Quotes about tell
page 42

“We're strange allies,
With warring hearts.
What wild-eyed beast you be?
The Space Between
The wicked lies we tell
And hope to keep us safe from the pain.”

Dave Matthews (1967) American singer-songwriter, musician and actor

The Space Between
Everyday (2001)

Pain, War, Hope, Heart

“Whenever you face something new, you revert to your own tribal ways. People ask me how I can live among cannibals, or tribes that practise female circumcision, and not tell them what's right or wrong. I know that's not the way to understanding. I try not to judge.”

Bruce Parry (1969) British documentarian

As quoted in "Bruce Parry: 'My job doesn't allow me a private life" by Cassandra Jardine in The Telegraph (19 September 1007)

People, Way, Understanding

“One mark of a second-rate mind is to be always telling stories.”

Jean de La Bruyère book Les Caractères

Aphorism 52
Les Caractères (1688), Des jugements

“Whoever can feel, the love I do tell,
Would take by the heel, poor sinners from hell;
As downward they're going, to bring them above;
To sing of Christ's dying, a Heaven of love.”

Dorothy Ripley (1767–1832) missionary

A Hymn From My Nativity (22 August 1819), p. 18
The Bank of Faith and Works United (1819)

Love, Feeling, Hell, Singing

“I don't think I need to tell you that there are jobs that Americans will not do. I don't think I have to tell you that there are. … [audience response] Now, my friends, I'll offer anybody here fifty dollars an hour if you'll go pick lettuce in Yuma this season and pick for the whole season. [audience response] So, OK, sign up! Ok, when you sign up, you sign up, and you'll be there for the whole season, the whole season, OK, not just one day. Because you can't do it, my friend.”

John McCain (1936–2018) politician from the United States

Declaring at an AFL-CIO convention in April 2006 that no Americans would be willing to do agricultural work for as little as $50/hour http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12155322/. 2000s, 2006

Thinking, Season

“Go tell Mankind, that there are Devils and Witches; and that tho those night-birds least appear where the Day-light of the Gospel comes, yet New-Engl. has had Exemples of their Existence and Operation; and that no only the Wigwams of Indians, where the pagan Powaws often raise their masters, in the shapes of Bears and Snakes and Fires, but the House of Christians, where our God has had his constant Worship, have undergone the Annoyance of Evil spirits. Go tell the world, What Prays can do beyond all Devils and Witches, and What it is that these Monsters love to do; and through the Demons in the Audience of several standers-by threatned much disgrace to thy Author, if he let thee come abroad, yet venture That, and in this way seek a just Revenge on Them for the Disturbance they have given to such as have called on the Name of God.”

Cotton Mather (1663–1728) American religious minister and scientific writer

Memorable providence, relating to witchcraft's and possessions. (1689) http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/salem/ASA_MATH.HTM

Love, God, World, Way

“Your Bible has been revised several times. The Jewish Bible has been revised several times. Not the Qur'an, though. They still live in the seventh century. 'Kill homosexuals. Cut the clitoris off women. Put women in dark clothing. Cut off anyone's head who doesn't agree with you.' What kind of religion is this? What kind of world are you living in when you let them in here with that throwback document in their hand, which is a book of hate. Don’t tell me I need reeducation. They need deportation. I don't need reeducation. Deportation, not reeducation.”

Michael Savage (1942) U.S. radio talk show host, Commentator, and Author

The Savage Nation (1995- ), 2007

Women, Hate, Books, World

“I tell you, struggle is what is missing in the lives of most young people today. If they think I'm going to support them while they create great works of art, then they've missed the point of my work, of my life! In the process of becoming a writer or an artist one has to be willing to starve. Struggle is the most invaluable experience of all. Suffering seems to be the inevitable fate of the creative sensitive types. Poverty, disease, death, unrequited love affairs, and disappointments of every sort fan the flame of the artistic spirit. The greatest works of art were not created by spoiled brats. They were born for the most part out of a sense of despair, and if not despair then just plain hard work. Somewhere along the line the artist learns the art of transformation.”

Henry Miller (1891–1980) American novelist

Reflections (1981)

Love, Life, Death, Fate

“I love Slim-Jims so much, I once called their hotline. I swear to God. I told them, "I got your next billion-dollar idea." And the lady on the other end goes, "Oh, do tell." I said, "Alright. Men love beer and Slim-Jims. So, what you need to do, is drill a hole in the middle of that Slim-Jim… so we can suck beer through it and take a bite of Slim Jim! [Audience cheers] Yeah. GENIUS!… She hung up on me.”

Bill Engvall (1957) American comedian and actor

15° Off Cool (2007)

Love, Men, God, Idea

“Is it really so difficult to tell a good action from a bad one? I think one usually knows right away or a moment afterward, in a horrid flash of regret.”

Mary McCarthy (1912–1989) American writer

"My Confession", p. 76
On the Contrary: Articles of Belief 1946–1961 (1961)

Thinking

“Religious faith often finds itself at odds with story-telling. Puritans ban acting companies. Islam is uneasy about all forms of representation. And why? Because the experience of walking out of the theater after a performance is a paradigm of disillusionment, and religious people are officially supposed to believe, first and foremost, in their own literal faith, from which there are no exits. They've taken the big leap, and live, ever after, in free fall.”

Thomas M. Disch (1940–2008) Novelist, short story writer, poet

Introduction to "The Santa Claus Compromise".
The Man Who Had No Idea (and other stories) (1982)

People, Faith

“It would be another two decades before I came upon the words that made me think I had a story to tell—the opening words of Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior: “You must not tell anyone,” my mother said, “what I am about to tell you.” The immigrant mother’s prohibition to her daughter reminded me of my own mother’s warning about spreading “family secrets.” In the face of California’s fame for blatancy—in the face of pervasive light, ingenuousness, glass-and-aluminum housing, bikinis, billboards—Mrs. Hong recommended concealment.”

Richard Rodríguez (1944) American journalist and essayist

Darling: A Spiritual Autobiography (2013)

Secret, Family, Thinking, Light

“Law steps in where nature fails: virtually everywhere. Laws create nature - a male nature and a female nature and natural intercourse - by telling errant, unnatural human beings what to do and what not to do to protect and express their real nature - the real man, the real female, the real hierarchy thta natture or God created putting man on top.”

Andrea Dworkin book Intercourse

Source: Intercourse (1987), Chapter 8

God, Law, Nature

“When the Armistice came back no one took time to tell us about it; November 11 was just another day of drilling on the Plain. I found out that the war was over only by courtesy of our "barrack policemen", the janitor who looked after the division of the old South Barracks where my "beast" company was quartered, who reported the war's end a couple of days after the fact.”

Maxwell D. Taylor (1901–1987) United States general

Source: Swords and Plowshares (1972), p. 25

War, Time

“On the second Michael Jackson trial, speaking on "Larry King Live," CNN, Feb. 21, 2003: "But I'm telling you, this boy, two-thirds of this can be corroborated by other people. So why would he lie about the molestation part? It is in graphic detail. It just seems true… I think Michael Jackson walks. And I think it's a disgrace. He's guilty."”

Nancy Grace (1959) American legal commentator, television host, television journalist, and former prosecutor

"Larry King Live", CNN (Feb. 21, 2003), reported in " Jacko Not Guilty: Past Predictions https://web.archive.org/web/20061115152018/http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/court_cases/jacko_not_guilty_past_predictions_22555.asp", TVNewser.com (June 14, 2006).

People, Lie, Boy, Thinking

“I am locked in a race with someone who is continually described almost in Homeric fashion. The reason I say that is because Homer had this way of attaching epithets to all the characters, so he would never say Achilles, it would always have to be "Valorous, Brave Achilles" or something, or "Swift Footed Achilles" and things of this kind. He would never say Odysseus, it was always "Manly Wild Odysseus" or something; he would always have a little name in front. And you've noticed that my opponent Barack Obama, the media always puts a little epithet in front of him. "The Democrat Rising Star, Barack Obama," "Rising Star Barack Obama." And they tell me that they are not biased. I'm locked in a little battle with the Illinois media right now, because I've had the nerve to identify them as minions of the Democrat party. And they are all upset with me about this — but I have this bad habit of opening my eyes and seeing what's in front of them.”

Alan Keyes (1950) American politician

National Federation of Republican Assemblies, NYC, August 31, 2004. http://renewamerica.us/archives/speeches/04_08_31nfra.htm. 2004 Illinois U.S. Senate race

Way, Star, Fashion

“Who can tell, my brothers and sisters, when we will celebrate on this podium, the liberation of the West Bank? When will we celebrate the liberation of Jaffa, Haifa, Safed, and the Negev? When will we celebrate the departure of the last Zionist from our land? Yes. Some people ask when this will happen. Say: It could be soon. Such is our faith in Allah. We have no doubt that victory will come, and that just as we liberated Palestine from the Crusaders and from the Mongols, we will regain it – pure and purified - from the Zionist occupiers.”

Khaled Mashal (1956) Palestinian terrorist

Khaled Mashal cited in Hamas Leaders Speaking at Damascus Rally: We Shall Regain Safed, Beit Shean, Tiberias, Ashkelon, and Lod http://www.memritv.org/clip_transcript/en/988.htm at memritv.org, 30 December 2005: Mashal adresses the crowd in a rally 2005

People, Faith, Departure, Sister

“The outcry surrounding the public disclosure of the project had taken only three months to die, this—thought Jocundra—a telling commentary upon the spongelike capacity of the American consciousness to absorb miracles, digest them along with the ordinary whey provided by the media, and reduce them to half-remembered trivia.”

Lucius Shepard book Green Eyes

Epilogue, p. 271
Green Eyes (1984)

“The fact is there are no stories I can tell my friends that will make them feel better. History cannot be erased, although we can soothe ourselves by speculating about it.”

Margaret Atwood (1939) Canadian writer

Selected Poems 1976-1986 (1987), Marrying the Hangman

Feeling, History

“Tell me some true things about fighting.'
'Tell me you love me.'
'I love you,' the girl said. 'You can publish it in the Gazzettino if you like. I love your hard, flat body and your strange eyes that frighten me when they become wicked. I love your hand and all your other wounded places.”

Ernest Hemingway book Across the River and into the Trees

Renata and Colonel Richard Cantwell in Ch. 12
Across the River and into the Trees (1950)

Love, Girl, Fight

“Let me alone, I have yet my legs left, and one arm. Tell the surgeon to make haste and get his instruments. I know I must lose my right arm, so the sooner it is off the better.”

Horatio Nelson (1758–1805) Royal Navy Admiral

After being wounded during the attack on Santa Cruz de Tenerife (24 July 1797), as quoted in The Dispatches and Letters of Vice Admiral Lord Viscount Nelson with Notes (1845) edited Nicholas Harris Nicolas, Vol. II : 1795-1797, p. 423
1790s

“Never ask what sort of computer a guy drives. If he's a Mac user, he'll tell you. If not, why embarrass him?”

Tom Clancy (1947–2013) American author

As quoted in Escape The Pace: 100 Fun And Easy Ways To Slow Down And Enjoy Your Life (2002) by Lisa Rickwood; this quote appears at least as early as 1996 online
1990s

Guy

“She said faintly, “Are you… real?”
Amusement showed in his face. “Real?” he said. “Define reality and I can answer you.” He waved a hand. “Look into solid earth, into rock, and see the galaxies of all Creation. What you call reality melts; there is a whirling, a spinning of forces, a dance of motes and atoms. Some of them we call planets, one of them is Earth. Nothingness within nothingness enclosing nothing, that is reality. Tell me what you want, and I can answer.””

Keith Roberts book Pavane

Fourth measure “Lords and Ladies” (p. 170)
Pavane (1968)

Reality, Dance

“The historian will tell you what happened. The novelist will tell you what it felt like.”

E.L. Doctorow (1931–2015) novelist, editor, professor

Time (26 June 2006)

“But when the dreaded moment's there
He'll face us all, a soldier yet,
Watch his bared wounds with unmoved air,
(Though tell-tale lashes still are wet),
And smoke his Woodbine cigarette.”

Eva Dobell (1876–1963) British poet

Unsourced, In A Soldiers' Hospital 1: Pluck

“All my friends are always telling me how hard it is to have kids. 'Oh, David, it's so hard.' That's not hard. I'll tell you what hard is. Try talking your girlfriend into her third consecutive abortion. Yeah, that's hard, that takes finesse. You’re just inconvenienced.”

David Cross (1964) American comedian, writer and actor

It's Not Funny

“Like any bully, Putin only picks fights that he is sure he can win. History tells us that sooner or later, he will become so overconfident, so accustomed to his opponents folding their cards against his weak hand, that he will overstep, potentially resulting in a catastrophe on a global scale.”

Garry Kasparov (1963) former chess world champion

2010s, The Truth About Putin (2018)

History, Fight

“You can tell that the capitalist system is in trouble when people start talking about capitalism.”

Terry Eagleton (1943) British writer, academic and educator

Preface, p. xi
2010s, Why Marx Was Right (2011)

People

“I was not yet inclined to live the life of a celibate.... I have taken a young wife of honest but middle-class family although everyone tried to persuade me to make a court marriage. But I feared pride, that inherent vice of the nobility, particularly in that sex, and that is why I chose one who would not blush to see me take my brushes in hand. And to tell the truth it would have been hard for me to exchange the priceless treasure of liberty for the embraces of an old woman.”

Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640) Flemish painter

In a letter to his friend Peiresc, c. 1635; as quoted in Rubens and the Roman Circle, Huemer, p. 44
his second wife was Helena Fourment, the daughter of a silk merchant, Daniel Fourment; when Rubens married her in 1630 she was just
1625 - 1640

Life, Marriage, Truth, Fear

“Rosey Grier, immortalized in needlepoint - and by my own hands to boot! If anyone would have told me that I would go from football to needlepoint, I would have laughed in their face. In fact, the whole thing started as a joke, but it's turned into one of the most enjoyable and satisfying things I've ever done. I try to turn other guys on to needlepoint wherever I go - from the dude sitting next to me on a plane to the guy working behind the scenes on a movie set. 'Smile all you want,' I tell them, 'but if you try it once, you'll keep on coming back for more,' and that's the truth brother.”

Rosey Grier (1932) Player of American football

(January 1, 1973). Needlepoint for Men. Walker Co, Back Cover. ISBN 0802704212.

Truth, Smile, Guy, Football

“At first I got lots of discouragement from friends and stranger who are loser! You know what these people kept telling me? They kept saying, 'Well Tom Vu, you a crazy nut, here you are, a poor immigrant, poor minority, speak no English, no contact, on and on, and you trying to be rich in America! You crazy, man! Look at people out there! They smarter than you are, they not even rich! Who are you to try?' And you know what? I have to keep telling these people every time, I kept saying, 'You are loser! Get out of my way! I make it somehow!”

Tom Vu (1957) Americnan poker player

People, Way, Time

“It may be that to eat and be eaten are the same thing in the end. My wisdom tells me that this is probably so. We are all made of the same stuff, remember, we of the Jungle, you of the City. The same substance composes us — the tree overhead, the stone beneath us, the bird, the beast, the star — we are all one, all moving to the same end. Remember that when you no longer remember me, my child.”

P. L. Travers (1899–1996) Australian-British novelist, actress and journalist

Hamadryad, the King Cobra in Ch. 10 "Full-Moon"
Mary Poppins (1934)

Wisdom, Star, Bird, Tree

“Book-learning scarcely tells me
Of severe afflictions after death-bed;
And such as have heard my bardic books
They shall obtain the region of heaven, the best of all abodes.”

Taliesin (534–599) Welsh bard

Book of Taliesin (c. 1275?), The First Address of Taliesin

Death, Books, Affliction, Learning

“Any fool can tell the truth, but it requires a man of some sense to know how to lie well.”

Samuel Butler (1835–1902) novelist

Falsehood, iii
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part XIX - Truth and Convenience

Truth, Lie, Fools, Sense

“I am a legend, you know, I have to tell you a story about reggies splatoon 2. After E3, I immediately go into interviews and other meetings. I get a phone call from my son, who is now 16 years old, telling me, "Dad, you're famous. You got all these things on the web!" And I'm, like, "You're kidding me!" I didn't know what was going on. And we had all these fansites and all this information floating around. They called it the Reggielution and they called me the Reggienator. It was pretty fun.”

Reggie Fils-Aimé (1961) American businessman

Source: Youtube http://youtube.com/watch?v=jRNn8eStfRM Commenting on his fanbase that arose following his appearance at E3 2004

“At first I intended to carry on working in Saint-Prex [in Switzerland, circa 1914 – 1915] in the same way I had been working in Munich [the location of his Blaue Reiter / Blue Rider period]. But something inside me prevented me from painting colourful, sensuous pictures. Suffering had changed my soul, telling me to find other forms and colours to express what was on my mind.”

Alexej von Jawlensky (1864–1941) Russian painter

from: 'Köpfe, Gesichte, Meditationen', Clemens Weiler
Source: 1936 - 1941, Life Memories' (1938), p. 149

Way, Soul, Suffering, Change

“Widespread ignorance bordering on idiocy is our new national goal. … The ideal citizen of a politically corrupt state, such as the one we now have, is a gullible dolt unable to tell truth from bullshit. An educated, well-informed population, the kind that a functioning democracy requires, would be difficult to lie to, and could not be led by the nose by the various vested interests running amok in this country.”

Charles Simic (1938) American poet

"Age of Ignorance" New York Review of Books, March 20, 2012 http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2012/03/20/age-of-ignorance/

Truth, Lie, Education, Democracy

“Let me tell you something, the end game, Paul, for Congress and this president — and I don't know how many members of Congress even realize the game that they are either being used in or a pawn in. But believe me, they'll take the universal health care coverage over what skin they do have in it. They're going to come out — this system is going to come out the other side dictorial”

Glenn Beck (1964) U.S. talk radio and television host

sic
it is going to come out a fascist state.
The Glenn Beck Program
Premiere Radio Networks
2009-07-27
to a caller, on universal health care
2000s, 2009

Health, Game, Universe

“What will people say?”
“Who,” I asked, “is going to tell them?”

T. A. Waters (1938–1998) American magician

Source: The Probability Pad (1970), Chapter 2 (p. 12)

People

“In the silence
that is his chosen medium
of communication and telling
others about it
in words. Is there no way
not to be the sport
of reason?”

R.S. Thomas (1913–2000) Welsh poet

"The New Mariner", p. 99
Between Here and Now (1981)

Way, Communication, Sport, Silence

“My wife will tell you I'm practically addicted to the History Channel … and I read a lot of history.”

Tom Clancy (1947–2013) American author

2000s, CNN interview (2000)

History, Reading

“I'll tell you what harms the vast majority of Muslims that love freedom and hate terror: Muslim theocracy does. Muslim intolerance does. Wahabism does. Salafism does. Islamism does. Jihadism does. Sharia law does. The mere conservatism of traditional Islam does. We're not talking about only jihadists hating homosexuals and thinking they should die, we're talking about conservative Muslims. The percentage of British Muslims polled who said that homosexuality was morally acceptable was zero. Do you realize what it takes to say something so controversial in a poll that not even 1% of those polled would agree with it? There's almost no question that extreme that you will ever see in a poll that gets a zero, but ask British Muslims whether homosexuality is morally acceptable, and that's what you get. And the result is more or less the same in dozens of other countries. It's zero in Cameroon, zero in Ethiopia. 1% in Nigeria, 1% in Tanzania, 1% in Mali, 2% in Kenya, 2% in Chad. 1% in Lebanon, 1% in Egypt, 1% in the Palestinian territories, 1% in Iraq, 2% in Jordan, 2% in Tunisia, 1% in Pakistan. But 10% in Bangladesh. Bangladesh: that bright spot in the Muslim world where they are regularly hunting down and butchering secular writers with machetes. The people who suffer under this belief system are Muslims themselves. The next generation of human beings born into a Muslim community who could otherwise have been liberal, tolerant, well-educated, cosmopolitan productive people are to one or another degree being taught to aspire to live in the Middle Ages, or to ruin this world on route to some fictional paradise after death. That's the thing we have to get our heads around. And yes, some of what I just said applies with varying modifications to other religions and other cults. But there is nothing like Islam at this moment for generating this kind of intolerance and chaos. And if only a right wing demagogue will speak honestly about it, then we will elect right wing demagogues in the West more and more in response to it. And that will be the price of political correctness: that's when this check will finally get cashed. That will be the consequence of this persistent failure we see among liberals to speak and think and act with real moral clarity and courage on this issue. The root of this problem is that liberals consistently fail to defend liberal values as universal human values. Their political correctness, their multiculturalism, their moral relativism has led them to rush to the defense of theocrats and to abandon the victims of theocracy and to vilify anyone who calls out this hypocrisy for what it is as a bigot. And to be clear, and this is what liberals can't seem to get, is that speaking honestly about the ideas that inspire Islamism and jihadism, beliefs about martyrdom, and apostasy and blasphemy and paradise and honour and women, is not an expression of hatred for Muslims. It is in fact the only way to support the embattled people in the Muslim community: The reformers and the liberals and the seculars and the free thinkers and the gays and the Shiia in Sunni-majority context and Sufis and Ahmadiyyas, and as Maajid Nawaz said, the minorities within the minority, who are living under the shadow, and sword rather often, under theocracy. […] If you think that speaking honestly about the need for reform within Islam will alienate your allies in the Muslim community, then you don't know who your allies are.”

Sam Harris (1967) American author, philosopher and neuroscientist

Sam Harris, "Waking Up with Sam Harris Podcast #38 — The End of Faith Sessions 2" (15 June 2016) https://www.samharris.org/podcast/item/the-end-of-faith-sessions-2 2010s

Love, Death, Women, Hate

“In comparing civilized man with the animal world, one is as the Alpine traveller, who sees the mountains soaring into the sky and can hardly discern where the deep shadowed crags and roseate peaks end, and where the clouds of heaven begin. Surely the awe-struck voyager may be excused if, at first, he refuses to believe the geologist, who tells him that these glorious masses are, after all, the hardened mud of primeval seas, or the cooled slag of subterranean furnaces—of one substance with the dullest clay, but raised by inward forces to that place of proud and seemingly inaccessible glory. But the geologist is right; and due reflection on his teachings, instead of diminishing our reverence and our wonder, adds all the force of intellectual sublimity, to the mere aesthetic intuition of the uninstructed beholder.”

Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–1895) English biologist and comparative anatomist

Source: 1860s, Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature (1863), Ch.2, p. 131-132

World, Travel, Mountain, Animals

“You know, without my telling you, how sometimes
A word or name eludes you, and you seek it
Through running ghosts of shadow,—leaping at it,
Lying in wait for it to spring upon it,
Spreading faint snares for it of sense or sound:
Until, of a sudden, as if in a phantom forest,
You hear it, see it flash among the branches,
And scarcely knowing how, suddenly have it—
Well, it was so I followed down this music,
Glimpsing a face in darkness, hearing a cry,
Remembering days forgotten, moods exhausted,
Corners in sunlight, puddles reflecting stars”

Conrad Aiken (1889–1973) American novelist and poet

The House of Dust (1916 - 1917)

Music, Star, Spring, Lying

“And everything seems to have gone terribly wrong that can.
But one breath at a time is an acceptable plan,
She tells herself.”

Ani DiFranco (1970) musician and activist

Tamburitza Lingua
Song lyrics

Time

“In training Biu Jee we are taught to be free. The first forms tell us about normal situations. Biu Jee is for the abnormal situations. The ideas in Biu Jee sometimes will contradict normal Ving Tsun (Wing Chun) ideas in order to allow the person to survive in a bad situation. We are told to do what is necessary to survive and so there are no limitations. Styles have different concepts and objectives. With Ving Tsun (Wing Chun) we want to attack our opponent in a very direct and savage manner. Other styles will contradict this objective by attempting non-direct tactics. If we combine them our objectives can become confused in the heat of the fight. We will be less effective.”

Wong Shun Leung (1935–1997) martial artist

Wong Shun Leung's Answer on the Question of "Do you feel that Ving Tsun (Wing Chun) has any limitations ? Many students like to combine boxing with kicking , throwing and grappling on the ground to develop eclectic systems." Mixed Martial Arts Source: Interview with Wong Shun Leung, by: Rusper Patel http://www.gongsauwong.com/interview.php

Idea, Fight, Personality, Training

“Well, you must now imagine my friend at my age or almost there. You must picture him growing gray, tired of life and convinced that he had at last discovered the secret of peace. At this time he met, while visiting some relatives in a country house, a mere girl of twenty, who was the image, the haunting image of her whom he had hoped to marry thirty years before. It was one of those strange resemblances which extend from the color of the eyes to the 'timbre' of the voice, from the smile to the thought, from the gestures to the finest feelings of the heart. I could not, in a few disjointed phrases describe to you the strange emotions of my friend. It would take pages and pages to make you understand the tenderness, both present and at the same time retrospective, for the dead through the living; the hypnotic condition of the soul which does not know where dreams and memories end and present feeling begins; the daily commingling of the most unreal thing in the world, the phantom of a lost love, with the freshest, the most actual, the most irresistibly naïve and spontaneous thing in it, a young girl. She comes, she goes, she laughs, she sings, you go about with her in the intimacy of country life, and at her side walks one long dead. After two weeks of almost careless abandon to the dangerous delights of this inward agitation imagine my friend entering by chance one morning one of the less frequented rooms of the house, a gallery, where, among other pictures, hung a portrait of himself, painted when he was twenty-five. He approaches the portrait abstractedly. There had been a fire in the room, so that a slight moisture dimmed the glass which protected the pastel, and on this glass, because of this moisture, he sees distinctly the trace of two lips which had been placed upon the eyes of the portrait, two small delicate lips, the sight of which makes his heart beat. He leaves the gallery, questions a servant, who tells him that no one but the young woman he has in mind has been in the room that morning.”

Paul Bourget (1852–1935) French writer

Pierre Fauchery, as quoted by the character "Jules Labarthe"
The Age for Love

Love, Life, Secret, Age

“Faust wallowed heavily over on his side, presenting a pitiable face to Wagner. “Never fall in love,” he said. “She will take lovers, and some of them will be more experienced and capable than you. I tell you this as a friend—there are dishes once tasted, a woman is loath to do without.””

Michael Swanwick book Jack Faust

Source: Jack Faust (1997), Chapter 16, “The Wild Hunt” (p. 275)

Love, Lovers

“No more would I go along with Plato in exiling the poets, who play on the limbic cortex. Not even they are powerful enough to evoke the whole of man. If we are to survive our own destruction of our world and of ourselves by our advance of culture we had better learn soon to modify our genes to make us more intelligent. It is our last chance, that by increasing our diversity we may be able to make some sort of man that can survive without an ecological niche on this our earth. We may be able to live in gas masks and eat algae and distill the ocean.
I doubt that we have time enough.

We are, I think, nearing the end of a course that left the main line of evolution to overspecialize in brain to its own undoing.
Time will tell.”

Warren S. McCulloch (1898–1969) American neuroscientist

Source: Embodiments of Mind, (1965), p. 347 cited in: Roberto Moreno-Díaz, José Mira, Warren Sturgis McCulloch (1996) Brain processes, theories, and models: an international conference in honor of W.S. McCulloch 25 years after his death. p. 9

World, Intelligence, Thinking, Learning

“If the rat had not looked over his shoulder, perhaps his heart would not have broken. And it is possible, then, that I would not have a story to tell. But, reader, he did look.”

Kate DiCamillo book The Tale of Despereaux

The Tale of Despereaux (2004)

Heart

“He is Karna, whom the world has abandoned…. A prince raised in poverty. Born to die unfairly, unarmed and alone at the hands of his brother. Majestic in his complete despair. Praying on the banks of the Ganga…. Then Kunti appeared…. She had come to tell Karna a story.”

Kunti character from Indian epic Mahabharata

Source: The God of Small Things, p. 232

World, Appearance, Despair

““Now why on Earth would you tell him a thing like that?”
“Because it’s true.”
Sbrulius laughed. “That, dear Faust, is the single worst argument you could have raised. Many things are true. Few are proper. Fewer still are desirable.””

Michael Swanwick book Jack Faust

Source: Jack Faust (1997), Chapter 4, “Flight” (p. 55)

“Had we lived, I should have had a tale to tell of the hardihood, endurance, and courage of my companions which would have stirred the heart of every Englishman. These rough notes and our dead bodies must tell the tale, but surely, surely, a great rich country like ours will see that those who are dependent on us are properly provided for.”

Robert Falcon Scott (1868–1912) Royal Navy officer and explorer

Journal, 29 March 1912 http://www.spri.cam.ac.uk/museum/diaries/scottslastexpedition/; final words, quoted in Scott's Last Expedition (1913) vol.1, ch.20

Courage, Heart, Dependency, Dead

“I believe in God, not because the Bible tells me that he is, but because my heart tells me so; and the same heart tells me we can only have His peace with us if we love Him and obey Him, and that we can only he happy when we each love our neighbour better than ourselves.”

James Anthony Froude book The Nemesis of Faith

Letter VI
The Nemesis of Faith (1849)

Love, God, Happiness, Peace

“You don't want to write a big comment that tells others how to make a change they might want to make, because you don't know what change they're going to want to make. Better to have the attitude that you can't help future programmers make their changes. All you can do is make it easy for them to understand what you were trying to do. And it will be easiest for them to understand what you were trying to do if you were very careful to not try to do too much.”

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

A Conversation with Ward Cunningham (2003), Working the Program

Understanding, Change, Future, Help

“You prayed to the Lord above
Oh please send you a friend
Your empty pockets tell yuh
That you ain’t a-got no friend”

Bob Dylan (1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist

Song lyrics, The Times They Are A-Changin' (1964), Ballad of Hollis Brown

“A gentleman never tells”

Nick Diaz (1983) American mixed martial artist

When a reporter asks Diaz about his game plan (2013) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piEb_XdZsMQ

“I remember a story my father used to tell. As he was coming home one day, he ran across a group of men who were firing on the troops from an ambush. During the excitement a daring onlooker went up to one of the snipers who seemed to be a poor marksman. He took the man's gun and brought down a soldier, then handed it back to its owner who motioned as if to say, 'No, go on. You're a better shot than I am.”

Edgar Degas (1834–1917) French artist

But the stranger said, 'No, I'm not interested in politics.'
Vollard, Degas and others were talking about the revolution of 1847. Somebody remarked to Degas that he must have been quite young at that time. Than Degas start to quote his father.
Source: posthumous quotes, Degas: An Intimate Portrait' (1927), p. 40

Men, Home

“There is a kind of malicious wink, a contemptuous sneer in the public voices claiming the hippies as heroes. The hippies are a desperate herd looking for a master, to be taken over by anyone - anyone who would tell them how to live without demanding the effort of thinking. Theirs is the mentality ready for a fuhrer.”

Ayn Rand (1905–1982) Russian-American novelist and philosopher

Apollo and Dionysus (1969)

Thinking, Effort

“I often tell my clients they should do at least 30 percent of all their reading outside their own field. This will give them perspective and knowledge that will make them more interesting.”

Roger Ailes (1940–2017) Television executive

You are the Message : Getting What You Want by Being Who You Are (1989)

Knowledge, Reading

“Do you know who I like? No, you don't. So I'm gonna tell you. Because if you all just did know who I like, then that would have been really weird, because it means you're in my head.”

Ed Byrne (1972) Irish comedian

Pedantic & Whimsical (2006)

“I actually have a lot of couples coming and telling me that one of my songs was instrumental in strengthening their romance.”

Shreya Ghoshal (1984) Indian playback singer

When talked about Valentine's Day plans http://www.timesofindia.com/entertainment/hindi/music/news/The-use-of-vulgar-lyrics-in-songs-is-a-disturbing-trend-Shreya-Ghoshal/articleshow/29714772.cms

“They see things; they overhear things; they tell us. We put two and two together to make forty-four, when we must.”

Sheri S. Tepper book Grass

Source: Grass (1989), Chapter 7 (p. 115)

“John Bell devoted most of his efforts to conceptual and theoretical questions. Would he have liked that I also stress the importance of the technological revolutions that were, and will be, enabled by the conceptual revolutions? I cannot tell, but we know that he started his career in accelerator design, and that he always showed a profound respect for technological achievements. I like to think that he would have loved quantum-jumps-based atomic clocks, as well as entangled qubits.”

Alain Aspect (1947) French physicist

"Introduction: John Bell and the second quantum revolution" (2004)

Love, Question, Thinking, Effort

“Tonight Vietnam must hold the center of our attention, but across the world problems and opportunities crowd in on the American Nation. I will discuss them fully in the months to come, and I will follow the five continuing lines of policy that America has followed under its last four Presidents. The first principle is strength. Tonight I can tell you that we are strong enough to keep all of our commitments. We will need expenditures of $58.3 billion for the next fiscal year to maintain this necessary defense might. While special Vietnam expenditures for the next fiscal year are estimated to increase by $5.8 billion, I can tell you that all the other expenditures put together in the entire federal budget will rise this coming year by only $0.6 billion. This is true because of the stringent cost-conscious economy program inaugurated in the Defense Department, and followed by the other departments of government. A second principle of policy is the effort to control, and to reduce, and to ultimately eliminate the modern engines of destruction. We will vigorously pursue existing proposals—and seek new ones—to control arms and to stop the spread of nuclear weapons. A third major principle of our foreign policy is to help build those associations of nations which reflect the opportunities and the necessities of the modern world. By strengthening the common defense, by stimulating world commerce, by meeting new hopes, these associations serve the cause of a flourishing world. We will take new steps this year to help strengthen the Alliance for Progress, the unity of Europe, the community of the Atlantic, the regional organizations of developing continents, and that supreme association—the United Nations. We will work to strengthen economic cooperation, to reduce barriers to trade, and to improve international finance.”

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

1960s, State of the Union Address (1966)

World, Hope, Communication, Problem

“And further, I tell you that the Jew is right, when he acts as he does – because we are too timid to be as German as the Jew is Jewish! … It happened at the time of the [Bavarian] Soviet Republic: When the unleashed subhumans rambled murdering through the streets, the deputies hid behind a chimney in the Bavarian parliament.”

Julius Streicher (1885–1946) German politician

Und weiter sage ich Ihnen noch, dass der Jude recht hat, wenn er so handelt, wie er handelt - weil wir Deutsche zu feige sind, so deutsch zu sein, wie der Jude jüdisch ist! … Es war zur Zeit der Räteherrschaft. Als das losgelassene Untermenschentum mordend durch die Straßen zog, da versteckten sich Abgeordnete hinter einem Kamin im bayerischen Landtag.
05/25/1927, speech in the Bavarian regional parliament ("Kampf dem Weltfeind", Stürmer publishing house, Nuremberg, 1938)

Time

“Tell him you’ll pay any fine within reason. That dragon-cod can’t even read his own name unless it’s written in gold ink.”

Avram Davidson (1923–1993) novelist

Source: Rogue Dragon (1965), Chapter VII (p. 73)

Reading

“What we say is that in order for Mom to be able to go on welfare if she has a child out of wedlock, you have to tell us who the father is. If you don't tell us who the father is, you're not eligible for any welfare benefits, none, not even medical care. You tell us who the father is or you don't receive benefits.”

Rick Santorum (1958) American politician

Moms

“Why you exist, says Nietzsche with Søren Kierkegaard, nobody in the world can tell you in advance; but since you do exist, try to give your existence a meaning by setting up for yourself as lofty and noble a goal as you can.”

Georg Brandes (1842–1927) Danish literature critic and scholar

Source: An Essay on Aristocratic Radicalism (1889), p. 19

World

“Plenty of states, like Florida, still don't have [law guardians]. What does that tell you? Because with non-attorney guardians there's no attorney-client privilege. There's no ability to cross–examine witnesses, to subpoena evidence, to appeal. Basically you serve completely at the pleasure of the judge. And if you don't please the judge, you're history. What more of a message do kids need?”

Andrew Vachss (1942) American writer and lawyer

Tom McPheeters and Ellen Becker's interview as published by the Journal For Living, Number 21, 2000.

Pleasure, Law, History

“My good friends, things cannot go on well in England, nor ever will until everything shall be in common, when there shall be neither vassal nor lord, and all distinctions levelled; when the lords shall be no more masters than ourselves. How ill they have used us!… They have wines, spices and fine bread, when we have only rye and the refuse of fine straw; and if we drink, it must be water. They have handsome seats and manors, when we must brave the wind and rain in our labours in the field; but it is from our labour they have the wherewith to support their pomp.… Let us go to the king, who is young, and remonstrate with him on our servitude, telling him we must have it otherwise, or that we shall find a remedy for it ourselves.”

John Ball (priest) (1338–1381) English rebel and priest

Typical sermon, described in the Chronicles of England, France, Spain, and other places adjoining by Jean Froissart

Drink, Support, Water, Wine

“Tell [Père] Tanguy to send me some paints. What I need most are ten tubes of white, two of chrome yellow, one bright red, one brown lac, one ultramarine, five Veronese green, one cobalt j I have on hand only one tube of white … I expect to begin to paint again from nature, and I need the colors.”

Camille Pissarro (1830–1903) French painter

Quote of Camille Pissarro, in a letter, Eragny, 25 February 1887, to his son Lucien; in Camille Pissarro - Letters to His Son Lucien ed. John Rewald, with assistance of Lucien Pissarro; from the unpublished French letters; transl. Lionel Abel; Pantheon Books Inc. New York, second edition, 1943, p. 100
1880's

Color, Nature, Painting

“Our treatment of both older [people and children] reflects the value we place on independence and autonomy. We do our best to make our children independent from birth. We leave them all alone in rooms with the lights out and tell them, Go to sleep by yourselves. And the old people we respect most are the ones who will fight for their independence, who would sooner starve to death than ask for help.”

Margaret Mead (1901–1978) American anthropologist

As quoted in "Growing Old in America" by Grace Hechinger, in Family Circle magazine (25 July 25 1977)
1970s

Death, Children, People, Birth

“The church has not been in the habit of pursuing enemies with kind words and charitable deeds. To tell the truth, it has always been rather relentless. It has preached forgiveness, but it has never forgiven. There is in the history of Christendom no instance where the church has extended the hand of friendship to a man who denied the truth of its creed. There is in the church no spirit—no climate—of compromise. In the nature of things there can be none, because the church claims that it is absolutely right—that there is only one road leading to heaven. It demands unconditional surrender. It will not bear contradiction. It claims to have the absolute truth. For these reasons it cannot consistently compromise, any more than a mathematician could change the multiplication table to meet the view of some one who should deny that five times five are twenty-five.”

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer

A Christmas Sermon (1890)

Friendship, Truth, History, Forgiveness

“When citizens testify before grand juries they are required to tell the truth. Without the truth, our criminal justice system cannot serve our nation or its citizens.”

Patrick Fitzgerald (1960) American lawyer

CIA probe 'not over' after Cheney's top aide indicted on CNN.com (October 28, 2005)

Truth, Justice

“We've got to take the neighborhood back. We've got to go in there. Just forget telling your child to go to the Peace Corps. It's right around the corner. It's standing on the corner. It can't speak English. It doesn't want to speak English. I can't even talk the way these people talk. "Why you ain't where you is go." I don't know who these people are. And I blamed the kid until I heard the mother talk. Then I heard the father talk. This is all in the house. You used to talk a certain way on the corner and you got into the house and switched to English. Everybody knows it's important to speak English except these knuckleheads. You can't land a plane with "why you ain't…". You can't be a doctor with that kind of crap coming out of your mouth. There is no Bible that has that kind of language. Where did these people get the idea that they're moving ahead on this? Well, they know they're not, they're just hanging out in the same place, five or six generations sitting in the projects when you're just supposed to stay there long enough to get a job and move out.”

Bill Cosby (1937) American actor, comedian, author, producer, musician, activist

"Dr Bill Cosby Speaks at the 50th Anniversary commemoration of the Brown vs Topeka Board of Education Supreme Court Decision," known as the "Pound Cake" speech (May 2004).

People, Peace, Way, Idea

“Jazz music is a lifestyle. It’s not notes, chords and arpeggios. Today’s improvisation is too based on the knowledge of chords and the way they practice the chords. It’s not a melodic thing anymore like the older days. It was much more important to play shorter and to play more variable, valid stuff. Today, a lot of solos are long and uninteresting and the influence usually comes from John Coltrane’s group. He himself was a master musician, but he put so much emphasis on chord knowledge and technique, and now the kids want to show how fast they can play. This is the same with piano players and most instrumentalists—it’s speed. That’s gonna change again and hopefully the kids who are now 16 and 17 years old have a little more sense and maybe some more stories to tell.”

Joe Zawinul (1932–2007) austrian composer and pianist

Reflecting on the new generation's take on jazz music
Prasad interview (1997)

Music, Way, Knowledge, Sense

“One is telling a story about old times when someone breaks in with a little detail that he happens to know, implying that one's own version is inaccurate — disgusting behavior!”

Sei Shonagon (966–1025) Japanese author and a court lady

Source: The Pillow Book of Sei Shōnagon (1002), p. 46

Behavior, Time

“I don't give a damn what the President of the United States wants to do or what anybody else wants to do. We will not waterboard; we will not torture… We will not torture people… It doesn't work, my friends. It doesn't work. If you inflict enough pain on somebody long enough, they're going to tell you whatever they think you want to hear to have it stopped… There are accomplished interrogators who can gain the confidence of the suspect and gain all the information that they could possibly want… My God, what does it say about America if we're going to inflict torture on people? It makes it hard for us to make the argument about the moral superiority of our way of our government and our way of life.”

John McCain (1936–2018) politician from the United States

Regarding U.S. president-elect Donald J. Trump's intention to reintroduce the usage of torture by U.S. authorities, as quoted in "John McCain attacks Donald Trump's torture stance" https://www.facebook.com/Channel4News/videos/10154266695396939/ (21 November 2016), Channel 4 News 2010s, 2016

Life, God, Pain, People

“Let me tell you, I have seen men who are trying to find themselves, and I have seen men who are trying to lose themselves, but rare indeed is the man who knows exactly who he is and where he is at.”

Karen Lord (1968) Barbadian novelist and sociologist of religion

Source: Redemption in Indigo (2010), Chapter 18 “A Spider in His Parlour and a Very Eager Fly” (p. 139)

Men

“I was just reading something last night from the state of California. And that the California universities — it's several, I think it's seven or eight of the California system of universities don't even teach an American history course. It's not even available to be taught. Just to tell you how bad it’s gotten in this country, where we're trying to disconnect the American people from the roots of who we are, so they have an understanding of what America should be.”

Rick Santorum (1958) American politician

2012-04-02
Santorum Claims "Seven Or Eight" Univ. California Schools Don't Teach American History
Meenal
Vamburkar
Mediaite
http://www.mediaite.com/online/santorum-claims-seven-or-eight-univ-california-schools-dont-teach-american-history/
2012-04-10
2012-04-03
Rick Santorum Speaks from His Heart - California Colleges
The Colbert Report
Comedy Central
Television
http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/411675/april-03-2012/rick-santorum-speaks-from-his-heart---california-colleges
2012-04-10

People, History, Understanding, Thinking

“You come to us and tell us that the great cities are in favor of the gold standard; we reply that the great cities rest upon our broad and fertile prairies. Burn down your cities and leave our farms, and your cities will spring up again as if by magic; but destroy our farms and the grass will grow in the streets of every city in the country.”

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

Cross of Gold Speech (1896)

Spring, Grass, Country

“The American states have gone far in assisting the progress of truth; but they have stopped short of perfection. They ought to have given every honest citizen an equal right to enjoy his religion and an equal title to all civil emoluments, without obliging him to tell his religion. Every interference of the civil power in regulating opinion, is an impious attempt to take the business of the Deity out of his own hands; and every preference given to any religious denomination, is so far slavery and bigotry.”

Noah Webster (1758–1843) lexicographer, textbook pioneer, English-language spelling reformer, writer, editor and author

Sketches of American Policy. (1785) p.27

Truth, Religion, Business, Perfection

“Right now the Jews are still surrounded by enemies who are sworn to their death as a nation. Their only hope is to turn to God with their whole heart, and if they obey Him, they will have victory. Only time will tell us if they have learned anything from history.”

Ray Comfort (1949) New Zealand-born Christian minister and evangelist

The Defender's Guide for Life's Toughest Questions (2011)

Death, God, Hope, History

“We don't tell 'em how to vote—we simply suggest.”

Martin Lomasney (1859–1933) American politician

Van Nostrand, Albert D. (December 1948). "The Lomasney Legend". The New England Quarterly. 21 (4): 437. JSTOR 361565 https://www.jstor.org/stable/361565

“The old
Old winds that blew
When chaos was, what do
They tell the clattered trees that I
Should weep?”

Adelaide Crapsey (1878–1914) American writer

"Night Winds".
Verses (1915)

Tree

“Oh, dear, it's quite true what Dr. Reilly said. How does one stop writing? If I could find a really good telling phrase… Like the one M. Poirot used. In the name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate… Something like that.”

Agatha Christie book Murder in Mesopotamia

Amy Leatheran
Murder in Mesopotamia (1936)

“Tell me how to be in this world
Tell me how to breathe in and feel no hurt
Tell me how 'cause I believe in something
I believe in us”

James Bay (1990) British singer-songwriter

Us
Lyrics

World, Feeling, Hurt

“It is important to teach our young about who they are and how culture can empower them to help the greater community. It is very difficult, especially in the age of technology to curb what mass-media and marketing try to tell us who we are, and even more difficult when those closest to you act uninterested. It is an uphill climb, sometimes alone, to find the truth.”

Lorin Morgan-Richards (1975) American poet, cartoonist, and children's writer

As quoted in interview with Golwg 360, Welsh language online magazine.

Truth, Age, Communication, Help

“I'll kiss the ground.
I'll tell my mother,
I'll tell my father,
I'll tell my loved one,
I'll tell my brothers
How much I love them.”

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

Song lyrics, Hounds of Love (1985), The Ninth Wave

Love, Kiss

“When a man is in doubt about this or that in his writing, it will often guide him if he asks himself how it will tell a hundred years hence.”

Samuel Butler (1835–1902) novelist

Writing for a Hundred Years Hence
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part VII - On the Making of Music, Pictures, and Books

“What was uncovered at Sidhpur only to be covered up again was verily the tip of an iceberg which remains submerged in hundreds of histories written by Muslim historians, in Hindu literary sources which are slowly coming to light, in the accounts of foreign travellers who visited India and the neighbouring lands during medieval and modern times, and above all in the reports of the archaeological surveys carried out in all those countries which had been for long the cradles of Hindu culture. No systematic effort has yet been made by scholars to see the iceberg emerge from the dark depths and tell its own story in a simple and straight-forward manner. Rare is the historian or archaeologist who had related this vandalism to the theology of Islam based on the Qur’ãn and the Sunnah of the Prophet. On the contrary, the subject has been politicised by the votaries of Secularism who become hysterical by the very mention of the untold story. Politicians in power have made and are making frantic efforts to suppress every tip of the iceberg which chances to surface in spite, of the conspiracy to keep it out of sight. Some of these politicians are masquerading as academicians and selling far-fetched and fantastic apologies for the havoc caused by Islamic iconoclasm.”

Sita Ram Goel (1921–2003) Indian activist

Hindu Temples – What Happened to Them, Volume II (1993)

Travel, History, Effort, Light

“A young person today has a nanosecond attention span, so whatever you do in a humor has to be short. Younger people do not wait for anything that takes time to develop. We're going totally to one-liners. Telling a joke is risk taking. Younger people are more insecure and not willing to put themselves on the line, so a quick one-liner is much safer.”

Robert Orben (1928) American magician and writer

Warren St. John, The New York Times (May 28, 2005) "Wit's end: The death of the joke - Old-style wisecracks are passe in an age of decreasing attention spans, political correctness and the Internet", The Orlando Sentinel, p. E1.

People, Time, Waiting, Personality

“I raised, and I have raised, millions of dollars for the vets. I'm helping the vets a lot. I think my popularity with the vets is through the roof, far greater than hers. She's done nothing. All she's done is tell everybody that the vets are in good shape. They're fine. And they're not fine. People are waiting on line for seven days to see a doctor. She thinks it's fine.”

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

2010s, 2016, July, This Week Interview (July 30, 2016)

People, Thinking, Waiting, Help

“Oh, baby, that's hard to change,
I can't tell them how to feel,
Some get stoned, some get strange,
But sooner or later, it all gets real.
Walk on.
Walk on.”

Neil Young (1945) Canadian singer-songwriter

Walk On
Song lyrics, On the Beach (1974)

Feeling, Change, Baby

“Upon finding his quarry, he would learn what he could, make an evaluation, and act accordingly. Then he would tell his superiors whatever they wanted to hear, just as he always had.”

Bradley Denton (1958) American science fiction author

Source: Buddy Holly is Alive and Well on Ganymede (1991), p. 63

Learning

“Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique is still heralded as having paved the way for contemporary feminist movement-it was written as if these women did not exist. Friedan's famous phrase, "the problem that has no name," often quoted to describe the condition of women in this society, actually referred to the plight of a select group of college-educated, middle and upper class, married white women-housewives bored with leisure, with the home, with children, with buying products, who wanted more out of life. Friedan concludes her first chapter by stating: "We can no longer ignore that voice within women that says: 'I want something more than my husband and my children and my house.'" That "more" she defined as careers. She did not discuss who would be called in to take care of the children and maintain the home if more women like herself were freed from their house labor and given equal access with white men to the professions. She did not speak of the needs of women without men, without children, without homes. She ignored the existence of all non-white women and poor white women. She did not tell readers whether it was more fulfilling to be a maid, a babysitter, a factory worker, a clerk, or a prostitute, than to be a leisure class housewife. She made her plight and the plight of white women like herself synonymous with a condition affecting all American women. In so doing, she deflected attention away from her classism, her racism, her sexist attitudes towards the masses of American women. In the context of her book, Friedan makes clear that the women she saw as victimized by sexism were college-educated, white women who were compelled by sexist conditioning to remain in the home. … Specific problems and dilemmas of leisure class white housewives were real concerns that merited consideration and change but they were not the pressing political concerns of masses of women. Masses of women were concerned about economic survival, ethnic and racial discrimination, etc. When Friedan wrote The Feminine Mystique, more than one third of all women were in the work force. Although many women longed to be housewives, only women with leisure time and money could actually shape their identities on the model of the feminine mystique.”

Bell Hooks book Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center

p. 1-2 https://books.google.com/books?id=uvIQbop4cdsC&pg=PA1. Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center (1984), Chapter 1: Black Women: Shaping Feminist Theory

Life, Women, Men, Money