a look. (Recap of Punk's assault on Hardy) See, now I know why you people love Jeff Hardy so much. It's because you are all just like him; and, in turn, Jeff Hardy is just like all of you. The reality is, none of you have the strength to be straight-edge. (Audience resumes chant) You gravitate towards Jeff because it's the easy way out: it's easier to weak like Jeff, because you sure can't be strong like me. Oh, you can boo all you want. I know why you boo, you know why you boo. It's because I tell the truth. And the truth sometimes hurts, doesn't it? For instance, what does it say on your prescription bottle of pills? "Take one every four hours"? Well, don't tell me you people don't gobble four, six, eight at a time like they were Pez. That is drug abuse—I don't do that. I also don't smoke, and those who do are stupid. You gotta be stupid to not listen to the Surgeon General, especially when he prints the warning label on the package of smokes. You gotta be a fool. And we can talk about those funny cigarettes, and you obviously know what I'm talking about because you cheer, and that's utterly sad. That's pathetic. I…I can't even wrap my head around you people cheering, 'cause when you smoke those funny cigarettes, not only is that hazardous to your health, it's also illegal. So those who have taken a puff, not only are you poisoning yourself, you're also breaking the law, so the vast majority of everybody here in this arena is a criminal. I am not a criminal—I never have been, and I never will be. Now let's talk about alcohol. I've saved the best poison for last, see because this is a gateway drug. Don't tell me not a single one of you here has ever said, "I'm gonna go out for one drink," and one leads to two, and two drinks leads to three, and then it's a double of this, and a shot of that, and then your head winds up in the toilet, night in and night out. Congratulations, that is alcoholism. And in my book, if you even take one drink, you're an alcoholic. So I understand why you people love Jeff Hardy so much, I understand why Jeff loves you—it's because you're all weak. Whether you like it or not, whether you know it or not, you deserve better. This entire world deserves better. What you need is a leader. You need a strong leader who's gonna stand up in the face of adversity and just say "no."”

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

You need a strong leader that's gonna carry the banner of the World Heavyweight Championship with honor, with pride, respect, dignity, integrity, and class. What you people need is a straight-edge World Heavyweight Champion. You need CM Punk.
August 7, 2009
Friday Night SmackDown

Love, People, Health, Alcohol

“We were doing incremental development as early as 1957, in Los Angeles, under the direction of Bernie Dimsdale [at IBM's ServiceBureau Corporation]. He was a colleague of John von Neumann, so perhaps he learned it there, or assumed it as totally natural. I do remember Herb Jacobs (primarily, though we all participated) developing a large simulation for Motorola, where the technique used was, as far as I can tell, indistinguishable from XP.”

Gerald M. Weinberg (1933–2018) American computer scientist

Gerald M. Weinberg, as quoted in Craig Larman (2004) Agile & Iterative Development: A Manager's Guide. Addison-Wesley Professional, 2004

Angels, Nature, Learning

“Love your Enemies, for they tell you your Faults.”

Benjamin Franklin book Poor Richard's Almanack

Poor Richard's Almanack (1756); this has also been quoted in a paraphrased form used by Bill Clinton in [ 1998 address to Beijing University http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/122320.stm, as "Our critics are our friends, they show us our faults". Poor Richard's Almanack

Love

“The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies; probably because they are generally the same people.”

G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) English mystery novelist and Christian apologist

Illustrated London News (16 July 1910)

Love, People, Funny

“A director is a man, therefore he has ideas; he is also an artist, therefore he has imagination. Whether they are good or bad, it seems to me that I have an abundance of stories to tell. And the things I see, the things that happen to me, continually renew the supply.”

Michelangelo Antonioni (1912–2007) Italian film director and screenwriter

Cahiers du Cinema (1960)

Imagination, Idea

“I take him [Beethoven] twice a week, Haydn four times, and Mozart every day. You will tell me that Beethoven is a Colossus who often gives you a dig in the ribs, whilst Mozart is always adorable; it is that the latter had the chance of going very young to Italy, at a time when they still sang well.”

Gioachino Rossini (1792–1868) Italian composer

Je le prends deux fois par semaine, Haydn quatre fois et Mozart tous les jours. Vous me direz, Beethoven est un colosse, qui vous donne souvent des coups de poing dans les côtes, tandisque Mozart est toujours adorable. C'est que lui a eu la chance d'aller très jeune en Italie à un époque, où l'on chantait encore bien.
Alfred Christlieb Kalischer Beethoven und seine Zeitgenossen (1908) p. 83. Translation from Charlotte Moscheles (trans. A. D. Coleridge) Life of Moscheles (1873) vol. 2, p. 275.

Chance, Time

“At the beginning of each semester, I tell students that my economic theory course will deal with positive, non-normative economic theory. I also tell them that if they hear me making a normative statement without first saying, "In my opinion," they are to raise their hands and say, "Professor Williams, we didn't take this class to be indoctrinated with your personal opinions passed off as economic theory; that's academic dishonesty." I also tell them that as soon as they hear me say, "In my opinion," they can stop taking notes because my opinion is irrelevant to the subject of the class -- economic theory. Another part of this particular lecture to my students is that by no means do I suggest that they purge their vocabulary of normative or subjective statements. Such statements are useful tools for tricking people into doing what you want them to do. You tell your father that you need a cell phone and he should buy you one. There's no evidence whatsoever that you need a cell phone. After all, George Washington managed to lead our nation to defeat Great Britain, the mightiest nation on Earth at the time, without owning a cell phone.”

Walter E. Williams (1936) American economist, commentator, and academic

1970s, Economics for the Citizen (1978)

People, Time, Parting, Personality

“What was that teacher trying to do?
That teacher was trying to break her spirit.
But why would school do that? So you could become someone like her parents and believe in the things they believe in. So you won’t believe in the things they don’t believe in. And believe you’re a happy person whose life has meaning. So you will go to your job and do whatever gross thing someone tells you to do and get drunk on Friday and Saturday nights and pay taxes and bills. That’s why.”

Lisa Mason book Summer of Love

Source: Summer of Love (1994), Chapter 4 “Foxy Lady” (pp. 81-82)

Life, Happiness, School, Parent

“I would have the musicians keep playing over and over again till the sound made sense. I worked overtime on that; I worked hours to get it right. If the sound didn't make any sense, then I wouldn't know what to do — I'd be lost! It's instinct that tells me. I have an instinct for music, or a feeling about it, and I'll have my feelings guide my hands.”

Brian Wilson (1942) American musician, singer, songwriter and record producer

Bassics interview (1999)

Music, Feeling, Sense

“The legend of King Midas has been generally misunderstood. Most people think the curse that turned everything the old miser touched into gold, leaving him unable to eat or drink, was a lesson in the perils of avarice. But Midas’s true sin was his failure to understand monetary economics. What the gods were really telling him is that gold is just a metal. If it sometimes seems to be more, that is only because society has found it convenient to use gold as a medium of exchange—a bridge between other, truly desirable, objects. There are other possible mediums of exchange, and it is silly to imagine that this pretty, but only moderately useful, substance has some irreplaceable significance.”

Paul Krugman (1953) American economist

"The Gold Bug Variations", Originally published in Slate (Nov. 23, 1996)
The Accidental Theorist: And Other Dispatches From The Dismal Science (1998)

God, People, Imagination, Failure

“It is not the business of the botanist to eradicate the weeds. Enough for him if he can tell us just how fast they grow.”

C. Northcote Parkinson (1909–1993) British naval historian

The Economist (November 1955).

Business

“I think animation can tell more than live action.”

Makoto Shinkai (1973) Japanese anime director and former graphic designer

Interviewed on Complex http://www.complex.com/pop-culture/2016/10/your-name-makoto-shinkai-interview/2 About Your Name

Thinking, Animals

“There is a sword," I said. "A sword that is — is not quite a sword as we think of weapons. My mind is cloudy there still. But I know that Ghast Rhymi can tell me where it is. A weapon, yet not a weapon. The Sword Called Llyr.”

Henry Kuttner book The Dark World

Source: The Dark World (1954), Ch. 9 : Realm of the Superconscious

Thinking

“I said to him [Hugh Dowding], "Well, as you eat meat, as you are a peer and have a seat in the House of Lords, could you do something about getting it humanely killed?" He said, "Well, isn't it?" I said, "I'm asking you." Well, we had a very, very happy marriage, and he never went anywhere without telling me where he was going. He'd nearly always say, "Look, can't you get out of what you are doing and come too?" And on three occasions he didn't tell me where he was going, he had just gone. He came back very depressed and didn't seem to want to talk about whatever it was. I wondered what was worrying him. When Sunday came, his usual salted beef was served, a dish that he liked very much. And he stood up to carve it, then he sat down, and he said, "What is it you're eating?" "Oh," I said, "well, as you know, it's a vegetarian dish." He said, "Would you have enough for me to have some? And don't ever get meat in this house for me again!" And he became a vegetarian then and there, and was one for about seventeen years till his death. … Well, if you're going to speak in the House of Lords, you've jolly well got to know your facts. Yes, he'd been to three slaughterhouses and was appalled.”

Muriel Dowding, Baroness Dowding (1908–1993) British noble

Source: Interview by Rynn Berry, pp. 137-38

Death, Marriage, Happiness, Housing

“Inaudible melodies
Serve narrational strategies
Unobtrusive tones
Help to notice nothing but the zone
Of visual relevancy
Frame-lines tell me what to see
Chopping like an axe
Or maybe Eisenstein should just relax”

Jack Johnson (musician) (1975) American musician

Inaudible Melodies.
Song lyrics, Brushfire Fairytales (2001)

Help

“On the island of New Georgia in the Solomons,
Stands a simple wooden cross alone to tell
That beneath the silent coral of the Solomons,
Sleeps a man, sleeps a man remembered well.”

Frank Loesser (1910–1969) American songwriter

The Ballad of Rodger Young http://www.wegrokit.com/shines.htm

Sleep

“Who teh heLL R u 2 tELL me what 2 reed or how 2 spel?”

Laura Penny (1975) Canadian journalist

Source: More Money than Brains (2010), Chapter Four, Screw U or Hate My Professors, p. 120 (spelling as per text...)

Hell

“But the cruellest thing you can do to an artist is tell them their work is flawless when it isn't.”

Ben Croshaw (1983) English video game journalist

23 March 2008
Fully Ramblomatic

“Over and over, when I ask God why all of these injustices are allowed to exist in the world, I can feel the Spirit whisper to me, "You tell me why we allow this to happen. You are my body, my hands, my feet."”

Shane Claiborne The Irresistible Revolution

Source: The Irresistible Revolution (2006), p. 65

God, World, Feeling

“I will take his secret to the grave, telling people along the way. Betrayal is no sin if it is whimsical.”

Tom Stoppard The Invention of Love

Housman, Act I
The Invention of Love (1997)

People, Secret, Way, Betrayal

“I have a woman's body: I have hips, I have boobs, I have a butt. There is nothing I can change about those things even if I lose weight. You have to learn to accept your body and like your body. But, it's true, when I started modeling people were always telling me that I had to change. They told me to cut my hair because long hair is not versatile enough. And they gave me this stuff to put in my water. They said: "Drink this and then you won't be so hungry, dah-dee-dah-dee-dah…"”

Heidi Klum (1973) German model, television host, businesswoman, fashion designer, television producer, and actress

I said: "OK, great," but I never took any of it.
Discussing the pressure to be thin in the modeling industry, as quoted by The Independent (UK) 19 February 2004.

People, Drink, Learning, Water

Quotes about tell page 37

Quotes about tell
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