Quotes about tell
page 38

S. I. Hayakawa photo
Gene Simmons photo
Anne Brontë photo
Francesco Petrarca photo

“I am speaking to tell the truth, not from hatred or scorn of anyone.”

Io parlo per ver dire,
non per odio d'altrui, né per disprezzo.
Canzone 128, st. 4
Il Canzoniere (c. 1351–1353), To Laura in Life

David Morrison photo
Jenny Lewis photo

“And it's bad news, I don't blame you
I do the same thing, I get lonely too
And you're bad news, my friends tell me to leave you
That you're bad news…”

Jenny Lewis (1976) American actor, singer-songwriter

"Portions for Foxes"
Song lyrics, More Adventurous (2004)

Enoch Powell photo

“Citizens of a modern society need […] more than that ordinary "common sense" which was defined by Stuart Chase as that which tells you that the world is flat.”

Stuart Chase (1888–1985) American economist

Stuart Chase in S. I. Hayakawa (1949) Language in Thought and Action. p. 29-30

Lew Rockwell photo
Jean Paul Sartre photo
Phillip Abbott Luce photo
Mary Howitt photo

“Buttercups and Daisies—
Oh, the pretty flowers,
Coming ere the spring time,
To tell of sunny hours.”

Mary Howitt (1799–1888) English poet, and author

"Buttercups and Daisies," http://books.google.com/books?id=jrwkAAAAMAAJ&q=%22Buttercups+and+daisies+Oh+the+pretty+flowers+Coming+ere+the+Spring+time+To+tell+of+sunny+hours%22&pg=PA119#v=onepage The Christmas Library: Birds and flowers and other country things, Volume 1 http://books.google.com/books?id=ezkGfAEACAAJ&q=%22Buttercups+and+daisies+Oh+the+pretty+flowers+Coming+ere+the+Spring+time+To+tell+of+sunny+hours%22 (1837).

Bram Stoker photo
Jeremy Corbyn photo
Cyrus David Foss photo
John Crowley photo
Ron Paul photo
James Callaghan photo

“We used to think that you could spend your way out of a recession and increase employment by cutting taxes and boosting government spending. I tell you in all candour that that option no longer exists, and in so far as it ever did exist, it only worked on each occasion since the war by injecting a bigger dose of inflation into the economy, followed by a higher level of unemployment as the next step.”

James Callaghan (1912–2005) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom; 1976-1979

Labour Party Annual Conference Report 1976, page 188.
Speech at the Labour Party Conference, 28 September 1976. This part of his speech was written by his son-in-law, future BBC Economics correspondent Peter Jay.
Prime Minister

“Behaviorists tell us that we tend to overweight and overreact to the most recently received information. If we do, we will find that the information that we thought was so important becomes tempered, and reduced in significance, by new and related information that follows.”

Robert Haugen (1942–2013) American economist

Source: The Inefficient Stock Market - What Pays Off And Why (1999), Chapter 12, The Forces behind the Technical Payoffs to Price History, p. 121

Oded Fehr photo
Ellen Kushner photo
Charlie Brooker photo
F. E. Smith, 1st Earl of Birkenhead photo
Elie Wiesel photo

“Kind sir, if the truth I must tell,
At the sign of Basin of Water I dwell.”

(said by Princess Catskin).
English Fairy Tales (1890), Preface to English Fairy Tales, Catskin

William Jennings Bryan photo

“Why, these men would destroy the Bible on evidence that would not convict a habitual criminal of a misdemeanor. They found a tooth in a sand pit in Nebraska with no other bones about it, and from that one tooth decided that it was the remains of the missing link. They have queer ideas about age too. They find a fossil and when they are asked how old it is they say they can't tell without knowing what rock it was in, and when they are asked how old the rock is they say they can't tell unless they know how old the fossil is.”

William Jennings Bryan (1860–1925) United States Secretary of State

As quoted in "Osborn States the Case For Evolution", in The New York Times (12 Jul 1925), p. XX1; the tooth was misidentified as anthropoid by Osborn, who over-zealously proposed Nebraska Man in 1922; the tooth was shortly thereafter found to be that of a peccary (a Pliocene pig) when further bones were found. A retraction was made in 1927, correcting the scientific blunder.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo
Alan Gura photo

“We’d like to think that the Bill of Rights was ratified in 1791, but in reality, in the practical and for your daily life, the Bill of Rights means what judges tell you it means and judges in our country are a byproduct of the electoral process. Forget about 1791, the Second Amendment is on the ballot, this time, next time, every time.”

Alan Gura (1971) American lawyer

On the need for Second Amendment supporters to remain vigilant about gun rights in the United States, from his recorded speech http://www.guns.com/2012/11/10/attorney-alan-gura-gun-rights-policy-conference/ to attendees of the 2012 Gun Rights Policy Conference.

F. E. Smith, 1st Earl of Birkenhead photo
Timothy Dalton photo

“It was a remarkable time of my life. I don’t think anyone except the few people who have played James Bond can tell you how strange and special it is and how much your life changes. I have no regrets about doing it at all.”

Timothy Dalton (1944) British actor of stage, film and television

On playing Bond. [Timothy Dalton Reflects On 007, 2007-02-19, http://www.mi6.co.uk/sections/articles/dalton_hot_fuzz.php3?t=&s=, MI6 - The Home of James Bond, 2007-02-21]
Attributed

Peter Sloterdijk photo
Richard Burton photo
Anne Morrow Lindbergh photo
Jack Kerouac photo
Jerry Coyne photo
William Collins photo

“Well may your hearts believe the truths I tell:
'T is virtue makes the bliss, where'er we dwell.”

William Collins (1721–1759) English poet, born 1721

Oriental Eclogues. 1, Line 5. Compare: "That virtue only makes our bliss below, / And all our knowledge is ourselves to know", Alexander Pope, Essay on Man, Epistle iv, line 397.

Bill Clinton photo

“What I always longed to do was to be able to paint like I can draw, most artists would tell you that, they would all like to paint like they can draw.”

David Hockney (1937) British artist

From a series of interviews with Marco Livingstone (April 22 - May 7, 1980 and July 6 - 7, 1980) quoted in Livingstone's David Hockney (1981), p. 207
1980s

Aron Ra photo
Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo
David Yezzi photo

“The person who wrote the poem can tell you more about the poem than anyone else.”

David Yezzi (1966) American poet

Interview with Ernest Hibert (2006)

Phillip Guston photo
Alan Charles Kors photo
Miguel de Cervantes photo

“Tell me thy company, and I'll tell thee what thou art.”

Miguel de Cervantes (1547–1616) Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright

Source: Don Quixote de la Mancha (1605–1615), Part II (1615), Book III, Ch. 23.

Théodore Rousseau photo

“If my painting depicts faithfully and without over-refinement the simple and true character of the place you have frequented, if I succeed.... in giving its own life to that world of vegetation, then you will hear the trees moaning under the winter wind, the birds that call their young and cry after their dispersion; you will feel the old chateau tremble; it will tell you that, as the wife you loved, it too will.... disappear and be reborn in multiple forms.. One does not copy with mathematical precision what one sees, but one feels and interprets a real world, all of whose fatalities hold you fast bound.”

Théodore Rousseau (1812–1867) French painter (1812-1867)

Quote in a letter to M. Guizot, c. 1839-41; as cited by Charles Sprague Smith, in Barbizon days, Millet-Corot-Rousseau-Barye publisher, A. Wessels Company, New York, July 1902, pp. 172-173
The Duke de Broglie had ordered of Rousseau a painting of the 'Chateau de Broglie', for his friend M. Guizot. Madame Guizot had died there, and The Duke de Broglie urged Rousseau to make the painting grave and sad.. The quote presents Rousseau’s responding
1830 - 1850

George W. Bush photo

“I'm fortunate to know many of the trustees. Well, for example I'm good friends with the Chairman, Mike Boone. And there’s one trustee I know really well, a proud graduate of the SMU Class of 1968 who went on to become our nation’s greatest First Lady. Do me a favor and don’t tell Mother. I know how much the trustees love and care for this great university. I see it firsthand when I attend the Bring-Your-Spouse-Night Dinners. I also get to drop by classes on occasion. I am really impressed by the intelligence and energy of the SMU faculty. I want to thank you for your dedication and thank you for sharing your knowledge with your students. To reach this day, the graduates have had the support of loving families. Some of them love you so much they are watching from overflow sites across campus. I congratulate the parents who have sacrificed to make this moment possible. It is a glorious day when your child graduates from college — and a really great day for your bank account. I know the members of the Class of 2015 will join me in thanking you for your love and your support. Most of all, I congratulate the members of the Class of 2015. You worked hard to reach this milestone. You leave with lifelong friends and fond memories. You will always remember how much you enjoyed the right to buy a required campus meal plan. You'll remember your frequent battles with the Park ‘N’ Pony Office. And you may or may not remember those productive nights at the Barley House.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

2010s, 2015, Remarks at the SMU 100th Spring Commencement (May 2015)

Stevie Nicks photo
Mario Cuomo photo
Richard Lovelace photo

“Tell me not, sweet, I am unkind,
That from the nunnery
Of thy chaste breast and quiet mind,
To war and arms I fly.”

Richard Lovelace (1617–1658) English writer and poet

To Lucasta: Going to the Wars, st. 1.
Lucasta (1649)

Geert Wilders photo
Michael Crichton photo
Ivan Turgenev photo
Wendy Liebman photo

“"My mother is a ventriloquist – but not professionally. For ten years I thought the dog was telling me to kill my father." Waiting a beat, Liebman adds, "I got my brother to do it."”

Wendy Liebman (1961) American comedian

Wendy Liebman page http://delafont.com/comedians/wendy-liebman.htm Richard De La Font Agency, Inc. web site. (url accessed on October 22, 2008)

Daniel Kahneman photo
Martin Luther King, Jr. photo

“And as I ponder the madness of Vietnam and search within myself for ways to understand and respond in compassion, my mind goes constantly to the people of that peninsula. I speak not now of the soldiers of each side, not of military government in Saigon, but simply of the people who have been under the curse of war for almost three continuous decades now. I think of them too because it is clear to me that there will be no meaningful solution until some attempt is made to know these people and hear their broken cries. Now let me tell you the truth about it. They must see Americans as strange liberators. Do you realize that the Vietnamese people proclaimed their own independence in 1945, after a combined French and Japanese occupation. And incidentally, this was before the communist revolution in China. They were led by Ho Chi Minh. And this is a little known fact, these people declared themselves independent in 1945, they quoted our Declaration of Independence in their document of freedom. And yet our government refused to recognize, President Truman said they were not ready for independence. So we failed victim as a nation at that time of the same deadly arrogance that has poisoned the international situation for all of these years. France then set out to reconquer its former colony. And they fought eight long, hard, brutal years, trying to reconquer Vietnam. You know who helped France? It was the United States of America, it came to the point that we were meeting more than 80% of the war cost. And even when France started despairing of its reckless action, we did not. And in 1954, a conference was called at Geneva, and an agreement was reached, because France had been defeated at Dien Bien Phu. But even after that and even after the Geneva Accord, we did not stop. We must face the sad fact that our government sought in a real sense to sabotage the Geneva Accord. Well, after the French were defeated, it looked as if independence and land reform would come through the Geneva agreement. But instead the United States came and started supporting a man named Diem, who turned out to be one of the most ruthless dictators in the history of the world. He set out to silence all opposition, people were brutally murdered merely because they raised their voices against the brutal policies of Diem. And the peasants watched and cringed as Diem ruthlessly rooted out all opposition. The peasants watched as all this was presided over by United States influence, and then by increasing numbers of United States troops, who came to help quell the insurgency that Diem's methods had aroused. When Diem was overthrown they may have been happy, but the long line of military dictatorships seemed to offer no real change, especially in terms of their need for land and peace. And who are we supporting in Vietnam today? It's a man by the name of General Ky, who fought with the French against his own people, and who said on one occasion that the greatest hero of his life is Hitler. This is who we're supporting in Vietnam today. Oh, our government, and the press generally, won't tell us these things, but God told me to tell you this morning. The truth must be told.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1960s, Why I Am Opposed to the War in Vietnam (1967)

Bhakti Tirtha Swami photo
Donald J. Trump photo
David Copperfield photo

“I want to tell you why I did this. My mother was the first one to tell me about the Statue of Liberty. She saw at first from the deck of the ship that brought her to America: she was an immigrant. She impressed upon me how precious our liberty is and how easily it can be lost. And then one day it occurred to me that I could show with magic how we take our freedom for granted. Sometimes we don't realize how important something is until it's gone. So I asked our government for permission to let me make the Statue of Liberty disappear… just for a few minutes. I thought that if we faced emptiness where, for as long as we can remember, that great lady is, lifted up our land, why then… we might imagine what the world would be like without liberty and we realize how precious our freedom really is. And then I will make the Statue of Liberty reappear, by remembering the world that made it appear in the first place. The world is freedom. Freedom is the true magic. It's beyond the power of any magician. But wherever one human being guarantees another the same rights he or she enjoys, we find freedom. [The curtain between the live audience and the Statue of Liberty used to hide the secret of its disappearance is raised] How long can we stay free? But just as long as we keep thinking, and speaking, and acting as free human beings. Our ancestors just couldn’t. We can. And I will show you the way. Nooooow!”

David Copperfield (1956) American illusionist

The curtain is lowered and the Statue of Liberty reappears
From "The Magic of David Copperfield V: The Statue of Liberty Disappears" (April 8th, 1983)

Boris Johnson photo

“He's lost the plot, people tell me. He's drifting rudderless in the wide Sargasso Sea of New Labour's ideological vacuum.”

Boris Johnson (1964) British politician, historian and journalist

"Blair dead in the water? No such luck", Daily Telegraph, 29 April 2004, p. 24.
On Tony Blair.
2000s, 2004

Fritz Leiber photo
Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay photo
James Joyce photo
Pippa Black photo
Muammar Gaddafi photo

“Reagan is mad. If he were here, I would tell him the truth about us. He hears about us only through hostile sources.”

Muammar Gaddafi (1942–2011) Libyan revolutionary, politician and political theorist

Remarks quoted in The Pittsburgh Press (3 August 1986) "Gadhafi, the man the world loves to hate" by Marie Colvin (UPI)

Kate Bornstein photo

“I tell people that I’ve never been hurt by an honest question, and that’s true: it’s a cruel opinion that hurts, not a question.”

Kate Bornstein (1948) American author, playwright, performance artist, and gender theorist

Source: Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women and the Rest of Us (1995), p. 9

Camille Paglia photo
Eugene V. Debs photo
Julian of Norwich photo
Prem Rawat photo
Robert M. Pirsig photo
Curtis LeMay photo

“My solution to the problem would be to tell [the North Vietnamese Communists] frankly that they've got to draw in their horns and stop their aggression or we're going to bomb them into the Stone Age. And we would shove them back into the Stone Age with Air power or Naval power—not with ground forces.”

Curtis LeMay (1906–1990) American general and politician

Mission With LeMay: My Story (1965), p. 565. In an interview two years after the publication of this book, General LeMay said, "I never said we should bomb them back to the Stone Age. I said we had the capability to do it. I want to save lives on both sides"; reported in The Washington Post (October 4, 1968), p. A8. Many years later LeMay would claim that this was his ghost writer's overwriting.

Thérèse of Lisieux photo
William Cobbett photo

“In one point, and that too of more importance than is generally attached to it, the puritans of the two epochs bear a critical resemblance, namely, their hostility to rural and athletic sports: to those sports, which string the nerves and strengthen the frame, which excite an emulation in deeds of hardihood and valour, and which imperceptibly instill honour, generosity, and a love of glory, into the mind of the clown. Men thus formed are pupils unfit for the puritanical school; therefore it is, that the sect are incessantly labouring to eradicate, fibre by fibre, the last poor remains of English manners. And, sorry I am to tell you, that they meet with but too many abettors, where they ought to meet with resolute foes. Their pretexts are plausible: gentleness and humanity are the cant of the day. Weak men are imposed on, and wise men want the courage to resist. Instead of preserving those assemblages and those sports, in which the nobleman mixed with his peasants, which made the poor man proud of his inferiority, and created in his breast a personal affection for his lord, too many of the rulers of this land are now hunting the common people from every scene of diversion, and driving them to a club or a conventicle, at the former of which they suck in the delicious rudiments of earthly equality, and, at the latter, the no less delicious doctrine, that there is no lawful king but King Jesus.”

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

Political Register (27 February 1802).

Edward VIII of the United Kingdom photo

“At long last I am able to say a few words of my own… You must believe me when I tell you that I have found it impossible to carry the heavy burden of responsibility and to discharge my duties as King as I would wish to do without the help and support of the woman I love.”

Edward VIII of the United Kingdom (1894–1972) king of the United Kingdom and its dominions in 1936

Abdication Speech, December 11, 1936, via radio to a worldwide audience. http://www.historyplace.com/speeches/edward.htm

Michael Crichton photo
Edward Carson, Baron Carson photo
Pat Condell photo
George Raymond Richard Martin photo
Donald J. Trump photo

“Donald Trump: Oh, well, if you look at the statistics, of people coming— I didn't say about Mexic— I say the illegal immigrants— if you look at the statistics on rape, on crime, on everything, coming in illegally into this country, they're mind-boggling. If you go to Fusion, you will see a story about 80% of the women coming in– I mean, you have to take a look at these stories. And you know who owns Fusion? Univision. It was in The Huffington Post. I said, let me get some of these articles because I've heard some horrible things. I deal a lot of talking with people on the border patrol. They're incredible people. They help our country.
Don Lemon: But I want some clarification–
Trump: No, but Don, all you have to do is go to Fusion and pick up the stories on rape, and it's unbelievable when you look at what's going on. So all I'm doing is telling the truth.
Lemon: I've read The Washington Post, I read the Fusion, I read The Huffington Post. And that's about women being raped, it's not about criminals coming across the border entering the country.
Trump: Somebody's doing the raping, Don, I mean, you know– I mean, somebody's doing it. You think it's women being raped, well who's doing the raping? Who's doing the raping? I mean how can you say such a thing. So, the problem is you have to stop illegal immigration coming across the border. You have to create a strong border. If you don't, we don't have a country.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

2015-07-01 The Situation Room TV CNN http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/01/politics/donald-trump-immigrants-raping-comments/
2010s, 2015

Ismail ibn Musa Menk photo

“And the same applies to the spouse. You know you love them, but you need to say it again and again. Like we got to the food, moments ago, and you need to say: "This food is – mashallah – it's really, really great". Even if the salt is a little bit more. Because sometimes, as I was saying, she spent so much time bringing it in front of us – and we are worried about how it's smelling, number one, and number two is we say, as we taste it, "The salt is too much, no?" What are you talking about? She just looks at you and her face flops. «I've been at it for three hours here, four hours I've been busy with this for so many months…» And what does she even say? "Next time I'll try a bit harder" – that's if she's a good woman; if not, she will say: "Never gonna cook this again!" It's typical. And if you have someone who is very witty: "The next time there's salt to be put in, I'll call you to put it." So we need to praise the cooking of our wives, we need to praise their dress code, especially… For example, I can let you know something that has worked, for some people. When you find some women, you know, they don't like to dress appropriately, so the husband sometimes wants to tell them something. There're two, three ways of doing it. You can either say, "This is very bad, I don't want you to wear this." And, you know, you might have a response. But if you want a response from the heart, what you do is, you tell them: "The other dress looked much better than this." You see, so you are praising one thing, and that praise is not there when the other thing is there. So, you have told them, in a way, that «this is what I really love». And go beyond the limits in praise – that's your wife, don't worry, you can say whatever you want, mashallah, in terms of goodness. Like the food, when you eat, even if it is a little bit this way or that way, just praise it, mashallah. See what it is. Praise the effort, at least. Let me tell you what has happened once. They say the imam in the mosque had said: "You need to praise the cooking of your wife". Just like I said now. So the man went home, and he had this meal, and he was looking at it, and looking at his wife, and smiling, all happy, mashallah, excited and everything. And when he finishes, he says: "Oh! It was awesome!" And the wife says, "What? I've been cooking for you for 21 years, you never said that! Today, when the food came from the neighbor, you want to say it was awesome?"”

Ismail ibn Musa Menk (1975) Muslim cleric and Grand Mufti of Zimbabwe.

"The Fortunate Muslim Family: Divine Solution to the Fragmented Family" (20 February 2012), lecture at the University of Malaya ( YouTube video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QaeZcV_azE)
Lectures

Bear Bryant photo

“Recruiting is the one thing I hate. I won't do it unless my coaches tell me I've just got to. The whole process is kind of undignified for me and the young man.”

Bear Bryant (1913–1983) American college football coach

Source: Football's Supercoach, B.J., Phillips, Sep. 29, 1980, Time, 6, 2008-12-11 http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,952802-6,00.html,

Robert Hunter photo
Anna Akhmatova photo
Martin Heidegger photo
Jefferson Davis photo

“We recognize the negro as God and God's Book and God's Laws, in nature, tell us to recognize him. Our inferior, fitted expressly for servitude.”

Jefferson Davis (1808–1889) President of the Confederate States of America

Speech (March 1861), as quoted in Look Away!: A History of the Confederate States of America https://books.google.com/books?id=KSd0SkDXtJQC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false (2002), by William C. Davis, New York: The Free Press, p. 137
1860s

Patrick Kavanagh photo
Harry Turtledove photo

“What will we do when they start capturing our people?" Klein asked. "They will, you know, if they haven't by now. Things go wrong." Heydrich's fingers drummed some more. He didn't worry about the laborers who'd expanded this redoubt- they'd all gone straight to the camps after they did their work. But captured fighters were indeed another story. He sighed. "Things go wrong. Ja. If they didn't, Stalin would be lurking somewhere in the Pripet Marshes, trying to keep his partisans fighting against us. We would've worked Churchill to death in a coal mine." He barked laughter. "The British did some of that for us, when they threw the bastard out of office last month. And we'd be getting ready to fight the Amis on their side of the Atlantic. But… things went wrong." "Yes, sir." After a moment, Klein ventured, "Uh, sir- you didn't answer my question." "Oh. Prisoners." Heydrich had to remind himself what his aide was talking about. "I don't know what to do, Klein, except make sure our people all have cyanide pills." "Some won't have the chance to use them. Some won't have the nerve," Klein said. Not many men had the nerve to tell Reinhard Heydrich the unvarnished truth. Heydrich kept Klein around not least because Klein was one of those men. They were useful to have. Hitler would have done better had he seen that. Heydrich recognized the truth when he heard it now; one more thing Hitler'd had trouble with.”

Harry Turtledove (1949) American novelist, short story author, essayist, historian

Source: The Man With the Iron Heart (2008), p. 56-57

Maria Nikiforova photo

“Cossacks, I must tell you that you are the butchers of the Russian workers. Will you continue to be so in the future, or will you acknowledge your own wickedness and join the ranks of the oppressed? Up to now you have shown no respect for the poor workers. For one of the tsar's rubles or a glass of wine, you have nailed them living to the cross.”

Maria Nikiforova (1885–1919) Revolutionary, anarchist

Speech to cossack cavalry loyal to the White movement.
[harv, Archibald, Malcolm, http://www.nestormakhno.info/english/marusya.htm, Atamansha: the Story of Maria Nikiforova, the Anarchist Joan of Arc, Black Cat Press, Dublin, 19, 2007, 9780973782707, 239359065]

“There are three ways of trying to win the young. You can preach at them—that is a hook without a worm. You can say, "You must volunteer"—that is of the devil. And you can tell them, "You are needed"—that appeal hardly ever fails.”

Kurt Hahn (1886–1974) German educator

John Gookin, NOLS Wilderness Wisdom: Quotes for Inspirational Exploration (2003), ISBN 0811726460, p. 45.
Attributed