Quotes about touch (2110 quotes, page 21)

“Tucker Carlson began at The Weekly Standard. Tucker Carlson was a great young reporter. He was one of the most gifted 24-year-olds I’ve seen in the 20 years that I edited the magazine. His copy was sort of perfect at age 24.He had always a little touch of Pat Buchananism, I would say, paleo-conservativism.”

Tucker Carlson (1969) American political commentator

But that’s very different from what he’s become now. I mean, it is close now to racism, white — I mean, I don’t know if it’s racism exactly — but ethno-nationalism of some kind, let’s call it. A combination of dumbing down, as you said earlier, and stirring people’s emotions in a very unhealthy way.
Bill Kristol, January 25, 2018 ([Bill Kristol takes on Fox News, Tucker Carlson: ‘I don’t know if it’s racism exactly – but ethno-nationalism of some kind’, w:John Harwood, John, Harwood, January 25, 2018, NBC News, https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/24/bill-kristol-takes-on-fox-news-tucker-carlson.html, CNBC])

Perfection , Age

“Philopon: The misfortune of this man has always touched me in an extraordinary way. He lived in moderation, alone and irreproachable; he renounced all human idols and devoted his entire life to reflection, and look what happened! In the labyrinth of his meditations, he goes astray and, out of error, maintains much that agrees very little with his innocent way of life and that the most depraved scoundrel might wish for in order to be able to indulge his evil desires with impunity. How unjust is the irreconcilable hatred of scholars towards someone so unfortunate!”

Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) Dutch philosopher

Moses Mendelssohn, in his Philosophical Writings (1755–77) [original in German]
M - R

Way , Life , Error , Evil

“The Void Which Binds is touched by all of us who have wept with happiness, bidden a lover good-bye, been exalted with orgasm, stood over the grave of a loved one, or watched our baby open his or her eyes for the first time.”

Dan Simmons book The Rise of Endymion

Aenea is looking at me as she speaks, and I feel the gooseflesh rise along my arms.
“The Void Which Binds is always under and above the surface of our thoughts and senses,” she continues, invisible but as present as the breathing of our beloved next to us in the night. Its actual but unaccessible presence in our universe is one of the prime causes for our species elaborating myth and religion, for our stubborn, blind belief in extrasensory powers, in telepathy and precognition, in demons and demigods and resurrection and reincarnation and ghosts and messiahs and so many other categories of almost-but-not-quite satisfying bullshit.”
Source: The Rise of Endymion (1997), Chapter 20 (p. 400)

Baby , Time , Lovers , Love

“Photography is more than a means of recording the obvious. It is a way of feeling, of touching, of loving. What you have caught on film is captured forever, whether it be a face or a flower, a place or a thing, a day or a moment. The camera is a perfect companion. It makes no demands, imposes no obligations. It becomes your notebook and your reference library, your microscope and your telescope. It sees what you are too lazy or too careless to notice, and it remembers little things, long after you have forgotten everything.”

Aaron Siskind (1903–1991) American photographer

Aaron Sussman, cited in: The Amateur Photographer's Handbook, (1973), p. vi
Sussman, Aaron. The Amateur Photographer's Handbook. Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1973.

Perfection , Flowers , Way , Love

“He excels in description of forests and the hermitages of sages. Nature, in all its aspects and varieties — trees, mountains, rivers, clouds, dawn, sunset, had a great fascination for him. His sketches of some of the sages have a deft touch and they dwell on the greatness of penance and the sublimity of a spiritual life of self-realisation.”

Vālmīki Legendary Indian poet, author of the Ramayana

Source: The Epic Civilization, p. 51.

Tree , Mountain , Nature , Self-confidence

“His idea may not solve the mystery of faster-than-light neutrinos, and it may not even shed much light on it – the details of the analysis might be wrong, or be filled with old-fashioned ideas. But I thought it was fascinating that a 50-year-old New Scientist story touched on a topic that is all over the headlines today.”

Jayant Narlikar (1938) Indian physicist

Michael Brooks in: "Neutrino misbehaviour suggested 50 years ago"

Light , Idea , Fashion

“As Acting President and Vice President, he walked with Kings, Presidents and Prime Ministers, but never lost the common touch. He was always approachable and was kindliness to all. He brought to his chamber work, in his Opinions and in arbitrations, an understanding and humanity, and gave satisfaction to all.”

Mohammad Hidayatullah (1905–1992) 11th Chief Justice of India

By I.M Chagla
Speech By Mr. S. G. Page, Government Pleader, High Court, Bombay, Made OnMonday, 28 September, 1992

Understanding

“When my brother, Joseph, was sick and in the hospital, you got in bed with me when I was asleep and you kept trying to touch me! All these years I’d thought that maybe it was all a dream, but it wasn’t! You son of a bitch. I was eight years old, crazy with grief for my brother, Joseph, and you—how could you?!”

Victor Villaseñor (1940) American writer

Crazy Loco Love: A Memoir (2008)

Bitch , Dreams

“I began to worship pubic hair, to touch it, to smell it, to lick it. This was when I came to realize that pubic hair wasn’t at all like the hair we had on our heads. No, pubic hair was tougher, coarse, and sharp. You could cut your tongue on it if you licked it too hard. The hair on our heads wasn’t just finer but also round, and our pubic hair was thicker and flat, and so this was why it could cut you if you weren’t careful.”

Victor Villaseñor (1940) American writer

Crazy Loco Love: A Memoir (2008)

“The two hundred or so songs that Saigal sang, touched a popular chord despite their, or perhaps because of their, profundity.”

K. L. Saigal (1904–1947) Indian actor

Saigal, the unforgettable

“Remember this son, if you forget everything else. A poet is a musician who can’t sing. Words have to find a man’s mind before they can touch his heart. And, some men’s minds are woeful small targets. Music touches their hearts directly, no matter how small or stubborn the mind of the man who listens.”

Patrick Rothfuss book The Name of the Wind

Source: The Name of the Wind (2007), Chapter 14, “The Name of the Wind” (p. 113)

Singing , Forgetting , Heart , Music

“United always had many amazing players, but whenever we faced them we were always, always, always scared of what Paul Scholes could do. Ask anyone from that old Arsenal team, they will tell you the same. If you let him play, he can kill you, and for me he was so underrated. The way he plays: one touch, arriving late into the box, the way he strikes the ball, his vision, his passing. Incredible. I know people used to give him some stick for his tackling, but I liked that. He put his foot in, showed some character, had a go, but I liked that about him too. For me he is one of the best midfielders I have ever seen.”

Paul Scholes (1974) English footballer

http://www.arsenal.com/news/news-archive/henry-i-was-scared-of-incredible-scholes
Thierry Henry

Way , Box , People

“I’m more an admirer of Paul Scholes than I am of Ronaldo. Ronaldo is a fantastic player, but he has 10 other great players around him every week…Scholes is one of the most complete footballers I’ve ever seen. His one-touch play is phenomenal. Whenever I have played against him, I never felt I could get close to him.”

Paul Scholes (1974) English footballer

http://redflagflyinghigh.com/2011/05/blogs/scholes-tribute-the-worlds-top-players-on-the-ginger-prince/2
Eiður Guðjohnsen

Football

“I put my hand on him. Touching him has always been important to me, it was something I lived for. I never could explain why. Little, nothing touches, my fingers against his shoulder, the outsides of our thighs touching as we squeeled together on the bus. I couldnt explain it, but I needed it. Sometimes I imagined stiching all of our little touches together. How many hundreds of thousands of fingers brushing against each other does it take to make love?”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (2005)

Imagination , Love , Making love

“Here is guy who came to us as a return specialist and defensive back and has developed into a very good receiver. Has always had great hands and he has become a very good route runner. With his speed, he is a threat to score anytime he touches the ball.”

Ted Ginn, Jr. (1985) American football wide receiver, kick returner

Jim Tressel, [Ted Ginn for the Heisman Trophy, Ohio State University Department of Athletics, 2006, http://ohiostatebuckeyes.cstv.com/sports/m-footbl/spec-rel/osu-m-footbl-ginn-quotes.html, 2006-10-30]
About Ginn

Guy , Speed

“What a player. What a man. What an absolute diamond of a footballer. The critics, the haters, they cannot touch Frank Lampard now. Not after last night. Not after that penalty. He won, they lost. He stood tall, they skulked in the background.”

Frank Lampard (1978) English association football player

Martin Samuel, writing in The Times on May 1, 2008. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/european_football/article3851215.ece

Penalty , Football , Night

“Warmed by the instincts of a knightly heart, That roused at once if insult touched the realm, He spurned each Statecraft, each deceiving art, And met his foes, no vizor to his helm. This proved his worth; hereafter be our boast: Who hated Britons hated him the most.”

Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865) British politician

Bernal Osborne adapting a Bulwer-Lytton poem at a speech to the Reform Club, 1850

Hate , Heart , Art

“Heath has touched so many people on so many different levels during his short life but few had the pleasure of truly knowing him. He was a down to earth, generous, kind-hearted, life-loving, unselfish individual who was extremely inspirational to many.”

Heath Ledger (1979–2008) Australian actor

Kim Ledger, father of Heath Ledger, in an on-camera public statement after learning of his son's death, in Perth, on January 23, BBC News, Entertainment|publisher=bbc.co.uk (BBC)|date=January 23, 2008|accessdate=2008-08-23}}
[Kareen Wynter, Actor Heath Ledger Dead at 28, http://www.cnn.com/2008/SHOWBIZ/Movies/01/22/heath.ledger.dead/index.html#cnnSTCText, CNN, Web, cnn.com (Time Warner), January 22, 2008, Entertainment, 2008-08-22]

People , Heart , Pleasure , Love

“What we aim to do is calm the spirit and get in touch with the source from which everything comes, removing any trace of malice or egotism. If you spend too much time trying to find out what is good or bad about someone else, you’ll forget your own soul and end up exhausted and defeated by the energy you have wasted in judging others.”

Paulo Coelho book Aleph

Aleph (2011)

Forgetting , Bad luck , Time , Soul

“Neither punk nor prom king, Mayer was a tall kid from Connecticut, driving on the freeways, chasing slippery techno women, inhabiting a world of parents and slipcovers and holidays and gracious Southeastern metropolises; he was smart, inquisitive, articulate, a touch off in places.”

John Mayer (1977) guitarist and singer/songwriter

Hunter, James (2003-10-02), "Corduroy Boy" http://www.rollingstone.com/reviews/album/_/id/300650/johnmayer?pageid=rs.ArtistDiscography&pageregion=triple1. Rolling Stone. (932):116 Retrieved October 2, 2003

World , Holiday , Parent , Women

“To few men was it given to realize so completely the element of eternity — of time-effacing enjoyment in work — as it was to John Muir. The secret of it all was in his soul, the soul of a child, of a poet, and of a strong man, all blended into one. … An innate nobility of character, an unstudied reverence for all that is sublime in nature or in life, unconsciously called forth the best in his friends and acquaintances. In the spiritual as in the physical realm flowers blossomed in his footsteps where he went. After all it is to such men as John Muir that we must look for the sustenance of those finer feelings that keep men in touch with the spiritual meaning and beauty of the universe, and make them capable of understanding those rare souls whose insight has invested life with imperishable hope and charm. … To all who knew John Muir intimately his gentleness and humaneness toward all creatures that shared the world with him, was one of the finest attributes of his character. … Among those who have won title to remembrance as prophets and interpreters of nature he rises to a moral as well as poetical altitude that will command the admiring attention of men so long as human records shall endure.”

John Muir (1838–1914) Scottish-born American naturalist and author

William Frederic Badé (pages 38-40)
Sierra Club Bulletin - Memorial Issue

Soul , Time , Understanding , Strong

“I read some articles about him, his message and his work. I was deeply impressed by the extent of the recognition that he has received as he travels around the world. Millions of people have come to him throughout the years looking for inspiration and guidance. He has received honors from many cities around the world and has been invited to speak in some of the most prestigious forums. He is a true globalizer. More than that, what has struck me is—how much he has touched the lives of countless individuals, rich and poor alike, regardless of their beliefs or condition—in all positions in society. The need to find peace is a most pressing one. And it is a privilege and honor to welcome someone who claims that peace is possible and who offers to show a practical way to find peace within. He brings a message of hope and peace that is simple and from the heart. A message that is relevant for each and every individual.”

Prem Rawat (1957) controversial spiritual leader

Mr. S. Haribhakti, President of the Indian Merchants Chamber of Commerce, Mumbai, India. February 28, 2004.
About, 2000s

Peace , Reading , People , Heart

“Other countries may boast of this and that, but nobody can touch the United States for poisonous snakes. We have about twenty species, most of them deadly, and Europe has only five or six, none of them much good. We have fifteen kinds of Rattlesnakes alone and nobody else has even one.”

Will Cuppy (1884–1949) American writer

Footnote: There is a species in Central and South America, but it probably came from here.
The Rattlesnake
How to Become Extinct (1941)

Country

“In Poetry I have a few axioms, and you will see how far I am from their centre. I think Poetry should surprise by a fine excess and not by singularity — it should strike the reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts, and appear almost a remembrance — Its touches of Beauty should never be halfway thereby making the reader breathless instead of content: the rise, the progress, the setting of imagery should like the Sun come natural to him — shine over him and set soberly although in magnificence leaving him in the luxury of twilight — but it is easier to think what Poetry should be than to write it — and this leads me on to another axiom. That if Poetry comes not as naturally as the leaves to a tree it had better not come at all.”

John Keats (1795–1821) English Romantic poet

Letter to John Taylor (February 27, 1818)
Letters (1817–1820)

Tree , Sun , Beauty , Nature

“While the galleries were all applausive of heart, and the Fourth Estate looked with eyes enlightened, as if you had touched its lips with a staff dipped in honey,—I have sat with reflections too ghastly to be uttered.”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

1850s, Latter-Day Pamphlets (1850), Stump Orator (May 1, 1850)

Heart

“World-Poets too, those whom we are to take for perfect Poets, are settled by critics in the same way. One who rises so far above the general level of Poets will, to such and such critics, seem a Universal Poet; as he ought to do. And yet it is, and must be, an arbitrary distinction. All Poets, all men, have some touches of the Universal; no man is wholly made of that.”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

1840s, Heroes and Hero-Worship (1840), The Hero as Poet

Perfection , Universe , Way , World

“This is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body.... The poet shall not spend his time in unneeded work. He shall know that the ground is always ready ploughed and manured.... others may not know it but he shall. He shall go directly to the creation. His trust shall master the trust of everything he touches.... and shall master all attachment.”

Walt Whitman (1819–1892) American poet, essayist and journalist

From the Preface to the 1855 edition of <i>Leaves of Grass</i>

School , Family , God , Soul

“What I have found to be unanimous about people is that they guard and act like they don’t want you to touch the places inside them that they are the most desperate for you to touch.”

Teal Swan (1984) American spiritual teacher

People

“We humans have a deep need to think highly of ourselves. If that opinion of our goodness, greatness, and brilliance diverges enough from reality, we become grandiose. We imagine our superiority. Often a small measure of success will elevate our natural grandiosity to even more dangerous levels. Our high self-opinion has now been confirmed by events. We forget the role that luck may have played in the success, or the contributions of others. We imagine we have the golden touch. Losing contact with reality, we make irrational decisions. That is why our success often does not last. Look for the signs of elevated grandiosity in yourself and in others—overbearing certainty in the positive outcome of your plans; excessive touchiness if criticized; a disdain for any form of authority. Counteract the pull of grandiosity by maintaining a realistic assessment of yourself and your limits. Tie any feelings of greatness to your work, your achievements, and your contributions to society.”

Robert Greene (1959) American author

Chap. 11 : Know Your Limits
The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

Imagination , Success , Forgetting , Bad luck

“Many is the mirage I chased. Always I was overreaching myself. The oftener I touched reality, the harder I bounced back to the world of illusion, which is the name for everyday life. 'Experience! More experience!”

Henry Miller book Plexus

I clamored. In a frantic effort to arrive at some kind of order, some tentative working program, I would sit down quietly now and then and spend long, long hours mapping out a plan of procedure. Plans, such as architects and engineers sweat over, were never my forte. But I could always visualize my dreams in a cosmogonic pattern. Though I could never formulate a plot I could balance and weigh opposing forces, characters, situations, events, distribute them in a sort of heavenly lay-out, always with plenty of space between, always with the certitude that there is no end, only worlds within worlds ad infinitum, and that wherever one left off one had created a world, a world finite, total, complete.
The Rosy Crucifixion II : Plexus (1953)

World , Life , Reality

“I have been reading Miss Austen's Emma, which I had entirely forgotten, with the greatest enjoyment. I think it an admirable book, & I dare say you will agree with me. Miss Austen is an inimitable painter of quiet life. It would be difficult to say where the interest of Emma lies, yet it does interest strongly. There is no fine writing; no laboured description; no imaginative or ideal touches; no working on the feelings. Its magic must be its truth. It is exquisitely true. Life is presented to us, not as it may be taken in rare situations, in picturesque emergencies, but as we see it everyday. Common, workday life, with here & there a suit of best for Sundays. Yet there is nothing trivial. It is what Alfred calls in one of his unfinished poems "most ideal unideal, most uncommon commonplace."”

Jane Austen (1775–1817) English novelist

Dignity in the sentiments, dignity in the style. Quite a woman's book — (don't frown, Miss Fytche — I mean it for compliment) — none but a woman & a lady could possess that tact of minute observation, & that delicacy of sarcasm.
Arthur Henry Hallam, letter to fiancé Emily (Emilia) Tennyson (1833-01-25), Jane Austen and her Readers, 1786-1945, by Katie Halsey (Anthem Nineteenth-Century Series)

Imagination , Reading , Truth , Thinking

“Always fatuity, vulgarity, as soon as human passion is touched. […] Just as some poetry is of the eye (form, colour) and some of the ear, so Keats is of the palate. Not only has he constant reference to its pleasures, but the general sensation after reading him is one of tasting. 'What's the harm?”

E.M. Forster (1879–1970) English novelist

Well, taste for some reason or the other can't carry one far into the world of beauty—that reason being perhaps that though you don't want comradership there you do want the possibility of comradership, and A cannot swallow B's mouthful by any possibility:....and this exclusiveness (to maunder on) also attaches to the physical side of sex though not the least to the spiritual.
Letter 162, to Malcolm Darling, 1 December 1916
Selected Letters (1983-1985)

Pleasure , Reading , Passion

“It was just a bowl of peasant's clay, red brown in color, thickly made and rough to the touch, not perfectly round, with a small indentation on one side where the potter had damaged the unfired clay. It was worth pennies, perhaps nothing. Yet it was the greatest treasure of Christendom. And he kissed it once, and then he drew back his strong archer's right arm, ran down to the sucking sea's edge, and threw it as far and as hard as he could. He hurled it away and it span for an instant above the gray waves, seemed to fly a heartbeat longer as if it were reluctant to let go of mankind, and then the bowl was gone.”

Bernard Cornwell The Grail Quest

The Grail Quest, Heretic (2003)

Strong , Kiss , Color , Flying

“When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and Polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions. Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish."”

Steve Jobs (1955–2011) American entrepreneur and co-founder of Apple Inc.

It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.
2000s, Address at Stanford University (2005)

Personality , Life , Age , Country

“When the spirit touches
man's heart and brow
with thoughts that are lofty, bold, serene,
so that with clear eyes he will face the world
as a free man may;
when the spirit gives birth to action
by which alone we stand or fall;
when from the sane and resolute action
rises the workd that gives a a man's life
content and meaning — then would that many,
lonely and actively working,
know of the spirit that grasps and befriends him...”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) German Lutheran pastor, theologian, dissident anti-Nazi

Letters and Papers from Prison (1967; 1997), The Friend

World , Life , Birth , Heart

“The rhythm of life here is different from that of Nigeria. I really liked the efficiency and accessibility of things here, the educational opportunities. And I was touched by the beauty and tolerance it has taken to fashion America. But, for instance, the thing about old people staying in "homes" away from home blew my mind. As did how little Americans know or want to know about life elsewhere…”

Uwem Akpan (1971) Nigerian Jesuit priest and writer

On the differences between living in Nigeria and the United States in “Uwem Akpan” https://www.bookbrowse.com/author_interviews/full/index.cfm/author_number/1576/uwem-akpan in Book Browse

Home , Beauty , People , Education

“The spectacle of the beauty which embodies itself in a living being is infinitely more touching than that of the work the most grandiose.”

Michel Henry book L'Amour les yeux fermés

L'amour les yeux fermés (1976)
Original: (fr) Le spectacle de la beauté qui s'incarne dans un être vivant est infiniment plus émouvant que celui de l'œuvre la plus grandiose.

Michel Henry, L'Amour les yeux fermés, éd. Gallimard, 1976, p. 48

Beauty

“No object has ever had the experience of being touched.”

Michel Henry (1922–2002) French writer

Books on Religion and Christianity, Incarnation: A philosophy of Flesh (2000)
Original: (fr) Aucun objet n'a jamais fait l'expérience d'être touché.

Michel Henry, Incarnation. Une philosophie de la chair, éd. du Seuil, 2000, p. 295

“Because our flesh is nothing but what, feeling itself, suffering itself, sustaining itself and bearing itself and so enjoying from itself according to always reborning impressions, is able, for this reason, to feel the body which is exterior to it, to touch it as well as being touched by it. What the exterior body, the lifeless body of the material universe, is by principle incapable.”

Michel Henry (1922–2002) French writer

Michel Henry, Incarnation. Une philosophie de la chair, éd. du Seuil, 2000, p. 8
Books on Religion and Christianity, Incarnation: A philosophy of Flesh (2000)
Original: (fr) Car notre chair n'est rien d'autre que cela qui, s'éprouvant, se souffrant, se subissant et se supportant soi-même et ainsi jouissant de soi selon des impressions toujours renaissantes, se trouve, pour cette raison, susceptible de sentir le corps qui lui est extérieur, de le toucher aussi bien que d'être touché par lui. Cela donc dont le corps extérieur, le corps inerte de l'univers matériel, est par principe incapable.

Universe , Suffering , Feeling

“Food justice is incredibly important, because food touches all of our lives daily. We have to look at how [food] impacts everyone, from the waiters and waitresses and cooks at restaurants, to the produce workers who pick our food, to the animals who are suffering and dying so we can eat them. We have the responsibility to speak out against these injustices and make sure we hold those who are doing the exploiting accountable.”

Lauren Ornelas American activist

Interview in the book The Sustainability Secret https://books.google.it/books?id=z7KnDAAAQBAJ&pg=PT0 by Kip Anderson and Keegan Kuhn (2016).

Justice , Food , Suffering , Animals

“When you come to be sensibly touched, the scales will fall from your eyes; and by the penetrating eyes of love you will discern that which your other eyes will never see.”

François Fénelon (1651–1715) Catholic bishop

Quoted by Marilyn Ferguson in The Aquarian Conspiracy, Chapter 5 (1980)

Love , Making love

“This man belongs to me now! You cannot touch him!”

Eagle Woman (1820–1888) American peace activist (born 1820, near Big Bend of the Missouri River [in what is now South Dakota], U.S.…

To a raiding band, after protecting an ambushed white soldier with her shawl, as quoted in Eagle Woman Who All Look At, 2010, South Dakota Hall of Fame – Champions of Excellence, 2019-08-15 http://sdexcellence.org/Eagle_Woman_Who_All_Look_At_2010,

Alternatively, "This Man belongs to me now! You cannot mutilate him nor touch him!" as quoted in [Joseph Agonito, Brave Hearts: Indian Women of the Plains, https://books.google.com/books?id=QZ7RDAAAQBAJ, 1 October 2016, TwoDot, 978-1-4930-1906-9]

“I see here some foolish ones fidgeting and wondering why the guards do not remove me from the floor. Save your energy, for the guards cannot touch me. Nor can you so much as rise from your seats to lay hands on me. Try it, if you do not believe me.”

Desmond Leslie (1921–2001) British pilot, film maker, writer, and musician

The Amazing Mr. Lutterworth (1958)

“I sang it about soldiers, then, later, about gay men. It touches me deeply every time. I used to perform this song at Mr Henry’s and people would be totally silent. I knew it moved them.”

Roberta Flack (1937) American singer

On the song “Ballad of the Sad Young Men” in “Roberta Flack: 'My music is my expression of what I feel in a moment'” https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/jan/21/roberta-flack-interview-music-grammys in The Guardian (2020 Jan 21)

Time , People , Men

“Politics need to bring people hope. We need more dreams and more stories that touch people.”

Lai Pin-yu (1992) Taiwanese social activist

Lai Pin-yu (2020) cited in " 'We need more dreams': Taiwan's 'Squad' rallies youth ahead of election https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jan/10/taiwan-election-squad-youth-china-tsai-ing-wen" on The Guardian, 10 January 2020.

Dreams , People , Hope

“It [an owl] is like coming from a fairy-tale, something royal fragile, something that you would never want to touch, Yes to me it has become fully absolute because of that silver breast.”

Jan Mankes (1889–1920) Dutch painter

translation from original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek

(original Dutch: citaat van Jan Mankes, in het Nederlands:) Het [de uil] is net een verschijning uit een sprookje, iets koninklijk teers, iets waar je nooit aan zou willen raken, ja hij is voor mij door die zilveren borst totaal volmaakt geworden.

Quote of Jan Mankes, c. 1911 in a letter to his maceneas A.A.M. Pauwels in The Hague; as cited on the website of museum more in Gorssel https://www.museummore.nl/nu-te-zien/jan-mankes/

The owl was a present of his maceneas Pauwels who sent it to him and lived in his home. Mankes painted it in a. o. his 'Selfportrait with Owl', 1911 https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/01/Self_portrait_with_owl%2C_by_Jan_Mankes.jpg
1909 - 1914

“Great art isn't about decoration - it's a different language that can both touch our hearts, and open our minds.”

Bran Ferren (1953) American technologist

Source: I.D. Magazine Interview https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I.D._(magazine)

Heart , Art

“Then you must tell ’em dat love ain’t somethin’ lak uh grindstone dat’s de same thing everywhere and do de same thing tuh everything it touch. Love is lak de sea. It’s uh movin’ thing, but still and all, it takes its shape from de shore it meets, and it’s different with every shore.”

Zora Neale Hurston book Their Eyes Were Watching God

Source: Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937), Ch. 20

Love , Sea , Making love

“Our life a dazzling dream and the death a new arrival,
there is no end and never was a begginning.
Thousand centuries will gone and will leave faint signs
in the breaths of time, thousand suns will light up
and will burst and unexpected visitors
will come and will gone,
but something innate in us knows,
we were, we are, and will be forever,
a timeless gentle touch in eternity's face.”

alexis karpouzos

mystic poetry and spirituality

Time , Sun , Light , Dreams

“Rock music makes me alive, it makes me awake, so that tiredness can touch me and make me say – It's enough, I have earned much popularity.”

Ayub Bachchu (1962–2018) Musician, singer, songwriter

Bachchu in an interview with Shomoy TV.

Music , Making love

“When a man is touching 50 and has never had any productive job in his life, he cannot elicit respect from me as an individual... If you stand in the capital of India and say you support “Bharat ke tukde honge” (India will be broken into pieces), I don’t have an iota of respect for such individuals.”

Rahul Gandhi (1970) Indian politician

Smriti Irani (2020). https://web.archive.org/web/20200517065839/https://www.opindia.com/2020/05/smriti-irani-says-cant-embarrass-rahul-gandhi-as-he-is-an-embarrassment/

Support , Life

“An artist is the magician put among men to gratify — capriciously — their urge for immortality. The temples are built and brought down around him, continuously and contiguously, from Troy to the fields of Flanders. If there is any meaning in any of it, it is in what survives as art, yes even in the celebration of tyrants, yes even in the celebration of nonentities. What now of the Trojan War if it had been passed over by the artist's touch? Dust. A forgotten expedition prompted by Greek merchants looking for new markets. A minor redistribution of broken pots. But it is we who stand enriched, by a tale of heroes, of a golden apple, a wooden horse, a face that launched a thousand ships — and above all, of Ulysses, the wanderer, the most human, the most complete of all heroes — husband, father, son, lover, farmer, soldier, pacifist, politician, inventor and adventurer.”

Tom Stoppard Travesties

Joyce, Act I
Stoppard called this "the most important" speech in the play
Source: Travesties (1974)

War , Art , Horse , Relation ships

“I love simple things, I’m not really that turned on by the grandiosity of celebrity and fame. I love beautiful things… and I so appreciate all of the amazing experiences I get to have, and the finer things in life. But the things that really make me happy and re-ally touch my heart are just incredibly simple. I think I’ve always been that way my whole life.”

Liv Tyler (1977) American actress, producer and former model

Beauty , Happiness , Heart , Thinking

“Now I'm sober from your love
Just a touch will get me drunk, mm
My best friends are my memories
They're the only ones that save me from this misery
That's why I still keep the light on”

Paul Rey (1992) Swedish singer

Source: Song Tear Me Down, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwIHlq_zSaw

Memory , Light , Making love , Love

“The cloud controls the light.[...]It is the cloud that, holding the sun's rays in a sheaf as a giant holds a handful of spears, strikes the horizon, touches the extreme edge with a delicate revelation of light, or suddenly puts it out and makes the foreground shine.”

Alice Meynell (1847–1922) English publisher, editor, writer, poet, activist

"Cloud", pp. 16–17
The Colour of Life and Other Essays (1896)

Sun , Making love , Light

“Those who touch the sceptres of princes deserve no pity.”

Elizabeth I of England (1533–1603) Queen regnant of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until 1603

Remarks to the French ambassador on Charles de Gontaut, duc de Biron's rebellion against Henry IV of France (c. July 1602), quoted in J. E. Neale, Queen Elizabeth [1934] (1942), p. 364

“Because of the many things that have happened to me in my life, I have touched the decline more than the rise. I decided to retreat into myself. But I soon return stronger.”

Nedim Jahić (2001) Bosnian singer

Life

“For the man crucified on the crossed machine guns
Without name, without resurrection, without stars,
His dark head heavy with death and his flesh long sour
With the smell of his many prisons — John Smith, John Doe,
John Nobody — oh, crack your mind for his name!
Faceless as water, naked as the dust,
Dishonored as the earth the gas-shells poison
And barbarous with portent.
This is he.
This is the man they ate at the green table
Putting their gloves on ere they touched the meat.
This is the fruit of war, the fruit of peace,
The ripeness of invention, the new lamb,
The answer to the wisdom of the wise.
And still he hangs, and still he will not die
And still, on the steel city of our years
The light falls and the terrible blood streams down.”

Stephen Vincent Benét (1898–1943) poet, short story writer, novelist

Source: Litany for Dictatorships (1935)

Peace , Light , War , Star

“The prince must consider, as has been in part said before, how to avoid those things which will make him hated or contemptible; and as often as he shall have succeeded he will have fulfilled his part, and he need not fear any danger in other reproaches. It makes him hated above all things, as I have said, to be rapacious, and to be a violator of the property and women of his subjects, from both of which he must abstain. And when neither their property nor honour is touched, the majority of men live content, and he has only to contend with the ambition of a few, whom he can curb with ease in many ways. It makes him contemptible to be considered fickle, frivolous, effeminate, mean-spirited, irresolute, from all of which a prince should guard himself as from a rock; and he should endeavour to show in his actions greatness, courage, gravity, and fortitude; and in his private dealings with his subjects let him show that his judgments are irrevocable, and maintain himself in such reputation that no one can hope either to deceive him or to get round him. That prince is highly esteemed who conveys this impression of himself, and he who is highly esteemed is not easily conspired against; for, provided it is well known that he is an excellent man and revered by his people, he can only be attacked with difficulty.”

Niccolo Machiavelli book The Prince

Source: The Prince (1513), Ch. 19; translated by W. K. Marriot

Courage , Hate , Hope , People

“There is nothing new in these lectures, but only old truths retold. But the truths are of such vivid and perennial interest that, though old, they are never stale, and, though well known, there is always something to say which seems to throw on them new light and new charm. For they touch the deepest recesses of our being, and bring the breath of heaven into the lower life of earth...
May these reminders of the ancient facts of discipleship and Masterhood nerve some to effort, encourage others to perseverance. May they help some to realize the possibility of obeying the command: "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect."”

Annie Besant (1847–1933) British socialist, theosophist, women's rights activist, writer and orator

Source: Foreword, Initiation, The Perfecting of Man (1923)

Light , Help , Perfection , Truth

“For the truly creative mind in any field is no more than this — a human creature born abnormally, inhumanly sensitive. To him a touch is a blow, a sound is a noise, a misfortune is a tragedy, a joy is an ecstasy, a friend is a lover, a lover is a god, and failure is death. Add to this cruelly delicate organism the overpowering necessity to create — to create — to create — so that without the creating of music or poetry or books or buildings or something of beauty and meaning his very breath is cut off from him. He must create. He must pour out creation. By some strange unknown pressing inward urgency he is not really alive unless he is creating.”

Pearl S. Buck (1892–1973) American writer

"The Creative Mind at Work," William Vaughn Moody Foundation Lecture at the University of Chicago (1935), as quoted in Pearl S. Buck: A Biography, Volume 2 - Her Philosophy as Expressed in Her Letters (1971) by Theodore F. Harris, p. 217.

God , Beauty , Music , Joy

“See how the flower leans instinctively
Toward the light.
See how the heart reaches out instinctively
For no reason but to touch…”

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

Song lyrics, The Sensual World (1989)

Light , Flowers , Heart

“Above and beyond were mountains, scarcely touched by the tidemark of humanity at their bases, impervious to pipers and ice cream barrows or to the customers of either, as aloof and untouched as the desert which hems in the airport of Timbuctoo.”

Alastair Borthwick (1913–2003) British journalist

Always a Little Further (1939)

Mountain

“We are a continuous dance of unique emotions, we observe, we touch and we love to lose ourselves in the musical path of our soul.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: (it) Siamo una continua danza di emozioni uniche, ci osserviamo, ci sfioriamo e amiamo perderci nel sentiero musicale della nostra anima.
Source: prevale.net

Soul , Music , Dance , Love

“The moral ideal would embrace the whole of life. In its sight nothing is petty or indifferent. It touches the veriest trifles and turns them into shining gold. We are royal by virtue of it, and like the kings in the fairy tale, we may never lay aside our crowns.
The moral order never is, but is ever becoming. It grows with our growth.”

Felix Adler (1851–1933) German American professor of political and social ethics, rationalist, and lecturer

Section 4 : Moral Ideals
Life and Destiny (1913)

Indifference , Life

“There is no great genius without some touch of madness.”

Seneca the Younger (-4–65 BC) Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, and dramatist

Madness

“If you show her too much favor she will be punished. If you touch her, we’re all dead,” Ty said.
“Why?”

Neal Stephenson book Seveneves

Einstein asked.
“Because this is one of those cultures that is psychotic about female reproductive organs.”
“Five Thousand Years Later” (p. 776)
Seveneves (2015), Part Three

Dead

“Mean spirits, you whose only measure of value is gold, I have no desire to touch your treasures, however impure may have been the source of them.”

Maximilien Robespierre (1758–1794) French revolutionary lawyer and politician

On Property (24 April 1793)

“…It was very purposeful that I included animals that I’ve never touched, never looked into their eyes. We should be able to care for creatures outside of [our immediate vicinity]. We should be able to care about plants and animals and people that we’ve never seen before.”

Aimee Nezhukumatathil (1974) American writer

On not encountering every single animal mentioned in her book World of Wonders in “Aimee Nezhukumatathil: What a Wonderful World” https://www.kirkusreviews.com/news-and-features/articles/aimee-nezhukumatathil-world-of-wonders-interview/ in Kirkus Reviews (2020 Dec 2)

People , Animals

“What does the Lord save us from? Sickness, problems, daily life concerns, difficult circumstances that each of us face! These all are part of the salvation because salvation is ultimate and comprehensive. It touches upon the inner self.”

Paul Marwan Tabet (1961)

Fifteenth letter of His Excellency Bishop Paul-Marwan Tabet To the Maronite Community of Canada Christmas https://www.maronitecalgary.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Christmas-Letter-2020-Bishop-Tabet.pdf (December 2020)

Problem , Life , Parting

“If you know anything about Buddhism, you will know that the most important point is to be yourself and not try to become anything that you are not already. Buddhism is fundamentally about being in touch with your own deepest nature and letting it flow out of you unimpeded.”

Jon Kabat-Zinn (1944) American academic

Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life (2005)

Nature

“As writers we have to walk in the world in touch with that present, alert part of ourselves, that animal sense part that looks, sees, and notices - street signs, corners, fire hydrants, newspaper stands.”

Natalie Goldberg book Writing Down the Bones

Essay, "Be an animal". p.91
Writing Down the Bones (1986)

World , Animals , Sense , Parting

“In every religion there is always a touch of mystery. Letting the mind wander in unnecessary things.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Religion

“Truly God is the best of creators. He designed my physical face with so much care and a little touch of makeup in the form of a beard and mustaches.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

God

“Life is like a bird. Whose purpose of life is only to keep flying in the open sky. Do not imprison him in the cage of your misery because he suffocates and he torments day and night in the cage. Release him to fly in the open sky because he has the courage to touch the heights of the sky. Imprisoned in a cage, he loses his confidence and forgets to fly.”

Shabdon Ka Jahan

Confidence , Flying , Courage , Night

“All of one's life is a music, if one touches the notes rightly and in time.”

John Ruskin book The Ethics of the Dust

Lecture IV: The Crystal Orders, section 35
The Ethics of the Dust (1875)

Music , Time , Life

“How my imagination soared — the moon seemed so close that I felt I could reach out and touch it. And then my mind wandered: what are those noises outside?”

Irene Sabatini (1967) writer from Zimbabwe

Source: National Geographic https://www.nationalgeographic.co.uk/travel/2020/09/notes-from-an-author-irene-sabatini-on-finding-inspiration-in-zimbabwes-landscapes

Imagination

“It is a realization that what happens is the young become more connected to God given social media. What happens is they are touched by whatever happens and they want to promote it to others.”

Mylo Hubert Vergara (1962) Filipino bishop of the Catholic Church (born 1962)

Source: Bishop Vergara: Social media a key part of IEC 2016 http://www.archivioradiovaticana.va/storico/2016/01/29/bishop_vergara_social_media_a_key_part_of_iec_2016/en-1204631 (29 January 2016)

God

“The seer "sees" that every man is in touch with everything else, not through his hands, but through a bunch of long fibers that shoot out in all directions from the center of his abdomen. Those fibers join a man to his surroundings; they keep his balance; they give him stability.”

Carlos Castaneda book The Wheel of Time

Source: The Wheel of Time: Shamans of Ancient Mexico, Their Thoughts About Life, Death and the Universe], (1998), Quotations from A Separate Reality (Chapter 6)

“Politics is shit; it corrupts everything it touches, and getting involved in it only leads to misery and dissatisfaction.”

Charles Stross Saturn's Children

Source: Saturn's Children (2008), Chapter 9, “Coin-Operated Boy” (p. 157)

“With books or film I want to commemorate our youth and the sacrifices they made. No matter how bitter the time was, there is always something beautiful. I want to satisfy my nostalgia and hope [my work] is touching enough to move audiences who may not have the same experiences.”

Geling Yan (1958) Chinese writer and screenwriter

Source: "Turning Loss into Beauty: The Tragedies of Geling Yan" in The Wall Street Journal https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB930264290705115630 (25 June 1999)

Nostalgia , Books , Youth , Time

“The things... which are proper to the understanding no other man is used to impede, for neither fire, nor iron, nor tyrant, nor abuse, touches it in any way. When it has been made a sphere, it continues a sphere.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

Source: Meditations (c. AD 121–180), Book VIII, 41

Understanding , Way

“It’ll be over my dead body that I’ll have to get a shot, I will not do that. I won’t do it, and they better not touch my kids either.”

Sarah Palin (1964) American politician

2021

Dead

“I do think they [the EU] understand there's an opportunity to do a deal. I think it's going to be touch and go.”

Boris Johnson (1964) British politician, historian and journalist

2010s, 2019
Source: Brexit: Johnson accused of ‘gaslighting’ voters amid claims he offered nothing new in EU meeting https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-deal-boris-johnson-donald-tusk-meeting-g7-summit-a9078646.html (26 August 2019)

Understanding , Thinking

“The stars are caught in our hair
The stars are on our fingers
A veil of diamond dust
Just reach up and touch it
The sky's above our heads
The sea's around our legs
In milky, silky water
We swim further and further...”

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

Song lyrics, Aerial (2005), A Sky of Honey (Disc 2)

Star , Water , Sea

“This book must... touch... deep and difficult questions about birth and death... life and its inception... sexuality and gender, about distribution of power.”

Laurence Tribe (1941) American lawyer and law school professor

Source: Abortion: The Clash of Absolutes (1990), Approaching Abortion Anew

Question , Death , Books , Life

“The difference 'twixt good and bad is not so very much,
A few more minutes at the task, an extra turn or touch,
A final test that all is right—and yet the men are few
Who seem to think it worth their while these extra things to do.”

Edgar Guest (1881–1959) American writer

Source: All That Matters (1922), p.50 - Clinching the Bolt, stanza 3.

Thinking , Men

“[I]f we lay at all too much stress on the need of warlike preparations for quelling the peace-breaker, we find ourselves on a very slippery slope. ... It is all a perpetuation of war, not a planting of peace: a hardening in old error, not a change of heart. One of the most advanced French advocates of the League once said to me that the true guarantee of peace in Europe was a strong French Army and a strong British Navy. The sort of man who thinks that is the sort of man who ought never to be allowed to touch international affairs. Remove that implication. Accept freely, and put into practice, the principles of genuine and equal Disarmament, and then your preparation for Sanctions is perfectly right. To put crushing Sanctions in the hands of two particular Powers, or of an alliance of certain highly armed Powers, would be a crime against humanity.”

Gilbert Murray (1866–1957) Anglo-Australian scholar

1920s, The Ordeal of This Generation: The War, the League and the Future (1929)
Source: "The Felt Need. The Three Principles of the Covenant: Conference, Law, Sanctions", pp. 88-89

Thinking , War , Strong , Change

“Each kiss has its own touch, its own style and its own flavor, but only and always a kiss will make your heart beat.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: (it) Ogni bacio ha il suo tocco, il suo stile e il suo sapore, ma solo e sempre un bacio ti farà battere il cuore.
Source: prevale.net

Kiss , Heart

“But you can't just stand there and try to judge
It hurts but your jealousy probably tears you up inside as much
And it's such a pleasure every button that I touch
I treasure every glutton that I punish in my lust”

Eminem (1972) American rapper and actor

"Stimulate" (from 8 Mile, 2002)
2000s

Hurt , Pleasure , Tear , Jealousy

“Upbeat tunes make us want to dance around our kitchens and invite friends for dinner. But it's sad music that makes us want to touch the sky.”

Susan Cain book Bittersweet

Bittersweet, Chapter 2 at p. 36

Music , Dance , Sadness

“When your income passes a certain point you lose touch. All of a sudden the other people look like geeks or gooks, expendables.”

Ross Macdonald (1915–1983) Novelist

The Goodbye Look (1969)

People

“The Gamers are so out of touch with reality that they were never considered a serious threat.”

Larry Niven book Dream Park

Source: Dream Park (1981), Chapter 10, “Neutral Scent” (p. 140)

Reality

“Longing is momentum in disguise: It's active, not passive; touched with the creative, the tender, and the divine.”

Susan Cain (1968) self-help writer

Bittersweet Introduction at p. xxvi

“After I finished school, I started to get in touch with the referee's work. After all, I grew up in this circle and felt that the referee's job was more interesting, so I slowly decided that the referee's work was my future direction.”

Chen Ruolin (1992) Chinese diver

"从跳台女皇转身裁判席，陈若琳对跳水造星难有了更深的体会" http://m.thepaper.cn/kuaibao_detail.jsp?contid=3109243&from=kuaibao

School , Future

“If every instrument could accomplish its own work, obeying or anticipating the will of others, like the statues of Daedalus, or the tripods of Hephaestus, which, says the poet, ‘of their own accord entered the assembly of the Gods’; if, in like manner, the shuttle would weave and the plectrum touch the lyre without a hand to guide them, chief workmen would not want servants, nor masters slaves.”

Aristotle book Politics

Book I, part 4 (1920 translation by Benjamin Jowett)
Popularly simplified to when the looms spin by themselves, we'll have no need for slaves.
Politics

God

“A woman must not be violated even with the thought. A woman is the paradise to be seen that it is forbidden to touch without permission.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: Una donna non deve essere violata neanche con il pensiero. Una donna è il paradiso da vedere vietato toccare senza permesso.
Source: prevale.net