Quotes about tell
page 51

“There is one thing I don't understand about Astral Weeks. Of all the records I have ever made that one is definitely not rock. You could throw that record at the wall, take it to music colleges, analyze it to death. Nobody is going to tell me that it is a rock album. Why they keep calling it one I have no idea.”

Van Morrison (1945) Northern Irish singer-songwriter and musician

An Oral History of Popular Music (1989)

Death, Music, Idea, Understanding

“I once asked Bell whether during the years he was studying the quantum theory it ever occurred to him that the theory might simply be wrong. He thought a moment and answered, “I hesitated to think it might be wrong, but I knew that it was rotten.” Bell pronounced the word “rotten” with a good deal of relish and then added, “That is to say, one has to find some decent way of expressing whatever truth there is in it.” The attitude that even if there is not something actually wrong with the theory, there is something deeply unsettling—“rotten”—about it, was common to most of the creators of the quantum theory. Niels Bohr was reported to have remarked, “Well, I think that if a man says it is completely clear to him these days, then he has not really understood the subject.” He later added, “If you do not getschwindlig [dizzy] sometimes when you think about these things then you have not really understood it.” My teacher Philipp Frank used to tell about the time he visited Einstein in Prague in 1911. Einstein had an office at the university that over looked a park. People were milling around in the park, some engaged in vehement gesture-filled discussions. When Professor Frank asked Einstein what was going on, Einstein replied that it was the grounds of a lunatic asylum, adding, “Those are the madmen who do not occupy themselves with the quantum theory.””

Jeremy Bernstein (1929) American physicist

Quantum Profiles (1991), John Stewart Bell: Quantum Engineer

People, Truth, Way, Thinking

“We tend to think of [Hitler] as an idiot because the central tenet of his ideology was idiotic – and idiotic, of course, it transparently is. Anti-Semitism is a world view through a pinhole: as scientists say about a bad theory, it is not even wrong. Nietzsche tried to tell Wagner that it was beneath contempt. Sartre was right for once when he said that through anti-Semitism any halfwit could become a member of an elite. But, as the case of Wagner proves, a man can have this poisonous bee in his bonnet and still be a creative genius. Hitler was a destructive genius, whose evil gifts not only beggar description but invite denial, because we find it more comfortable to believe that their consequences were produced by historical forces than to believe that he was a historical force. Or perhaps we just lack the vocabulary. Not many of us, in a secular age, are willing to concede that, in the form of Hitler, Satan visited the Earth, recruited an army of sinners, and fought and won a battle against God. We would rather talk the language of pseudoscience, which at least seems to bring such events to order. But all such language can do is shift the focus of attention down to the broad mass of the German people, which is what Goldhagen has done, in a way that, at least in part, lets Hitler off the hook – and unintentionally reinforces his central belief that it was the destiny of the Jewish race to be expelled from the Volk as an inimical presence.”

Clive James (1939–2019) Australian author, critic, broadcaster, poet, translator and memoirist

Ibid.
Essays and reviews, As Of This Writing (2003)

God, People, Age, World

“We must daily decide whether the threats we face are real, whether the solutions we are offered will do any good, whether the problems we're told exist are in fact real problems, or non-problems. Every one of us has a sense of the world, and we all know that this sense is in part given to us by what other people and society tell us; in part generated by our emotional state, which we project outward; and in part by our genuine perceptions of reality. In short, our struggle to determine what is true is the struggle to decide which of our perceptions are genuine, and which are false because they are handed down, or sold to us, or generated by our own hopes and fears.”

Michael Crichton (1942–2008) American author, screenwriter, film producer

Environmentalism as a Religion (2003)

People, World, Fear, Hope

“Long experience had taught me that absolute silence is the best way. Say something, and it can be misheard. Misunderstood. Misinterpreted. It can get you convicted. It can get you killed. Silence upsets the arresting officer. He has to tell you silence is your right but he hates it if you exercise that right. I was being arrested for murder. But I said nothing.”

Lee Child book Killing Floor

Killing Floor, Ch. 1 (1997).

Hate, Way, Exercises, Silence

“Religion is all profit. They have no merchandise to buy, no commissions to pay, and no refunds to make for unsatisfactory service and results….
Their commodity is fear. They blackmail their parishioners with threats of hell and damnation. These poor deluded people give them their hard earned money to save them from a hell that does not exist, and from eternal torment that was invented by the perverted minds of priests to rob the living and in addition, they are exempt from taxation! Insult to injury!
Let me tell you that religion is the cruelest fraud ever perpetrated upon the human race. It is the last of the great scheme of thievery that man must legally prohibit so as to protect himself from the charlatans who prey upon the ignorance and fears of the people.
The penalty for this type of extortion should be as severe as it is of other forms of dishonesty.”

Joseph Lewis (1889–1968) American activist

Ingersoll the Magnificent (Memorial Dedication Address, August 11, 1954)

Money, People, Fear, Religion

“The conglomerate heads may be business geniuses, but as far as movies are concerned they have virgin instincts; ideas that are new to them and take them by storm may have failed grotesquely dozens of times. But they feel that they are creative people — how else could they have made so much money and be in a position to advise artists what to do? Who is to tell them no?”

Pauline Kael (1919–2001) American film critic

Taking It All In (1983), Why Are Movies So Bad? Or, The Numbers (1980-06-23)

Money, People, Feeling, Idea

“When the underlying reality is particularly unpleasant, we minimize—numbing ourselves to the actual extent of the real story. We say, “Things can't possibly be as bad as people tell us,” because we don't want them to be that bad. This is a form of magical thinking, a way of shutting our eyes. Surely if things were that bad, somebody would do something about it. Withdrawal can take the form of removing our interest (another horror story about furry pets, yawn, yawn); or our wandering attention (understandably, since we are besieged by other equally pressing images of horror). Of course this reaction can be genuine: not everyone need become an activist in the cause to end animal suffering. And becoming a vegetarian may seem like going too far. In fact, it is not such a difficult step and could be legitimately seen as the very best form of activism.”

Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson (1941) American writer and activist

Source: The Face on Your Plate (2009), Ch. 4, p. 161

People, Way, Understanding, Thinking

“Did Stalin make mistakes? Of course he did. In so long a period filled with heroism, trials, struggle, triumphs, it is inevitable not only for Joseph Stalin personally but also for the leadership as a collective body to make mistakes. Which is the party and who is the leader that can claim to have made no mistakes in their work? When the existing leadership of the Soviet Union is criticized, the comrades of the Soviet leadership advise us to look ahead and let bygones be bygones, they tell us to avoid polemics, but when it comes to Stalin, they not only did not look ahead but they turned right round, completely backward, in order to track down only the weak spots in Stalin's work.”

Enver Hoxha (1908–1985) the Communist leader of Albania from 1944 until his death in 1985, as the First Secretary of the Party of L…

Speeches, Moscow Address

Personality

“I’d like to tell you that I come from a long line of German aristocracy and that I’m very rich, but actually it’s a very boring explanation. A man called Tommy Tutt married a lady called Jane Rhind, and suddenly I’ve got a very posh name. And then my parents called me Julian, and suddenly I sound like a prospective Tory MP for West London!”

Julian Rhind-Tutt (1968) British actor

An interview on the Green Wing microsite, asking about where his name came from. http://www.sitcom.co.uk/green_wing/interview_julian.shtml

Parent

“The flute sings of an ancient riverbead one hundred fathoms deep, far below the Potaro River that runs to the Waterfall. Two rivers then. The visible Potaro runs to the Waterfall. The invisible stream of the river of the dead runs far below, far under our knees. The flute tells of the passage of the drowned river of the dead and the river of the living are one quantum stream possessed of four banks.”

Wilson Harris (1921–2018) Guyanese writer

The Four Banks of the River of Space (1990)

Singing, Dead

“I have been here before,
But when or how I cannot tell:
I know the grass beyond the door,
The sweet, keen smell,
The sighing sound, the lights around the shore.”

Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828–1882) English poet, illustrator, painter and translator

Sudden Light http://www.theotherpages.org/poems/roset03.html#1, st. 1 (1881).

Light, Grass

“I’m a terrible salesman,” he finally said. “I always tell the truth about what I’m selling, and then nobody buys it.”

Orson Scott Card (1951) American science fiction novelist

Source: The Tales of Alvin Maker, The Crystal City (2003), Chapter 12 “Springfield” (p. 250).

Truth

“The division between those who try to learn about the world by manipulating it and those who can only observe it had led, in natural science, to a struggle for legitimacy. The experimentalists look down on the observers as merely telling uncheckable just-so stories, while the observers scorn the experimentalists for their cheap victories over excessively simple phenomena. In biology the two camps are now generally segregated in separate academic departments where they can go about their business unhassled by their unbelievers. But the battle is unequal because the observers' consciousness of what it is to do "real" science has been formed in a world dominated by the manipulators of nature. The observers then pretend to an exactness that they cannot achieve and they attempt to objectify a part of nature that is completely accessible only with the air of subjective tools.”

Richard C. Lewontin (1929) American evolutionary biologist

a reply to critical comments on his article "Sex, Lies and Social Science" in New York Review of Books (4/20/95)].
Sex, Lies, and Social Science (1995)

World, Business, Nature, Learning

“But as any sixteen-year-old sweatily bringing a Playboy up to the counter of a newsagent's expecting everyone in the room to suddenly point and start screaming like the guy from Invasion of the Body Snatchers will tell you, titties become considerably more satisfying when you have to work for them.”

Ben Croshaw (1983) English video game journalist

26 December 2010
Twitter

Guy

“"Oh, I cannot abide these complacent clods," I exclaim. "I cannot relate to these opulent oafs who are laughing in the streets. They are not high enough or low enough. For my love I must find the poor, the deprived, the fornicators, the addicts, the drunkards, the unwashed,…"
"Oh, these are the poor," the clod told me. "This is the poorest street in town, Index Y-Z. It's hard to tell them apart now except that the poor spend more ostentatiously than the rich do."”

R. A. Lafferty (1914–2002) American writer

Source: Arrive at Easterwine (1971), Ch. 6

Love

“The rest of the people know the condition of the country, for they live in it, but Congress has no idea what is going on in America, so the President has to tell 'em.”

Will Rogers (1879–1935) American humorist and entertainer

As quoted in Defending Liars : In Defense of President Bush and the War on Terror in Iraq (2006) by Howard L. Salter, p. 40
As quoted in ...

People, Idea, Country

“Er, will your grandmother tell that fib for you?”
“I guess so. Yes, I'm sure she will. She says people have to tell little white fibs or else people couldn’t stand each other. But she says fibs were meant to be used, not abused.”

Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) American science fiction author

“She sounds like a sensible person.”
Source: The Door Into Summer (1957), Chapter 11

People, Personality

“My tears are fallin'
'Cause you've taken her away.
And though it really hurts me so,
There's something that I've gotta say.Take good care of my baby.
Please don't ever make her blue.
Just tell her that you love her.
Make sure you're thinking of her
In everything you say and do.”

Carole King (1942) Nasa

Take Good Care of My Baby (1961), co-written with Gerry Goffin, first performed by Bobby Vee
Song lyrics, Singles

Love, Thinking, Tear, Hurt

“The world of books is the most remarkable creation of man. Nothing else that he builds ever lasts. Monuments fall; nations perish; civilizations grow old and die out; and, after an era of darkness, new races build others. But in the world of books are volumes that have seen this happen again and again, and yet live on, still young, still as fresh as the day they were written, still telling men’s hearts of the hearts of men centuries dead.

And even the books that do not last long, penetrate their own times at least, sailing farther than Ulysses even dreamed of, like ships on the seas. It is the author’s part to call into being their cargoes and passengers,—living thoughts and rich bales of study and jeweled ideas. And as for the publishers, it is they who build the fleet, plan the voyage, and sail on, facing wreck, till they find every possible harbor that will value their burden.”

Clarence Day (1874–1935) American writer

The Story of the Yale University Press Told by a Friend (1920), pp. 7–8.

Men, Books, World, Dreams

“Dentists tell you not to pick your teeth with any sharp metal object. Then you sit in their chair, and the first thing they grab is an iron hook.”

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

Himself (1983)

“But if there be an hereafter,
And that there is, conscience, uninfluenc'd
And suffer'd to speak out, tells every man,
Then must it be an awful thing to die;
More horrid yet to die by one's own hand.”

Robert Blair The Grave

Part I, line 398.
The Grave (1743)

“Girl, next time he wants to know
What your problem is
Next time he wants to know
Where the anger comes from
Just tell him this time the problem's his
Tell him the anger just comes
It just comes.”

Ani DiFranco (1970) musician and activist

Hide and Seek
Song lyrics

Girl, Problem, Time, Anger

“For something like forty years I've been getting various sorts of narratives off my chest without being able to hit upon a classification for them. There's something dreary to me about the publisher's arbitrary division of every word written for publication into fiction and nonfiction. My writing has a most irritating way of being difficult to classify in either category. At times I would find it hard to tell you whether the stuff is prose or verse. Gradually I've come up with the tag: contemporary chronicle.”

John Dos Passos (1896–1970) novelist, playwright, poet, journalist, painter

Presentation at Carleton College, Nov 30 1960

Way, Time

“Flowers have spoken to me more than I can tell in written words. They are the hieroglyphics of angels, loved by all men for the beauty of the character, though few can decypher even fragments of their meaning.”

Lydia Maria Child (1802–1880) American abolitionist, author and women's rights activist

1840s, Letters from New York (1843) Source: Letters from New York http://www.bartleby.com/66/58/12260.html, vol. 1, letter 26

Love, Men, Beauty, Angels

“Well let me tell you like this, the rap scene right now has taken its own course and its own direction because you have so many rap records of all different calibers coming out. And me, I favor everybody, I like everybody and the reason why is because I want everyone to Favor Flav. If I favor one certain rapper or one certain singer then only one certain singer/rappers are going to favor Flav. So me, I'm just a friendly ghost and not only that I'm a musician. I like all kinds of music. And everybody making records right now is definitely respected by Flav and for all you new comers just starting to make records: welcome aboard.”

Flavor Flav (1959) American rapper

[Casey, Cisneros, http://media.www.collegian.com/media/storage/paper864/news/2005/01/27/VervetheDishLive/Flavor.Flav.Interview-1705943.shtml, Flavor Flav interview, The Rocky Mountain Collegian, Colorado State University, 27 January 2005, 2008-03-05]

Music

“I don’t think Gay people choose to be Gay, but I damn sure think druggies chose to take drugs. And I’m tired of harassment from cool people treating me like a freak when I tell them I never tried marijuana.”

Robert A. Hall (1946) American politician

I'm Tired (February 19, 2009)

People, Thinking, Marijuana

“His [Diego Rivera's] supposed mythomania is in direct relation to his tremendous imagination. That is to say, he is as much of a liar as the poets or as the children who have not yet been turned into idiots by school or mothers. I have heard him tell all kinds of lies: from the most innocent, to the most complicated stories about people whom his imagination combined in a fantastic situation or actions, always with a great sense of humor and a marvelous critical sense; but I have never heard him say a single stupid or banal lie. Lying, or playing at lying, he unmasks many people, he learns the interior mechanism of others, who are much more ingenuously liars than he, and the most curious thing about the supposed lies of Diego, is that in the long and short of it, those who are involved in the imaginary combination become angry, not because of the lie, but because of the truth contained in the lie, that always comes to the surface.”

Frida Kahlo (1907–1954) Mexican painter

Frida's quote On Diego Rivera, in 'Portrait of Diego' [Retrato de Diego] (22 January 1949), first published in Hoy (Mexico City) and posthumously (17 July 1955) in Novedades (Mexico City): "México en la Cultura"
1946 - 1953

Children, People, Truth, Lie

“While I was mayor, I learned that government is a system of checks and balances — you can't simply walk in and change things. It takes time. I used to joke that it would be nice if a magic wand came with the job, if I could just wave it and make things work the way they're supposed to. But unfortunately it's not that easy. The bureaucracy is so huge that in a lot of situations all I can do is tell people the truth and let the chips fall where they may.”

Jesse Ventura (1951) American politician and former professional wrestler

I Ain't Got Time To Bleed (1999)

People, Truth, Way, Learning

“Like many of my generation, I became interested in another Black Muslim. There were no “Sweet-By-and-By” refrains in the testimony of Malcolm X. His voice was the puritan voice of the American North. Malcolm X had a strong story to tell of white racism and of his own degradation, but also of spiritual struggle and change.”

Richard Rodríguez (1944) American journalist and essayist

Darling: A Spiritual Autobiography (2013)

Strong, Change

“After a year of working in the restaurant, one night I decided to slip Tom my telephone number. We were standing in front of the giant fireplace. 'Did you hear I was single?' I asked. The next day his secretary called me and said, 'Mr. Girardi would like to know if you're free to have dinner this evening.' 'Absolutely not,' I told her. 'Tell Mr. Girardi if he wants to take me out on a date, he needs to call me himself and ask me and give me enough time to prepare.' You know how men are, especially if they are successful. They expect you to drop everything right away. That's not how I work, I don't care who you are. He did call me back himself, and he asked me out on a date like a gentleman.”

Erika Jayne (1969) American singer, actress and television personality

pg. 146
Pretty Mess book (2018)

Men, Time, Success, Night

“If we believe, as we do, in our political theory that the people are the guardians of government, we should not subject our government to the bitterness and hatred of those who have not been born of our tradition and are not willing to yield an increase to the strength inherent in our institutions. American liberty is dependent on quality in citizenship. Our obligation is to maintain that citizenship at its best. We must have nothing to do with those who would undermine it. The retroactive immigrant is a danger in our midst. His discontent gives him no time to seize a healthy opportunity to improve himself. His purpose is to tear down. There is no room for him here. He needs to be deported, not as a substitute for, but as a part of his punishment. There are racial considerations too grave to be brushed aside for any sentimental reasons. Biological laws tell us that certain divergent people will not mix or blend. The Nordics propagate themselves successfully. With other races, the outcome shows deterioration on both sides. Quality of mind and body suggests that observance of ethnic law is as great a necessity to a nation as immigration law.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, Whose Country Is This? (1921)

People, Law, Tear, Time

“Day after day
They send my friends away
To mansions cold and grey.
To the far side of town
Where the thin men stalk the streets
While the sane stay underground.Day after day,
They tell me I can go.
They tell me I can blow
To the far side of town
Where it's pointless to be high,
'Cause it's such a long way down.”

David Bowie (1947–2016) British musician, actor, record producer and arranger

All the Madmen
Song lyrics, The Man Who Sold the World (1970)

Men, Way

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

Jane Taylor (1783–1824) British poet

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

Kiss, Help

“I don't think there is any harm in it, but I tell you, there are demons and there are evil people in the world, and you post a picture like that and some cultist gets hold of it or a coven and they begin muttering curses against an unborn child. […] You never know what somebody's going to do.”

Pat Robertson (1930) American media mogul, executive chairman, and a former Southern Baptist minister

2015-02-16
Pat Robertson
The 700 Club
Television, quoted in * 2015-02-17
Pat Robertson: Satanic Covens Use Facebook To Curse Your Family
Brian
Tashman
Right Wing Watch
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/pat-robertson-satanic-covens-use-facebook-curse-your-family
Answering a viewer question from Cynthia: "Young parents now regularly post fetal ultrasound photos as their Facebook photo. From a spiritual point of view is there any harm in doing this?"

People, World, Thinking, Evil

“Three points make me hardy to ask it. The first is, because it is so low a thing: for if it were an high thing I should be a-dread. The second is, that it is so common: for if it were special and privy, also I should be a-dread. The third is, that it needeth me to know it (as methinketh) if I shall live here for knowing of good and evil, whereby I may, by reason and grace, the more dispart them asunder, and love goodness and hate evil, as Holy Church teacheth. I cried inwardly, with all my might seeking unto God for help, saying thus: Ah! Lord Jesus, King of bliss, how shall I be eased? Who shall teach me and tell me that me needeth to know, if I may not at this time see it in Thee?”

Julian of Norwich (1342–1416) English theologian and anchoress

Summations, Chapter 50

Love, God, Hate, Evil

“What wonderful things [Renoir is reacting on Corot's painting 'Interior of Chartres Cathedral' and Delacroix's 'Interior of M. de Mornay’s house', – he saw in 1919 from his wheelchair, in the reopened painting-rooms of the Louvre]. There isn’t a single big picture worth any more than these two little ones... The Director [of the Louvre] was so charming to me. I wish I could have thanked him properly. If you meet him, tell him how much I enjoyed my visit. If I'd presented myself at the Louvre in my wheelchair thirty years ago, they'd have shot me out fast enough! You see, one has to live a long time to see such changes. I've been one of the lucky ones.”

Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841–1919) French painter and sculptor

December 1919, Renoir died
late quote of Renoir, c. 1919, in Renoir – his life and work, Francois Fosca, Book Club Associates /Thames and Hudson Ltd, London 1975, p. 237
after 1900

Change, Time, Painting, Housing

“I know nothing of philosophical philanthropy. But I know what I have seen, and what I have looked in the face in this world here, where I find myself. And I tell you this, my friend, that there are people (men and women both, unfortunately) who have no good in them—none. That there are people whom it is necessary to detest without compromise. That there are people who must be dealt with as enemies of the human race. That there are people who have no human heart, and who must be crushed like savage beasts and cleared out of the way.”

Charles Dickens book Little Dorrit

Bk. I, Ch. 11
Little Dorrit (1855-1857)

Women, Men, People, World

“Let's face it. Let's talk sense to the American people. Let's tell them the truth, that there are no gains without pains, that we are now on the eve of great decisions, not easy decisions, like resistance when you're attacked, but a long, patient, costly struggle which alone can assure triumph over the great enemies of man — war, poverty, and tyranny — and the assaults upon human dignity which are the most grievous consequences of each.”

Adlai Stevenson (1900–1965) mid-20th-century Governor of Illinois and Ambassador to the UN

Acceptance speech, Democratic National Convention, Chicago, Illinois (26 July 1952)

Pain, War, People, Truth

“Most government and corporate leaders would have trouble getting people to follow them out of a burning building. One way you can tell the worst of them is that they talk about leadership a lot. I doubt Winston Churchill ever used the word. Or, for that matter, Attila the Hun.”

Jack McDevitt (1935) American novelist, Short story writer

Source: Academy Series - Priscilla "Hutch" Hutchins, Odyssey (2006), Chapter 5 (p. 38)

People, Way

“God tells us', wrote Equiano, 'that the oppressor and the oppressed are both in his hands. And if these are not the poor, the broken-hearted, the blind, the captive, the bruised which our Savior speaks of, who are they?' Down through the years, African-Americans have upheld the ideals of America by exposing laws and habits contradicting those ideals. The rights of African-Americans were not the gift of those in authority. Those rights were granted by the author of life and regained by the persistence and courage of African-Americans themselves. Among those Americans was Phillis Wheatley, who was dragged from her home here in West Africa in 1761 at the age of 7. In my country she became a poet and the first noted black author in our nation's history. Phillis Wheatley said, 'In every human breast God has implanted a principle which we call love of freedom. It is impatient of oppression and pants for deliverance'. That deliverance was demanded by escaped slaves named Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth, educators named Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. DeBois and ministers of the Gospel named Leon Sullivan and Martin Luther King Jr.”

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

2000s, 2003, Hope and Conscience Will Not Be Silenced (July 2003)

Love, Life, God, Truth

“Believe me: She [one of the women accusing him of sexual assault] would not be my first choice, that I can tell you.”

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

at a rally in Greensboro, N.C. http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/14/politics/donald-trump-hillary-clinton-appearance-debate/ Also quoted in Donald Trump's Barrage of Heated Rhetoric Has Little Precedent http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/15/us/politics/trump-speech-highlights.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news (October 14, 2016) 2010s, 2016, October

Women

“The GNP by itself is no mark of our national achievement. For it includes smokestacks that pollute, drugs that destroy, and ambulances which clear our highways of human wreckage. It includes a mugger's knife, a rioter's bomb, and Oswald's rifle, but if the GNP tells us all this, there is much that it does not tell us. It says nothing about the health of our families, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play.”

Jerry Springer (1944) American television presenter, former lawyer, politician, news presenter, actor, and musician

from a speech given circa 1970 to citizens in Cincinnati Ohio. This American Life http://www.thislife.org/pages/descriptions/04/258.html, Ep. 258, 01/30/04, Leaving the Fold; Act One. PLEASE NOTE that this quote borrows very heavily, in substance and form, from a 1968 speech by Robert F. Kennedy http://www.mccombs.utexas.edu/faculty/Michael.Brandl/Main%20Page%20Items/Kennedy%20on%20GNP.htm.

Health, Education, Family, Joy

“You can call it a cheap shot, blind shot, a late hit; you can call it what you want and it should’ve been a suspension as far as I’m concerned! It’s unbelievable that it’s not a suspension! What it did, it gave meat to everybody that’s against the National Hockey League—this’ll be the poster boy…[while showing clips of controversial hits by Cooke over the years]!! You think he’d do this stuff against [Wayne] Gretzky, if [Dave] Semenko was there?! Do you think he’d do this against [Steve] Yzerman if [Bob] Probert was there?! NO! That’s what I’m trying to tell you, he wouldn’t do that stuff!”

Don Cherry (1934) ice hockey coach, television commentator

On the March 13, 2010 edition of Coach's Corner discussing Pittsburgh Penguins left winger Matt Cooke's blindside hit on Boston Bruins forward Marc Savard on March 7, 2010.

Boy, Thinking, Cooking, Hockey

“She seemed to have neither sense of fullness nor taste, and would often combine foods in manners that struck Blue as problematic. She didn't believe in telling people how to live their lives (well, maybe a little), but it was hard to stand by and watch Gwenllian spread peanut butter on a cold hot dog.”

Maggie Stiefvater (1981) American writer

pg 165-166
The Raven Cycle Series, Blue Lily, Lily Blue (2014)

People, Food, Dogs, Sense

“Tell me not here, it needs not saying,
What tune the enchantress plays
In aftermaths of soft September
Or under blanching mays,
For she and I were long acquainted
And I knew all her ways.”

A.E. Housman (1859–1936) English classical scholar and poet

No. 40, st. 1. Last Poems http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext05/8lspm10.txt (1922)

Way

“This evening the Anthroposophical Society invited me to give a lecture about modern art, on 13 March. They start to wake up here [in the Netherlands]… Please, tell me something, what I should emphasize, what you find most important. I shall also read something from 'The Spiritual in Art' by Kandinsky… But we still have other views on the whole, isn't it. I don't always agree with Kandinsky, and often more with your views. So please write a little much… You know, for me it is always easier to paint my principles.”

Jacoba van Heemskerck (1876–1923) Dutch painter

translation from German, Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018
(original version, written by Jacoba in German:) Heute abend bin ich durch den Anthroposophischen Verein eingeladen (worden) am 13. März einen Vortrag über moderne Kunst zu halten. Man fängt hier an zu erwachen.. .Bitte, sage mir einiges, was ich speziell betonen soll, was Du am wichtigsten findest. Ich werde dann auch aus 'Das Geistige in der Kunst' von Kandinsky.. ..etwas vorlesen. Aber wir haben doch in Ganzen noch andere Ansichten. Ich stimme nicht immer met Kandinsky überein, und oft mehr mit Deinen Ansichten. Also bitte schreibe ein bisschen viel.. .Du weisst, ich finde es immer einfacher, meine Prinzipien zu malen.
in a letter to Herwarth Walden, 28 Feb. 1916; from the 'Sturm'-Archive, Berlin
1910's

Art, Reading, Painting

“Only the misapprehension that [Paglia] can be wise like lightning could explain her brief appearance, in Inside Deep Throat, to tell us that the cultural artefact in question was 'an epochal moment in the history of modern sexuality.' On the contrary, it was a moronic moment in the history of exploitation movies made by people so untalented that they can't even be convincing when they masturbate.”

Clive James (1939–2019) Australian author, critic, broadcaster, poet, translator and memoirist

On Camille Paglia (New York Times Book Review, March 27, 2005)
Essays and reviews

People, History, Question, Appearance

“We humans have an implicit responsibility to the One Who gave us so much. We owe Him our worship, and obedience to His Law - that is why atheists hate Him so vehemently. Atheists want to be free from all moral or spiritual responsibilities, but their God-given conscience tells them deep down that they can't.”

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

You Can Lead an Atheist to Evidence, But You Can't Make Him Think (2009)

God, Hate, Law

“I made him swear he'd always tell me nothing but the truth.
I promised him I never would resent it.
No matter how unbearable, how harsh, how cruel. How come
He thought I meant it?”

Judith Viorst (1931) American writer

"Nothing but the Truth" http://books.google.com/books?id=uW5bAAAAMAAJ&q=%22I+made+him+swear+he%27d+always+tell+me+nothing+but+the+truth+I+promised+him+I+never+would+resent+it+No+matter+how+unbearable+how+harsh+how+cruel+How+come+He+thought+I+meant+it%22, How Did I Get to be Forty & Other Atrocities (1976)

Truth

“I tell people that because you don’t bear any responsibility, you put me in danger. If we all say the same thing, then I think the government has to listen. But because no one is saying it, I become singled out, even though what I’m saying is common sense. It’s very essential values that we all have to protect. But in Chinese society, people are giving up on protecting these values.”

Ai Weiwei (1957) Chinese concept artist

2000-09, Who Is Ai Weiwei?, 2009

People, Thinking, Sense

“I thought the script was very good, but something was missing. I wanted to come out with a cane, come down slowly, have it stick into one of the bricks, get up, fall over, roll around, and they all laugh and applaud. The director asked, ‘what do you want to do that for?’ I said from that time on, no one will know if I’m lying or telling the truth.”

Gene Wilder (1933–2016) American actor

About Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, Interview with IndieWire Gene Wilder Opens Up About Making of ‘Willy Wonka’ and ‘Young Frankenstein’ http://www.indiewire.com/2016/07/gene-wilder-willy-wonka-young-frankenstein-interview-watch-1201702561/

Truth, Lying, Time

“I took one Draught of Life —
I'll tell you what I paid —
Precisely an existence —
The market price, they said.”

Emily Dickinson I took one Draught of Life

1725: I took one Draught of Life —
The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson (1960)

Life

“I would love to lecture to women on men. I'd tell them everything about men: gay, straight, bi, how we're all the same, how we're all bastards.”

John Barrowman (1967) Scottish-American actor, singer, dancer, musical theatre performer, writer and television personality

What I know about men, Morwenna Ferrier, Sunday September 7 2008, Sunday September 7 2008, The Observer http://www.guardian.co.uk/theobserver/2008/sep/07/women.relationships1,

Love, Women, Men

“The last sort I shall mention are verbal critics — mere word-catchers, fellows that pick out a word in a sentence and a sentence in a volume, and tell you it is wrong. The title of Ultra-Crepidarian critics has been given to a variety of this species.”

William Hazlitt (1778–1830) English writer

"On Criticism" Table Talk: Essays On Men And Manners http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Essays/TableHazIV.htm (1821-1822)

“It’s weird because here I am, an actress, representing—at least in some sense—an industry that places crushing standards on all of us. Not just young people, but everyone. Standards of beauty. Of a good life. Of success. Standards that, I hate to admit, have affected me. You have ideas planted in your head, thoughts you never had before, that tell you how you have to act, how you have to dress and who you have to be. I have been trying to push back, to be authentic, to follow my heart, but it can be hard.”

Ellen Page (1987) Canadian actress

Coming Out Speech (2014)

Life, Hate, People, Beauty

“I wish [my mother] could have seen the America we’re going to build together. An America, where if you do your part, you reap the rewards. Where we don’t leave anyone out, or anyone behind. An America where a father can tell his daughter: yes, you can be anything you want to be. Even President of the United States.”

Hillary Clinton (1947) American politician, senator, Secretary of State, First Lady

Campaign kickoff speech (June 13, 2015) https://www.hillaryclinton.com/feed/campaign-kickoff-speech/?utm_medium=social&utm_source=fb&utm_campaign=20150613genius_social# Presidential campaign (April 12, 2015 – 2016)

Parting, Daughters

“And what happens then?
When?
After you're dead.
Dont nothing happen. You're dead.
You told me once you believed in God.
The old man waved his hand. Maybe, he said. I got no reason to think he believes in me. Oh I'd like to see him for a minute if I could.
What would you say to him?
Well, I think I'd just tell him. I'd say: Wait a minute. Wait just one minute before you start in on me. Before you say anything, there's just one thing I'd like to know. And he'll say: what's that? And then I'm goin to ast him: What did you have me in that crapgame down there for anyway? I couldnt put any part of it together.
Suttree smiled. What do you think he'll say?
The ragpicker spat and wiped his mouth. I dont believe he can answer it. I dont believe there is an answer.”

Cormac McCarthy book Suttree

page 258
Suttree (1979)

God, Smile, Thinking, Waiting

“If someone tells you you are too weak to live with freedom, they have turned you into a child”

Alan Charles Kors (1943) American academic

As quoted in "College" (2005), Bullshit!, HBO
2000s
Context: What universities are saying by these codes, special protections, and double standards — to women, to blacks, to Hispanics, to gay and lesbian students — is, "You are too weak to live with freedom. You are too weak to live with the First Amendment." If someone tells you you are too weak to live with freedom, they have turned you into a child.

Freedom

“Chyna Black is like an open road,
Tells me stories, releases my soul.”

Anthony Hamilton (1971) American singer, songwriter, and record producer

Chyna Black.
Song lyrics, Comin' from Where I'm From (2003)

Soul

“The first red flag? The crooked wig! That's how you know what level of awareness Whitney is at. Cause let me tell - you know her gay was straightening that wig to the bitter end. Making sure the part was in the right place. But you know what - when the (crack) pipe is shaking? It's hard to keep it on, when the pipe is all shaking.”

Kathy Griffin (1960) American actress and comedian

Balls of Steel (2009)

Parting

“When entering a studio the most pleasant thing to see is a blank canvas. It looks so inviting to make a start, you are fresh and hoping for the best. Then a terrible time follows when everything seems lost and ruined, you fear you will never get it done, than suddenly a ray of light! And it seems you get what you wanted to tell. My best works usually are going trough such a struggle.”

Anton Mauve (1838–1888) Dutch painter (1838–1888)

translation from original Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018 (version in original Dutch / origineel citaat van Anton Mauve, in het Nederlands:) Het meest aangename te zien wanneer men een atelier betreedt is een leeg doek. Het oogt zo uitnodigend om een begin te maken, je bent fris en hoopt op het beste. Dan volgt een vreselijke tijd waarin alles verloren en verprutst lijkt, je vreest dat je het nooit zal maken, en plotseling een lichtstraal! En het lijkt alsof je krijgt dat wat je wilde vertellen. Mijn beste werken gaan doorgaans door zulk een strijd. Mauve's remark, later quoted by Mauve's student nl:Arina Hugenholtz, in her In memoriam mr. Anton Mauve, RKD Den Haag; as cited in The land of Mauve: utopia or a reality? / Het land van Mauve: utopie of werkelijkheid? https://www.rug.nl/research/kenniscentrumlandschap/mscripties/christina_vlasma-het_land_van_mauve-masterscriptie.pdf; master-scriptie by Christina van Staats-Vlasma; Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, La Broquerie, Manitoba Canada, Nov. 2010, p. 93 undated quotes

Fear, Hope, Light, Time

“There is a word
Which bears a sword
Can pierce an armed man.
It hurls its barbed syllables,—
At once is mute again.
But where it fell
The saved will tell
On patriotic day,
Some epauletted brother
Gave his breath away.Wherever runs the breathless sun,
Wherever roams the day,
There is its noiseless onset,
There is its victory!
Behold the keenest marksman!
The most accomplished shot!
Time’s sublimest target
Is a soul “forgot”!”

Emily Dickinson (1830–1886) American poet

Love, p. 170
Collected Poems (1993)

Soul, Time, Sun, Victory

“Sometimes I can tell the greatness of my mission with God by the resistance I am met with by the Devil.”

Steve Maraboli (1975)

Source: Life, the Truth, and Being Free (2010), p. 144

God

“[On the importance of positive representations of LGBT people in the media] You know, I don't think it's helpful to anyone to… for example, say that every LGBT person is wonderful and perfect and without flaw, and lets all ring the bells to perfection. I think it's much more helpful to tell the story as truthfully as you can, and with all of its complications, because that's also when people recognize themselves, and that's when people who are not part of the LGBT community will recognize themselves within that character. And then [they] hopefully empathize and maybe there'll be some kind of shift.”

Jennifer Beals (1963) American actress and a former teen model

Interview on matthewsplace.com (October 2009) http://www.matthewsplace.com/2009/10/interview-with-jennifer-beals/.

People, Communication, Thinking, Help

“Nixon has the audacity to tell me to do nothing in the interest of my country until he dictactes where that interest lies. At the same time he threatens me that failure to follow his so-called advice will be to jeopardize the special relations between our two countries. I say to hell with such special relations.”

Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (1919–1980) Shah of Iran

As quoted in Asadollah Alam (1991), The Shah and I: The Confidential Diary of Iran's Royal Court, 1968-77, page 278
Attributed

Failure, Hell, Time, Country

“You might find the idea of listening to your gut feelings odd or even ridiculous. Some people I coach, normally left-brain individuals who use logic and facts all day like engineers or accountants, are not used to following their intuition and feelings. Instead of asking themselves ‘What do I feel?’, they are more comfortable asking ‘What do the facts tell me?”

Nigel Cumberland (1967) British author and leadership coach

Your Job-Hunt Ltd – Advice from an Award-Winning Asian Headhunter (2003), Successful Recruitment in a Week (2012) https://books.google.ae/books?idp24GkAsgjGEC&printsecfrontcover&dqnigel+cumberland&hlen&saX&ved0ahUKEwjF75Xw0IHNAhULLcAKHazACBMQ6AEIGjAA#vonepage&qnigel%20cumberland&ffalse, 100 Things Successful People Do: Little Exercises for Successful Living (2016) https://books.google.ae/books?idnu0lCwAAQBAJ&dqnigel+cumberland&hlen&saX&ved0ahUKEwjF75Xw0IHNAhULLcAKHazACBMQ6AEIMjAE

People, Feeling, Idea

“When ancient Greeks had a thought, it occurred to them as a god or goddess giving an order. Apollo was telling them to be brave. Athena was telling them to fall in love. Now people hear a commercial for sour cream potato chips and rush out to buy them, but now they call this free will. At least the Greeks were being honest.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Lullaby

Source: Lullaby (2002), Chapter 3

Love, God, People

“Many people will tell you of his wonderful qualities and his many accomplishments, but what makes him special to me, the truth many people don't want you to remember, is that Dr. king was a great activist, fighting for radical social change with radical methods.
While other people talked about change, Dr. King used direct action to challenge the system. He welcomed it, and used it wisely.”

Cesar Chavez (1927–1993) American farm worker, labor leader, and civil rights activist

Lessons of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1990)

People, Truth, Change, Fight

“They tell you that a tree is only a combination of chemical elements. I prefer to believe that God created it, and that it is inhabited by a nymph.”

Pierre-Auguste Renoir book Renoir

Quoted in [2001, Jean Renoir, Renoir: My Father, New York Review of Books, New York, 9780940322776, https://books.google.com/books?id=RR8Mk2QrvyoC&pg=PA137, 137]
undated quotes

God, Tree

“A charm
For thee, my gentle-hearted Charles, to whom
No sound is dissonant which tells of life.”

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) English poet, literary critic and philosopher

This Lime-tree Bower my Prison
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Life, Heart

“Let's go for a drive OK? Well I'll go for a drive, you'll go for a ride. The person who drives the car they go for a drive, the other people they go for a ride. People don't know that, tell them when they're in your car. Say "you assholes are goin' for a ride!"”

George Carlin (1937–2008) American stand-up comedian

Carlin on Campus (1984)

People, Cars, Personality

“Football is a machismo sport, which is great, but everything can't be machismo. On the field and at practice, yes, you can be machismo, but when it comes to diet, you need to have compassion for your body. … My food is my medication now. … I get a lot of success talking to older guys because they're like 30 years old and have children. I tell them, 'You might want to change the way that you eat because you want to be around longer and see your family and your daughter graduate.”

David Carter (1987) Player of American Football

"NFL veganism? David Carter, Griff Whalen have broken the mold" http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap3000000711369/article/nfl-veganism-david-carter-griff-whalen-have-broken-the-mold, interview with NFL.com (28 September 2016).

Children, Family, Food, Way

“Though I know something about British birds I should have been lost and confused among American birds, of which unhappily I know little or nothing. Colonel Roosevelt not only knew more about American birds than I did about British birds, but he knew about British birds also. What he had lacked was an opportunity of hearing their songs, and you cannot get a knowledge of the songs of birds in any other way than by listening to them.
We began our walk, and when a song was heard I told him the name of the bird. I noticed that as soon as I mentioned the name it was unnecessary to tell him more. He knew what the bird was like. It was not necessary for him to see it. He knew the kind of bird it was, its habits and appearance. He just wanted to complete his knowledge by hearing the song. He had, too, a very trained ear for bird songs, which cannot be acquired without having spent much time in listening to them. How he had found time in that busy life to acquire this knowledge so thoroughly it is almost impossible to imagine, but there the knowledge and training undoubtedly were. He had one of the most perfectly trained ears for bird songs that I have ever known, so that if three or four birds were singing together he would pick out their songs, distinguish each, and ask to be told each separate name; and when farther on we heard any bird for a second time, he would remember the song from the first telling and be able to name the bird himself.”

Edward Grey, 1st Viscount Grey of Fallodon (1862–1933) British Liberal statesman

Recreation (1919)

Life, Way, Imagination, Business

“(Sylvia) Rita! Is Bush still president? (Rita) Ma, I didn't want to tell you…You seemed so happy.”

Nicole Hollander (1939) Cartoonist

Source: Sylvia cartoon strip, p. 108

Happiness

“Bye bye. Look, see? He's smiling. See, he's having a good time. Oh, I love the old days, you know? You know what I hate? There's a guy, totally disruptive, throwing punches, we're not allowed to punch back anymore. I love the old days. You know what they used to do to guys like that when they were in a place like this? They'd be carried out on a stretcher, folks. You know, I love our police, and I really respect our police, and they're not getting enough. They're not. Honestly, I hate to see that. Here's a guy, throwing punches, nasty as hell, screaming at everything else when we're talking, and he's walking out, and we're not allowed -- you know, the guards are very gentle with him, he's walking out, like, big high fives, smiling, laughing -- I'd like to punch him in the face, I'll tell you.”

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

At a rally in Las Vegas http://www.weeklystandard.com/protester-would-be-carried-out-on-a-stretcher-in-the-old-days-trump-reminisces/article/2001211 (22 February 2016) 2010s, 2016, February

Love, Hate, Smile, Guy