Quotes about tire (909 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

“In the end, finding the Truth will always be tiring in a world full of appearances.”

José Baroja (1983) Chilean author and editor

Source: Klairet Levy, R. Interview to José Baroja. http://letras.mysite.com/jbar050923.html

Truth , Appearance , World

“People always said that I didn't give up my seat because I was tired, but that isn't true. I was not tired physically, or no more tired than I usually was at the end of a working day. I was not old, although some people have an image of me as being old then. I was forty-two. No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in.”

Rosa Parks (1913–2005) African-American civil rights activist

Rosa Parks: My Story, p. 116, Rosa Parks and James Haskins (1992)

People

“I had given up my seat before, but this day, I was especially tired. Tired from my work as a seamstress, and tired from the ache in my heart.”

Rosa Parks (1913–2005) African-American civil rights activist

Heart

“I'm tired of waiting to die. Let's go out.”

Charles Bukowski book Hot Water Music

Source: Hot Water Music

Waiting

“And I wanna kiss you, make you feel alright
I'm just so tired to share my nights
I wanna cry and I wanna love
But all my tears have been used up
On another love, another love
All my tears have been used up”

Tom Odell (1990) British singer-songwriter

Another Love
Lyrics, Long Way Down

Love , Feeling , Kiss , Tear

“When all by myself, I can think of all kinds of clever remarks, quick comebacks to what no one said, and flashes of witty sociability with nobody. But all of this vanishes when I face someone in the flesh: I lose my intelligence, I can no longer speak, and after half an hour I just feel tired. Talking to people makes me feel like sleeping. Only my ghostly and imaginary friends, only the conversations I have in my dreams, are genuinely real and substantial.”

Fernando Pessoa (1888–1935) Portuguese poet, writer, literary critic, translator, publisher and philosopher

People , Dreams , Feeling , Intelligence

“It is simply this: do not tire, never lose interest, never grow indifferent—lose your invaluable curiosity and you let yourself die. It's as simple as that.”

Tove Jansson book Fair Play

Source: Fair Play

Indifference

“I’m tired of the lies and the cheating, and the broken promises that were never meant to be kept.”

Sidney Sheldon The Doomsday Conspiracy

Source: The Doomsday Conspiracy

Cheating

“Everyone thinks I'm showing off when I talk, ridiculous when I'm silent, insolent when I answer, cunning when I have a good idea, lazy when I'm tired, selfish when I eat one bite more than I should.”

Anne Frank (1929–1945) victim of the Holocaust and author of a diary

Variant: If I talk, everyone thinks I'm showing off; when I'm silent they think I'm ridiculous, rude if I answer, sly if I get a good idea, lazy if I'm tired, selfish if I eat a mouthful more than I should, stupid, cowardly, crafty, etc., etc.
Source: The Diary of a Young Girl

Idea , Thinking , Selfishness

“The mind wants to forget because it weighs so much on the heart and soul. I am tired of crying and feeling so helpless. I want to breathe again -just for a little while.”

Angelina Jolie (1975) American actress, film director, and screenwriter

Feeling , Soul , Heart , Cry

“I’ve dreamed a lot. I’m tired now from dreaming but not tired of dreaming. No one tires of dreaming, because to dream is to forget, and forgetting does not weigh on us, it is a dreamless sleep throughout which we remain awake. In dreams I have achieved everything.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Source: The Book of Disquiet

Dreams , Sleep , Forgetting

“I’m without a teacher. My teacher… God has sent me teachers: the angel that stands by me, stands by me and directs me what to do. Time for me to paint a picture and I be tired I say I’m going to rest up for a couple of days. He won’t let me. Come down grab my feet and shake me. Beat me.”

Minnie Evans (1892–1987) American artist

Cited in Allie Light, Irving Saraf (1983), "The Angel That Stands By Me"

God , Angels , Teachers , Time

“Like your body your mind also gets tired so refresh it by wise sayings.”

Ali book Nahj al-Balagha

Nahj al-Balagha

“I'm tired of gang murders and gang shootings. It's a tough life to lead. You fear death at every moment, and worse than death, you fear the rats of the game who'd run around and tell the police if you don't constantly satisfy them with money and favors.”

Al Capone (1899–1947) American gangster

Money , Fear , Game , Life

“Is prayer your steering wheel or your spare tire?”

Corrie ten Boom (1892–1983) Dutch resistance hero and writer

“I'm tired of living unable to love anyone. I don't have a single friend - not one. And, worst of all, I can't even love myself. Why is that? Why can't I love myself? It's because I can't love anyone else. A person learns how to love himself through the simple acts of loving and being loved by someone else. Do you understand what I am saying? A person who is incapable of loving another cannot properly love himself.”

Haruki Murakami book 1Q84

Source: 1Q84 (2009-2010)

Love , Understanding , Learning , Personality

“I was tired of pretending that I was someone else just to get along with people, just for the sake of having friendships.”

Kurt Cobain (1967–1994) American musician and artist

Friendship , People

“The only tired I was, was tired of giving in.”

Rosa Parks (1913–2005) African-American civil rights activist

Rosa Parks: My Story, p. 116, Rosa Parks and James Haskins (1992)
Context: People always said that I didn't give up my seat because I was tired, but that isn't true. I was not tired physically, or no more tired than I usually was at the end of a working day. I was not old, although some people have an image of me as being old then. I was forty-two. No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in.

“Never marry at all, Dorian. Men marry because they are tired, women, because they are curious: both are disappointed.”

Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray

Lord Illingworth, Act III.
A Woman of No Importance (1893)
Variant: Men marry because they are tired; women because they are curious. Both are disappointed.
Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

Relationship , Women , Men , Disappointment

“I wish you would thrash him. He deserves it."
She looked back at him. "I will one day, sir. I'm getting tired of falling down.”

Tamora Pierce book Alanna: The First Adventure

Source: Alanna: The First Adventure

“Perseverance is the hard work you do after you get tired of doing the hard work you already did.”

Newt Gingrich (1943) Professor, Speaker of the United States House of Representatives

Back To Work , Perseverance , Motivational

“To love is to tire of being alone; it is therefore a cowardice, a betrayal of ourselves. (It is exceedingly important that we not love.)”

Fernando Pessoa (1888–1935) Portuguese poet, writer, literary critic, translator, publisher and philosopher

Love , Betrayal

“I am tired of myself tonight. I should like to be somebody else.”

Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray

Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

“I can't think of anything to write about, I'm just walking around here between the lines, under the light of your eyes, in the breadth of your mouth as in a beautiful happy day, which remains beautiful and happy, even when the head is sick and tired.”

Franz Kafka book Letters to Milena

Source: Letters to Milena

Beauty , Thinking , Light , Happiness

“I wondered why I couldn't go the whole way doing what I should any more. This made me sad and tired. Then I wondered why I couldn't go the whole way doing what I shouldn't, the way Doreen did, and this made me even sadder and more tired.”

Sylvia Plath book The Bell Jar

Source: The Bell Jar

Sadness , Way

“Don't you ever get tired of asking questions?'
'Never. They're mother's milk to me.”

Tamora Pierce book First Test

Source: First Test

Question

“I’m tired, can’t think of anything and want only to lay my face in your lap, feel your hand on my head and remain like that through all eternity.”

Franz Kafka book Letters to Milena

Source: Letters to Milena

Feeling , Thinking

“I'm tired of trying to do something worthwhile for the human race, they simply don't want to change!”

August Dvorak (1894–1975) American scientist

Discovery Magazine, 1997 http://discovermagazine.com/1997/apr/thecurseofqwerty1099/

Change

“What is life? Life is like a big obstacle, put in front of your optical to slow you down, and every time you think you gotten past it, it's gonna come back around and tackle you to the damn ground. What are friends? Friends are people that you think are your friends, but they're really your enemies with secret identities and disguises to hide their true colors, so just when you're close enough to be brothers, they wanna come back and cut your throat when you ain't looking. What is money? Money is what makes a man act funny. Money is the root of all evil. Money'll make them same friends come back around swearing that they was always down. What is life? I'm tired of life!”

Eminem (1972) American rapper and actor

"'If I Had" (Track 6).
1990s, The Slim Shady LP (1999)

Life , Money , People , Secret

“There is no man, let him be aware of it or not, who is not a combatant in this hot contest; no one who does not take an active part in the responsibility of the defeat or victory. The prisoner in his chains and the king on his throne, the poor and the rich, the healthy and the infirm, the wise and the ignorant, the captive and the free, the old man and the child, the civilized and the savage, share equally in the combat. Every word that is pronounced, is either inspired by God or by the world, and necessarily proclaims, implicitly or explicitly, but always clearly, the glory of the one or the triumph of the other. In this singular warfare we all fight through forced enlistment; here the system of substitutes or volunteers finds no place. In it is unknown the exception of sex or age; here no attention is paid to him who says, I am the son of a poor widow; nor to the mother of the paralytic, nor to the wife of the cripple. In this warfare all men born of woman are soldiers.
And don’t tell me you don’t wish to fight; for the moment you tell me that, you are already fighting; nor that you don’t know which side to join, for while you are saying that, you have already joined a side; nor that you wish to remain neutral; for while you are thinking to be so, you are so no longer; nor that you want to be indifferent; for I will laugh at you, because on pronouncing that word you have chosen your party. Don’t tire yourself in seeking a place of security against the chances of war, for you tire yourself in vain; that war is extended as far as space, and prolonged through all time. In eternity alone, the country of the just, can you find rest, because there alone there is no combat. But do not imagine, however, that the gates of eternity shall be opened for you, unless you first show the wounds you bear; those gates are only opened for those who gloriously fought here the battles of the Lord, and were, like the Lord, crucified.”

Juan Donoso Cortés (1809–1853) Spanish author, political theorist and diplomat

Essays on Catholicism, Liberalism, and Socialism (1879)

Men , God , War , Age

“They’re like leeches. I’m so tired of it. They start out the most popular person in the world, make a lot of money, big house, cars and everything. End up penniless. It is conspiracy. The Jews do it on purpose.”

Michael Jackson (1958–2009) American singer, songwriter and dancer

November 2005 reported by report by NY Post https://nypost.com/2005/11/23/jerko-jackos-ugly-jabs-at-jews-calls-them-leeches-on-tape/

Money , World , Cars , Housing

“What is our life? A play of passion;
our mirth: the music of division;
our mother's wombs: the tiring houses be
where we are dressed for this short comedy.
Heaven the judicious sharp spectator is
that sits and marks still who doth act amiss.
Our graves that hide us from the searching sun
are like drawn curtains when the play is done.
Thus march we playing to our latest rest,
only we die in earnest, that's no jest.”

Walter Raleigh (1554–1618) English aristocrat, writer, poet, soldier, courtier, spy, and explorer

"On the Life of Man" (1612)
Attributed

Life , Music , Search , Passion

“I compare my situation to a person on board a ship. When there is a shipwreck the passenger then falls in the ocean and has no choice but to keep swimming. What happened in our society was that the laws overturned every right that women had. I had no choice. I could not get tired, I could not lose hope. I cannot afford to do that.”

Shirin Ebadi (1947) Iranian lawyer, human rights activist, and Nobel Peace Prize recipient

From 2006 interview with Ebadi by Harry Kreisler (translator, Banafsheh Keynoush) about her newly released book, Iran Awakening: A Memoir of Revolution and Hope.
From May 10 2006 interview with Ebadi at Institute of International Studies, University of California, Berkeley. http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/people6/Ebadi/ebadi-con3.html (retrieved Oct. 15, 2008)

Women , Law , Hope , Personality

“I'm sick and tired of people saying that we put out 11 albums that sound exactly the same. In fact, we've put out 12 albums that sound exactly the same.”

Angus Young (1955) Scottish Australian guitarist

[Pluggin' into AC/DC: Longtime rockers stay current with new 'Stiff Upper Lip', Interview with Jim Farber, New York Daily News, February 27, 2000, http://www.nydailynews.com/archives/entertainment/2000/02/27/2000-02-27_pluggin__into_ac_dc_longtime.html]

People

“I want you to still write a lot of stories so I get excited when I see them, Because I want to see who is making up the best story and when I'm tired of it I will let you know where I will go.”

Zlatan Ibrahimović (1981) Swedish association football player

Talking about rumours where will he go http://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2016/06/01/zlatan-ibrahimovic-keeps-man-utd-guessing-by-saying-he-is-excite/
Attributed

“When one watches some tired hack on the platform mechanically repeating the familiar phrases -- bestial, atrocities, iron heel, bloodstained tyranny, free peoples of the world, stand shoulder to shoulder -- one often has a curious feeling that one is not watching a live human being but some kind of dummy: a feeling which suddenly becomes stronger at moments when the light catches the speaker's spectacles and turns them into blank discs which seem to have no eyes behind them. And this is not altogether fanciful. A speaker who uses that kind of phraseology has gone some distance toward turning himself into a machine. The appropriate noises are coming out of his larynx, but his brain is not involved, as it would be if he were choosing his words for himself. If the speech he is making is one that he is accustomed to make over and over again, he may be almost unconscious of what he is saying, as one is when one utters the responses in church. And this reduced state of consciousness, if not indispensable, is at any rate favourable to political conformity.”

George Orwell book Politics and the English Language

Politics and the English Language (1946)

People , World , Feeling , Light

“The terrible situation of the country makes my mind restless and I cannot keep silent. Meaningless ritual keep the Hindus divided in hundred sects. Sop we are suffering from series of defeats. We are tired and worn-out by the fortunes by the internal external enemies. The Muslims are united in religion and rituals. The Bengali Muslims the South Indian Muslims and even the Muslims outside India-all are united. They always stand untied in face of danger. The broken and divided Hindus will not be able to combat them. Days are coming when the Hindus will be again humiliated by the Muslims. "You are a mother of children, one day you will die, passing the future of Hindus society on the weak shoulders of your children, but think about their future."”

Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) Bengali polymath

From the letter to Hemantabala Sarkar, written on 16the October, 1933, quoted in Bengali weekly `Swastika', 21-6-1999 http://hindusamhati.blogspot.com/2013/05/thoughts-of-rabindranath-tagore-on.html

Children , Religion , Thinking , Suffering

“All that is done and said and thought and suffered upon the Earth combine together, and flow onward in one broad resistless current toward those great results to which they are determined by the will of God.
We build slowly and destroy swiftly. Our Ancient Brethren who built the Temples at Jerusalem, with many myriad blows felled, hewed, and squared the cedars, and quarried the stones, and car»ed the intricate ornaments, which were to be the Temples. Stone after stone, by the combined effort and long toil of Apprentice, Fellow-Craft, and Master, the walls arose; slowly the roof was framed and fashioned; and many years elapsed, before, at length, the Houses stood finished, all fit and ready for the Worship of God, gorgeous in the sunny splendors of the atmosphere of Palestine. So they were built. A single motion of the arm of a rude, barbarous Assyrian Spearman, or drunken Roman or Gothic Legionary of Titus, moved by a senseless impulse of the brutal will, flung in the blazing brand; and, with no further human agency, a few short hours sufficed to consume and melt each Temple to a smoking mass of black unsightly ruin.
Be patient, therefore, my Brother, and wait!
The issues are with God: To do,
Of right belongs to us.
Therefore faint not, nor be weary in well-doing! Be not discouraged at men's apathy, nor disgusted with their follies, nor tired of their indifference! Care not for returns and results; but see only what there is to do, and do it, leaving the results to God! Soldier of the Cross! Sworn Knight of Justice, Truth, and Toleration! Good Knight and True! be patient and work!”

Albert Pike book Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry

Source: Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry (1871), Ch. XIX : Grand Pontiff, p. 321

Men , God , Truth , Justice

“Cause sometimes you feel tired, feel weak, and when you feel weak, you feel like you wanna just give up. But you gotta search within you, you gotta find that inner strength and just pull that shit out of you and get that motivation to not give up and not be a quitter, no matter how bad you wanna just fall flat on your face and collapse.”

Eminem (1972) American rapper and actor

"Till I Collapse"
2000s, The Eminem Show (2002)

Motivation , Bad luck , Feeling , Search

“Men grow tired of sleep, love, singing and dancing, sooner than of war.”

Homér Iliad

A misquotation http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ads-l/2009-August/092648.html of:

Πάντων μὲν κόρος ἐστὶ καὶ ὕπνου καὶ φιλότητος
μολπῆς τε γλυκερῆς καὶ ἀμύμονος ὀρχηθμοῖο,
τῶν πέρ τις καὶ μᾶλλον ἐέλδεται ἐξ ἔρον εἷναι
ἢ πολέμου· Τρῶες δὲ μάχης ἀκόρητοι ἔασιν.

Men get
Their fill of all things, of sleep and love, sweet song
And flawless dancing, and most men like these things
Much better than war. Only Trojans are always
Thirsty for blood!

Iliad, XIII, 636–639 (tr. Ennis Rees)

The misquotation implies that an overweening love of war was the norm, whereas the real quote decries the Trojans as inhumane for keeping the war going.
Misattributed

Singing , Sleep , War , Dance

“Healing hurts. But what hurts more is the refusal of the call. The true pain of living is the abandonment of self, the mind-body split that makes us fear life. Our ache may be heavy and our souls tired today, but resistance makes it all feel a thousand times worse. Rejection of where we are amplifies suffering. Until we cannot take it anymore. Until there is no way out but in. Diving into the blackness, we discover not death but more abundant life. This is the great paradox of healing, which all great artists and poets and seers have known. We die into our trauma and discover our courage. The fiercest warriors are the ones who have let life break and remake them a thousand times over. The gods of healing are calling through your pain today. Healing hurts, yes, but the hurt itself may eventually heal you.”

Jeff Foster (1980) Spiritual teacher

Source: https://www.instagram.com/p/B-16fjMHi5o/

“It seemed silly to wash one day when I would only have to wash again the next.

It made me tired just to think of it.”

Sylvia Plath book The Bell Jar

Source: The Bell Jar

Thinking

“Never tire yourself more than necessary, even if you have to found a culture on the fatigue of your bones.”

Antonin Artaud (1896–1948) French-Occitanian poet, playwright, actor and theatre director

Ci-Gît (1947).

“Just be ordinary and nothing special. Eat your food, move your bowels, pass water, and when you're tired, go and lie down. The ignorant will laugh at me, but the wise will understand.”

Bruce Lee book Tao of Jeet Kune Do

Variant: In Buddhism, there is no place for using effort. Just be ordinary and nothing special. Eat your food, move your bowels, pass water and when you're tired go and lie down. The ignorant will laugh at me, but the wise will understand.
Source: Tao of Jeet Kune Do

Lie , Food , Understanding , Water

“Man was made at the end of the week's work when God was tired.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Source: 381 https://cdm15999.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/ItalTravLit/id/22790
Ref: en.wikiquote.org - Mark Twain / Quotes / Mark Twain's Notebook (1935)

God

“Suddenly Saracen Rue looked old and tired, and Skulduggery Pleasant came into focus as what he really was – a genius, a killer, a tortured soul, and the only true dead man among them.”

Derek Landy (1974) Irish children's writer

Source: Last Stand of Dead Men

Soul , Dead

“I discovered that I am tired of being a person. Not just tired of being the person I was, but any person at all”

Susan Sontag (1933–2004) American writer and filmmaker, professor, and activist

Personality

“If its got tires or testicles it's going to give you trouble”

P. C. Cast book Awakened

Source: Awakened

“It is late now, I am a bit tired; the sky is irritated by stars. And I love you, I love you, I love you – and perhaps this is how the whole enormous world, shining all over, can be created – out of five vowels and three consonants.”

Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977) Russian-American novelist, lepidopterist, professor

Source: Letters to Vera

Love , World , Star

“I'm tired of this back-slappin' "isn't humanity neat" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes.”

Bill Hicks (1961–1994) American comedian

Shoe

“It tires me to talk to rich men. You expect a man of millions, the head of a great industry, to be a man worthhearing; but as a rule they don't know anything outside their own business.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

Men , Business

“There's something happening everyday, but I'm too tired and lazy to write it all down.”

Anne Frank (1929–1945) victim of the Holocaust and author of a diary

“because he had no place he could stay in without getting tired of it and because there was nowhere to go but everywhere, keep rolling under the stars…”

Jack Kerouac book On the Road

Source: On the Road

Star

“I like grit, I like love and death, I'm tired of irony.”

Jim Harrison (1937–2016) American novelist, poet, essayist

Love , Death

“If you set to work to believe everything, you will tire out the believing-muscles of your mind, and then you'll be so weak you won't be able to believe the simplest true things.”

Lewis Carroll (1832–1898) English writer, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer

“When we are tired, we are attacked by ideas we conquered long ago.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

Idea

“I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of any thing than of a book! -- When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library.”

Jane Austen book Pride and Prejudice

Source: Pride and Prejudice

Books , Reading , Housing

“I'll never wake up in a good mood again.
I'm tired of these stinky boots”

Jim Morrison (1943–1971) lead singer of The Doors

Source: An American Prayer

Mood

“There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy and the tired.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby

Source: The Great Gatsby

Business

“Oh, let me be mawkish for the nonce! I am so tired of being cynical.”

Vladimir Nabokov book Lolita

Source: Lolita

“I don’t stop when I’m tired. I only stop when I’m done…”

Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962) American actress, model, and singer

“Tired of myself longing for what I have not”

Samuel Richardson book Clarissa

Source: Clarissa, or, the History of a Young Lady

“I am so beastly tired of mankind and the world that nothing can interest me unless it contains a couple of murders on each page or deals with the horrors unnameable and unaccountable that leer down from the external universes.”

H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author

World , Universe

“Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home; that wildness is a necessity; and that mountain parks and reservations are useful not only as fountains of timber and irrigating rivers, but as fountains of life.”

John Muir book Our National Parks

Source: 1900s, Our National Parks (1901), chapter 1: The Wild Parks and Forest Reservations of the West

Life , People , Home , Mountain

“Anger and hatred, when left unfed, bleed away like air from a punctured tire, over time and days and years. Forgiveness is stealth.”

Barry Lyga (1971) American writer

Source: Boy Toy

Forgiveness , Time , Anger

“Sometimes my feet are tired and my hands are quiet, but there is no quiet in my heart.”

W.B. Yeats (1865–1939) Irish poet and playwright

Heart

“People don't always want to be with people. It gets tiring.”

Emma Donoghue Room

Source: Room

People

“When from our better selves we have too long
Been parted by the hurrying world, and droop,
Sick of its business, of its pleasures tired,
How gracious, how benign, is Solitude.”

William Wordsworth book The Prelude

Bk. IV, l. 354.
The Prelude (1799-1805)

Pleasure , World , Business , Solitude

“How small life is here
and how big nothingness.
The sky, tired of light,
has given everything to the snow.

The two trees bow
their heads to each other.
Clouds cross the world’s
silence in a circle dance”

Robert Walser (1878–1956) Swiss writer

Source: Oppressive Light: Selected Poems by Robert Walser

Life , World , Tree , Light

“Halfway down the aisle, Jamie suddenly seemed to tire, and they stopped while she caught her breath… It was, I remembered thinking, the most difficult walk anyone ever had to make. In every way, a walk to remember.”

Nicholas Sparks book A Walk to Remember

Source: A Walk to Remember

Way , Thinking

“What makes us want to know the worst? Is it that we tire of preferring to know the best? Does curiosity always hurdle self-interest? Or is it, more simply, that wanting to know the worst is love's favorite perversion.”

Julian Barnes (1946) English writer

Love

“Don't you get tired of seeing so many "non-conformists" with the same non-conformist look?”

Thomas Sowell (1930) American economist, social theorist, political philosopher and author

Source: Ever Wonder Why? and Other Controversial Essays

“It is said (I do not know with what truth) that a certain Hindu thinker believed the earth to rest upon an elephant. When asked what the elephant rested upon, he replied that it rested upon a tortoise. When asked what the tortoise rested upon, he said, "I am tired of this. Suppose we change the subject."”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

This illustrates the unsatisfactory character of the First-Cause argument.
"Is There a God?" (1952)
1950s

Truth , Change

“I never tire of reading Tom Paine.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

As quoted in A Literary History of the American People‎ (1931) by Charles Angoff, p. 270
Posthumous attributions

Pain , Reading

“However, our task is far from over. Our friends in the other party will never forgive us for our success, and are doing everything in their power to rewrite history. Listening to the liberals, you'd think that the 1980's were the worst period since the Great Depression, filled with suffering and despair. I don't know about you, but I'm getting awfully tired of the whining voices from the White House these days. They're claiming there was a decade of greed and neglect, but you and I know better than that. We were there.”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

Speech at 1994 Gala for 83rd Birthday http://odur.let.rug.nl/~usa/P/rr40/speeches/gala_speech.htm (3 February 1994)
Post-presidency (1989–2004)

History , Forgiveness , Thinking , Suffering

“Let a man find himself, in distinction from others, on top of two wheels with a chain — at least in a poor country like Russia — and his vanity begins to swell out like his tires. In America it takes an automobile to produce this effect.”

Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) Marxist revolutionary from Russia

The Russian Revolution (1930)

Country

“Physical pleasure is a sensual experience no different from pure seeing or the pure sensation with which a fine fruit fills the tongue; it is a great unending experience, which is given us, a knowing of the world, the fullness and the glory of all knowing. And not our acceptance of it is bad; the bad thing is that most people misuse and squander this experience and apply it as a stimulant at the tired spots of their lives and as distraction instead of a rallying toward exalted moments.”

Rainer Maria Rilke book Letters to a Young Poet

Letter Four (16 July 1903)
Letters to a Young Poet (1934)

People , Pleasure , World

“I'm very much alone all day, I read a litle but, in the long run, it gives me a headache. I draw and paint as much as I can, indeed till my hand grows tired, and when night begins to fall I hope Jeanne d'Armagnac [his cousin] will come to my bedside. She does sometimes, and cheers me up and plays with me, and I listen to her talk, without daring to look at her. She is so tall and so beautiful! And I am neither tall nor beautiful.”

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864–1901) French painter

The previous Summer, at Barèges, while he lay with his leg in plaster, Lautrec had often been visited in the evening by his cousin, Jeanne d'Armagnac
Source: 1879-1884, T-Lautrec, by Henri Perruchot, p. 53 - written note in Nice, Winter of 1880

Beauty , Hope , Reading , Drawing

“As a strong horse that has often won on the last lap at Olympia is now resting, tired out by old age.”
Sicut fortis equus, spatio qui saepe supremo Vicit Olympia, nunc senio confectus quiescit.

Ennius (-239–-169 BC) Roman writer

As quoted by Cicero in De Senectute, Chapter V (tr. K. Volk)

Age , Strong , Horse

“The past alone is truly real: the present is but a painful, struggling birth into the immutable being of what is no longer. Only the dead exist fully. The lives of the living are fragmentary, doubtful, and subject to change; but the lives of the dead are complete, free from the sway of Time, the all but omnipotent lord of the world. Their failures and successes, their hopes and fears, their joys and pains, have become eternal—our efforts cannot now abate one jot of them. Sorrows long buried in the grave, tragedies of which only a fading memory remains, loves immortalized by Death's hallowing touch these have a power, a magic, an untroubled calm, to which no present can attain. …On the banks of the river of Time, the sad procession of human generations is marching slowly to the grave; in the quiet country of the Past, the march is ended, the tired wanderers rest, and the weeping is hushed.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

On History (1904)
1900s

Love , Death , Pain , World

“It's like chasing a beautiful woman for 80 years. Finally, she relents and you say, "I am terribly sorry. I'm tired."”

Paul Newman (1925–2008) American actor and film director

Upon winning the 1986 Academy Award for Best Actor, (in The Color of Money), after having being nominated seven times; quoted in Tom O'Neil, "Gold Derby," http://goldderby.latimes.com/awards_goldderby/2006/09/an_oscar_finall.html, Los Angeles Times (2006-09-03)

Beauty

“Children, if you are tired, keep going; if you are hungry, keep going; if you want to taste freedom, keep going.”

Harriet Tubman (1820–1913) African-American abolitionist and humanitarian

"Harriet Tubman never said this — it comes from one of the scores of juvenile Harriet Tubman fictionalized biographies." — Kate Larson, Harriet Tubman biographer.
Disputed

Children , Freedom

“Treat me like I'm evil
Freeze me till I'm cold
Beat me till I'm feeble
Grind me till I'm old
Wire me till I'm tired
Push me like I fall
Treat me like a criminal,
just a shadow on the wall!”

Mike Oldfield (1953) English musician, multi-instrumentalist

Song lyrics, Crises (1983)

Evil

“Come sit by my side, Lydia, on the bank of the river.
Calmly let us watch it flow, and learn
That life passes, and we are not holding hands.
(Let us hold hands)
…..
Let us hold hands no more: why should we tire ourselves?
For our pleasure, for our pain, we pass on like the river.
'Tis better to know how to pass on silently,
With no great disquiet.”

Fernando Pessoa (1888–1935) Portuguese poet, writer, literary critic, translator, publisher and philosopher

Vem sentar-te comigo, Lídia, à beira do rio.
Sossegadamente fitemos o seu curso e aprendamos
Que a vida passa, e não estamos de mãos enlaçadas.
(Enlacemos as mãos)
.....
Desenlacemos as mãos, porque não vale a pena cansarmo-nos.
Quer gozemos, quer não gozemos, passamos como o rio.
Mais vale saber passar silenciosamente
E sem desassossegos grandes.
Ricardo Reis (heteronym), ode translated by Peter Rickard.

Life , Pain , Pleasure , Learning

“Back around 1971, I was playing in a bar in Chicago one night, and after the show, I was packing up my guitar and stuff, and I was walking out the door, and a little guy stopped me. And he said, "Arlo, before you leave, I wanna sing you a song." I said "Come on man, I don't wanna hear no songs. I hate songs. I don't even like my songs! Why should I like your songs?" I was just tired, I wanted to get out of there, I was being a butt-head. He said, "Arlo, I just wanna sing you one song." I said, "Tell you what. Buy me beer. I'll sit here and drink it. As long as it lasts, you can do whatever you want." He said, "That sounds like a good deal."”

Arlo Guthrie (1947) American folk singer

I said "It does?" It turned out to be one of the finer beers of my entire life.
Arlo talking about his first meeting with Steve Goodman, who would perform to him "The City of New Orleans" (Live in Sydney)

Life , Hate , Guy , Drink

“Thought
is a flower from other worlds, a tale
that is torn in each written word.
……………I go outdoors
to give rest
to the soul’s tired muscles.”

Juan Antonio Villacañas (1922–2001) Spanish poet, essayist and critic

“Literaturaliae”, from Theme of My Biography (2000)

World , Soul , Flowers

“Give me the love that leads the way,
The faith that nothing can dismay,
The hope no disappointments tire,
The passion that will burn like fire;
Let me not sink to be a clod:
Make me Thy fuel, Flame of God”

Amy Carmichael (1867–1951) Missionary in India

From The Collected Poems of Amy Carmichael, CLC, Fort Washington, USA 1999, ISBN 0-87508-790-6.

Love , God , Faith , Hope

“We have taller buildings but shorter tempers; wider freeways but narrower viewpoints; we spend more but have less; we buy more but enjoy it less; we have bigger houses and smaller families; more conveniences, yet less time; we have more degrees but less sense; more knowledge but less judgment; more experts, yet more problems; we have more gadgets but less satisfaction; more medicine, yet less wellness; we take more vitamins but see fewer results. We drink too much; smoke too much; spend too recklessly; laugh too little; drive too fast; get too angry; stay up too late; get up too tired; read too seldom; watch TV too much and pray too seldom.
We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values; we fly in faster planes to arrive there quicker, to do less and return sooner; we sign more contracts only to realize fewer profits; we talk too much; love too seldom and lie too often. We've learned how to make a living, but not a life; we've added years to life, not life to years. We've been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the street to meet the new neighbor. We've conquered outer space, but not inner space; we've done larger things, but not better things; we've cleaned up the air, but polluted the soul; we've split the atom, but not our prejudice; we write more, but learn less; plan more, but accomplish less; we make faster planes, but longer lines; we learned to rush, but not to wait; we have more weapons, but less peace; higher incomes, but lower morals; more parties, but less fun; more food, but less appeasement; more acquaintances, but fewer friends; more effort, but less success. We build more computers to hold more information, to produce more copies than ever, but have less communication; drive smaller cars that have bigger problems; build larger factories that produce less. We've become long on quantity, but short on quality.
These are the times of fast foods and slow digestion; tall men, but short character; steep in profits, but shallow relationships. These are the times of world peace, but domestic warfare; more leisure and less fun; higher postage, but slower mail; more kinds of food, but less nutrition. These are the days of two incomes, but more divorces; these quick trips, disposable diapers, cartridge living, throw-away morality, one-night stands, overweight bodies and pills that do everything from cheer, to prevent, quiet or kill. It is a time when there is much in the show window and nothing in the stock room.”

Bob Moorehead

"The Paradox of Our Age"; these statements were used in World Wide Web hoaxes which attributed them to various authors including George Carlin, a teen who had witnessed the Columbine High School massacre, the Dalai Lama and Anonymous; they are quoted in "The Paradox of Our Time" at Snopes.com http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/paradox.asp
Words Aptly Spoken (1995)

Love , Life , Men , Lie

“"But we've got passengers aboard," our skipper shouted through the darkness. "Prisoners?" the deck called; with a note of curiosity. "Stand by to bring the prisoners aboard." I climbed a rope ladder up the Augusta's side and crawled over the rail, cold, wet, hungry, and tired. The crew pressed forward to see its "prisoners". "Oh, hell," a sailor grunted, "it's only General Bradley."”

Omar Bradley (1893–1981) United States Army field commander during World War II

Source: A Soldier's Story (1951), p. 278.

Hell

“I'm offended by the kind of smarmy religiosity that's all around us, perhaps more in America than in Europe, and not really that harmful because it's not really that intense or even that serious, but just… you know after a while you get tired of hearing clergymen giving the invocation at various public celebrations and you feel, haven't we outgrown all this? Do we have to listen to this?”

Steven Weinberg (1933) American theoretical physicist

The Atheism Tapes (2004)

Feeling

“I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired.”

Ozzy Osbourne (1948) English heavy metal vocalist and songwriter

I Just Want You, written by Ozzy Osbourne and Jim Vallance.
Song lyrics, Ozzmosis (1995)

“How many, tired of lying, commit suicide into any truth.”

Antonio Porchia (1885–1968) Italian Argentinian poet

Cuántos, cansados de mentir, se suicidan en cualquier verdad.
Voces (1943)

Truth , Lying , Suicide

“The life is worth living. It's not true, what the tired and reactionary say. We're not on this earth to suffer and die. We're here to fulfill a mission.”

Joseph Goebbels (1897–1945) Nazi politician and Propaganda Minister

Denn das Leben ist wert, dass man es lebt. Das ist nicht wahr, was die Müden und Überlebten sagen. Wir sind nicht in diese Welt gesetzt, um zu leiden und zu sterben. Wir haben hier eine Mission zu erfüllen.
Michael: a German fate in diary notes (1926)

Life , Suffering

“He felt very tired, not from the mental effort, but because he had suddenly seen what the world was like, how there are many lies and truths”

José Saramago book The Cave

Source: The Cave (2000), p. 73 (Vintage 2003)

Truth , World , Effort

“Tired nature's sweet restorer, balmy sleep!”

Edward Young Night-Thoughts

Source: Night-Thoughts (1742–1745), Night I, Line 1.

Nature , Sleep

“Every man is proud of what he does well; and no man is proud of what he does not do well. With the former, his heart is in his work; and he will do twice as much of it with less fatigue. The latter performs a little imperfectly, looks at it in disgust, turns from it, and imagines himself exceedingly tired. The little he has done, comes to nothing, for want of finishing.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

1850s, Address before the Wisconsin State Agricultural Society (1859)

Imagination , Heart

“I have now so many fundamental thoughts, so many really metaphysical things to say, that I suddenly get tired and decide not to write more, not to think more, but allow the fever of saying to make me sleepy, and fondle, with closed eyes, as if to a cat, all that I could have said.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Ibid., p. 56
The Book of Disquiet
Original: Tenho neste momento tantos pensamentos fundamentais, tantas coisas verdadeiramente metafísicas para dizer, que me canso de repente, e decido não escrever mais, não pensar mais, mas deixar que a febre de dizer me dê sono, e eu faça festas, como a um gato, a tudo quanto poderia ter dito.

Cats , Thinking

“When I got home I mixed a stiff one and stood by the open window in the living room and sipped it and listened to the groundswell of traffic on Laurel Canyon Boulevard and looked at the glare of the big angry city hanging over the shoulder of the hills through which the boulevard had been cut. Far off the banshee wail of police or fire sirens rose and fell, never for very long completely silent. Twenty four hours a day somebody is running, somebody else is trying to catch him. Out there in the night of a thousand crimes, people were dying, being maimed, cut by flying glass, crushed against steering wheels or under heavy tires. People were being beaten, robbed, strangled, raped, and murdered. People were hungry, sick; bored, desperate with loneliness or remorse or fear, angry, cruel, feverish, shaken by sobs. A city no worse than others, a city rich and vigorous and full of pride, a city lost and beaten and full of emptiness. It all depends on where you sit and what your own private score is. I didn't have one. I didn't care. I finished the drink and went to bed.”

Raymond Chandler book The Long Goodbye

The Long Goodbye (1954)

People , Fear , Home , Drink

“So, now the Republicans are going around — this is the kind of thing they do. I don't understand it. They are going around. They're sending like little tire gauges, making fun of this idea, as if this is Barack Obama's energy plan. Now, two points. One, they know they're lying about what my energy plan is. But the other thing is, they are making fun of a step that every expert says would absolutely reduce our oil consumption by 3 percent to 4 percent. It's like these guys take pride in being ignorant, you know? I mean, they think it's funny that they're making fun of something that is actually true. They need to do their homework, because this is serious business. Instead of running ads about Paris Hilton and Britney Spears, they should go talk to some energy experts and actually make a difference.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

Responding to Republican criticism of his energy policy (5 August 2008) http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0808/05/sitroom.03.html
2008

Guy , Lying , Idea , Understanding

“The dialectics of history have already hooked him and will raise him up. He is needed by all of them; by the tired radicals, by the bureaucrats, by the Nepmen, the upstarts, by all the worms that are crawling out of the upturned soil of the manured revolution. He knows how to meet them on their own ground, he speaks their language and he knows how to lead them. He has the deserved reputation of an old revolutionist, which makes him invaluable to them as a blinder on the eyes of the country. He has will and daring. He will not hesitate to utilize them and to move them against the Party. Right now he is organising himself around the sneaks of the party, the artful dodgers.”

Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) Marxist revolutionary from Russia

Statement of 1924 on Joseph Stalin's growing powerbase, in Stalin, An Appraisal Of The Man And His Influence (1966); also in Stalin's Russia 1924-53 by Michael Lynch, p. 18

Art , History , Country