Quotes about translation (1037 quotes, page 7)

“At Heyser [a pub in The Hague] came the venerable old guys [painters]: Smit-Cranz, Coelman a. o. Those were the bigwigs, you see. We were the revolutionaries. And an opposition that we got! - In 't Kurhaus they hang a poster against us during our first exhibition; they named us 'mud painters'. (translation from original Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018)”

Willem Maris (1844–1910) Dutch landscape painter of the Hague School (1844-1910)

version in original Dutch / citaat van Willem Maris, in het Nederlands: Bij Heyser [een café in Den Haag] kwamen de eerbiedwaardige ouden [schilders]: Smit-Cranz, Coelman e.a. Dat waren de hooge oomes, zie je. Wij waren de revolutionairen. En tegenwerking dat we hebben gehad! - In heeft tijdens onze eerste tentoonstelling een pamflet gelegen tegen ons. We werden uitgescholden voor 'modderschilders'.
Quote of Willem Maris; as cited in 'Zó Hollands - Het Hollandse landschap in de Nederlandse kunst sinds 1850', Antoon Erftemeijer https://www.franshalsmuseum.nl/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/zohollands_eindversie_def_1.pdf; Frans Hals museum | De Hallen, Haarlem 2011, pp. 36-37

Guy

“"Elohim," the name for the creative power in Genesis, is a female plural, a fact that generations of learned rabbis and Christian theologians have all explained as merely grammatical convention. The King James and most other Bibles translate it as "God," but if you take the grammar literally, it seems to mean "goddesses." Al Shaddai, god of battles, appears later, and YHWH, mispronounced Jehovah, later still.”

Robert Anton Wilson (1932–2007) American author and polymath

Genesis, p. 197
Everything Is Under Control (1998)

God , Learning , Appearance

“He who does not look before him stays behind.”

Stefano Guazzo (1530–1593) Italian writer

Chi non guarda dinanzi rimane di dietro.
Della Prudenza et Dottrina del Re, p. 14.
Translation reported in Harbottle's Dictionary of quotations French and Italian (1904), p. 268.

“One naturally wonders if the problem of translation could conceivably be treated as a problem in cryptography. When I look at an article in Russian, I say: 'This is really written in English, but it has been coded in some strange symbols. I will now proceed to decode.”

Warren Weaver (1894–1978) American mathematician

"Translation" (1955), in W.N. Locke and A.D. Booth (eds.), Machine Translation of Languages (MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass.).

Nature , Problem

“The language of Europe is translation.”

Umberto Eco (1932–2016) Italian semiotician, essayist, philosopher, literary critic, and novelist

Statement in a lecture at the Assises de la Traduction littéraire in Arles (14 November 1993) http://www.eutrio.be/language-europe-translation

“Please be seated, and don't run away.”

Muhammad V of Kelantan (1969) Sultan of Kelantan

At the opening of the 14th Parliament of Malaysia, uttered in response to a walkout by Opposition members http://www.thesundaily.my/news/2018/07/17/king-says-please-be-seated-dont-run-away-updated protesting the inauguration of Mohamad Ariff Md. Yusof as Speaker of the Dewan Rakyat

“The king is the umbrella to the people and the people are the pillars of the king.”

Abdul Halim of Kedah (1927–2017) King of Malaysia

In comments issued through BERNAMA https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/dec/13/sultan-crowned-malaysia-king 13/12/2011

People

“A successful industrial nation, meaning a nation with future, can not be organized as a collective holiday resort.”

Helmut Kohl (1930–2017) former chancellor of West Germany (1982-1990) and then the united Germany (1990-1998)

Eine erfolgreiche Industrienation, das heißt eine Nation mit Zukunft, lässt sich nicht als kollektiver Freizeitpark organisieren.
In a parliamentary speech (March 1993)

Success , Future , Holiday

“The impulses which flow in the arm nerves of a typist convey to her fingers the translated information which reaches her eye or ear, in order that the fingers may be caused to strike the proper keys. Might not these currents be intercepted, either in the original form in which information is conveyed to the brain, or in the marvelously metamorphosed form in which they then proceed to the hand?”

Vannevar Bush book As We May Think

As We May Think (1945)

“In Hitler's Germany, when to be a Communist or Socialist or militant trade unionist or liberal och democrat meant arrest, the concentration camp, and often death and torture, when there was institued one of the most thoroughgoing "purges" of litterature and burning of books that the world has ever known, when Schiller's "Don Carlos", the poems of Heine and the novels of Thomas Mann were banned or burned as "subversive", the writings of Trotsky were widely translated and distributed.”

James Klugmann (1912–1977) British writer

From Trotsky to Tito (1951)

Death , Books , World

“Translated: "to the stars through difficulties."”

John James Ingalls (1833–1900) American politician

State motto of Kansas, reported to have been devised by Ingalls.
Attributed

Star

“What interests me about fascism is that it is a black hole of free will. It is a system which isn’t necessarily unique, but it absolves brutality, it absolves the lack of morals and it absolves people of their own decisions. When they tell you ‘you can kill these people because they are Jews, reds or homosexuals, or whatever!’ In this world you can permit a brutal action on the base of collective advice; that is what scares me.”

Guillermo del Toro (1964) Mexican film director

Lo que me interesa del fascismo es justamente que es un hoyo negro de la voluntad. Es un sistema que no necesariamente es único, pero absuelve la brutalidad, absuelve la falta de moral y absuelve la decisión propia. Cuando te dicen “Tú puedes matar a esta gente porque que son judíos, rojos o homosexuales, ¡lo que sea!”
En ese mundo puedes permitir una acción brutal en base a un consejo colectivo, eso es lo que me asusta.
Interview with Guillermo del Toro on 10/23/2006. http://www.fantasymundo.com/articulo.php?articulo=467

People , World , Decision

“Rembrandt's comments on his drawing of 'The Rest on the Flight into Egypt', as remembered by his former pupil Samuel van Hoogstraten c. 1643 (translation from the original Dutch: Anne Porcelijn)”

Rembrandt van Rijn (1606–1669) Dutch 17th century painter and etcher

Dresden museum, Kupferstichkabinett - author: Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn - Object: 'The Rest on the Flight into Egypt', Inventory number: C 1443 [document/remdoc/e4525]
1640 - 1670

Drawing

“The senses serve to blot out many more aspects of reality than they allow you to perceive. They are actually rather rigid limiting devices, yet in many inner explorations you will automatically translate experience into terms that the senses can use.”

Jane Roberts (1929–1984) American Writer

Session 284, Page 30
The Early Sessions: Sessions 1-42, 1997, The Early Sessions: Book 7

Reality , Sense

“"Trying to stop Robinho is a physical fatigue. Trying to stop Romário is an emotional fatigue."”

Romário (1966) Brazilian association football player

Marcar o Robinho é desgaste físico. Marcar o Romário é desgaste emocional
About
Source: ISTO É Magazine, Edition. 1788.
Context: Santos FC player Narciso.

“To-day we only smile, we laugh no more,
And e'en our very pleasures seem to bore.”

François-Joachim de Pierre de Bernis (1715–1794) Catholic cardinal

On ne rit plus, on sourit aujourd'hui,
Et nos plaisirs sont voisins a l'eunui.
Réflexions sur les passions et sur les goûts (1741).
Translation reported in Harbottle's Dictionary of quotations French and Italian (1904), p. 170.

Pleasure , Smile

“The translator of Homer should above all be penetrated by a sense of four qualities of his author: — that he is eminently rapid; that he is eminently plain and direct both in the evolution of his thought and in the expression of it, that is, both in his syntax and in his words; that he is eminently plain and direct in the substance of his thought, that is, in his matter and ideas; and, finally, that he is eminently noble.”

Matthew Arnold On Translating Homer

On Translating Homer (1861)

Idea , Sense

“You go outside, light your pipe, whistle a tune and just paint what you come across. (translation from original Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018)”

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

(version in original Dutch / origineel citaat van Anton Mauve, in het Nederlands:) Je gaat naar buiten, steekt je pijpje op, fluit een deuntje en schildert wat je tegenkomt.
Mauve's advice to his students; as cited by H.L. Berckenhoff, in Anton Mauve, Etsen van Ph. Zilcken, met fascimiles naar schilderijen, teekeningen en studies, Amsterdam 1890, (microfiche RKD-Archive Den Haag: Berckenhoff, 1890, p. 20)
Mauve's way of painting was in fact the opposite of his advice: often changing and much struggle
undated quotes

Light , Painting

“I wonder [interviewer: I hear him saying quite soon] or that line [in the picture he is just working on] doesn't repeat itself. It's more or less the same, isn't it? on both sides, don't you think so? [(interviewer) 'Maybe it is!' - I dare to say; there is no escape; I have to give advice] (translation from original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek)”

Willem Roelofs (1822–1897) Dutch painter and entomologist (1822-1897)

(original Dutch: citaat van Willem Roelofs, in het Nederlands:) Ik vraag me [af] - klinkt het al gauw, of die lijn zich niet wat repeteert [in het schilderij waaraan hij werkt].. .Het is zoo'n beetje hetzelfde, hè? aan alle bei de kanten, vindt-je niet? [interviewer: 'Misschien wel! ' waag ik te zeggen. Er is geen ontkomen aan; ik moet advies geven]
Quote of W. Roelofs, 1880's; recorded by an unknown interviewer, published in Elsevier's geïllustreerd maandschrift: verzameling van.., Oct. Nov. 1891; as cited in an excerpt in the RKD Archive https://rkd.nl/explore/excerpts/220, The Hague
1880's

Thinking

“If a society insists that warfare is the major occupation for the male sex, it is therefore insisting that all male children display bravery and pugnacity. Even if the insistence upon the differential bravery of men and women is not made articulate, the difference in occupation makes this point implicitly. When, however, a society goes further and defines men as brave and women as timorous, when men are forbidden to show fear and women are indulged in the most flagrant display of fear, a more explicit element enters in. Originally two variations of human temperament, a hatred of fear or willingness to display fear, they have been socially translated into inalienable aspects of the personalities of the two sexes. And to that defined sex-personality every child will be educated, if a boy, to suppress fear, if a girl, to show it.”

Margaret Mead (1901–1978) American anthropologist

Source: 1930s, Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies (1935), p. 287

Women , Men , Children , Education

“Translated: Ah, my faith! I know nothing about it; I am my own ancestor.”

Jean-Andoche Junot (1771–1813) French general

Ah, ma foi! Je n'en sais rien. Moi je suis mon ancêtre.
When needled about his lack of noble ancestry, recounted in Sydney Smith, Saba Holland, A Memoir of the Reverend Sydney Smith (1855), p. 245. Compare: "Curtius Rufus seems to me to be descended from himself", Tacitus recounting a saying of Tiberius, Annals, book xi. c. xxi. 16.; "To Harmodius, descended from the ancient Harmodius, when he reviled Iphicrates [a shoemaker’s son] for his mean birth, 'My nobility,' said he, 'begins in me, but yours ends in you'", Plutarch Apophthegms of Kings and Great Commanders, Iphicrates (rejected by some critics as not a genuine work of Plutarch).

Faith

“"It's not size that counts in an army, but skill. It's not prowess that counts in a General, but finesse."”

Cao Cao (155–220) Chinese warlord during the Eastern Han Dynasty

Statement from Cao Cao to his advisors before he face Yuan Shao in the Battle of Guandu Source: Romance of the Three Kingdoms. An adaptation of the Sanguo Zhi new 2010.
Attributed

“Thank you all very much for your hospitality. We've just had a wide-ranging discussions on the matter at hand. Like the good folks standing with me, the American people were appalled and outraged at last Tuesday's attacks. And so were Muslims all across the world. Both Americans and Muslim friends and citizens, tax-paying citizens, and Muslims in nations were just appalled and could not believe what we saw on our T. V. screens. These acts of violence against innocents violate the fundamental tenets of the Islamic faith, and it's important for my fellow Americans to understand that. The English translation is not as eloquent as the original Arabic, but let me quote from the Koran, itself. 'In the long run, evil in the extreme will be the end of those who do evil. For that they rejected the signs of Allah and held them up to ridicule.”

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

2000s, 2001, Islam is Peace (September 2001)

People , World , Faith , Quotes

“My late friend hated book-jackets, and ripped them all off immediately. I think he felt, somehow, that the book was still trying to sell him its contents after he had paid for it (or turn him in, if he had stolen it). Dejacketed, the book is anonymous and valueless. To translate something immediately into this state is an unequivocal act of proprietorship. You remove a book-jacket just as you make a lover naked: before their complete possession, they must be removed from the currency.”

Don Paterson (1963) Poet

Aphorisms in Poetry, vol. 187, n. 1, October 2005

Hate , Books , Lovers , Thinking

“Bramah's books fall into two very unequal categories. Some, fortunately the smaller part, record the adventures of the blind detective, Max Carrados. These are competent, mediocre books. The rest are parodic in nature: they pass themselves off as translations from the Chinese, and their boundless perfection achieved the unconditional praise of Hilaire Belloc in 1922. Their names: The Wallet of Kai Lung (1900), Kai Lung's Golden Hours (1922), Kai Lung Unrolls His Mat (1928), The Mirror of Kong Ho (1931), The Moon of Much Gladness”

Ernest Bramah (1868–1942) English author

1936
Jorge Luis Borges, "The Total Library"
Criticism

Books , Nature , Parting , Perfection

“The power struggle within the firm determines which conception of control will dominate and how that conception will be translated into concrete strategies. The winners of this struggle will push the organization into a certain direction and maintain that direction as long as their strategies bring positive results.”

Neil Fligstein (1951) American sociologist

Source: The transformation of corporate control, 1993, p. 17

“English translation: Life of lives, beginning to the end. We are alive forever.”

Enya (1961) Irish singer, songwriter, and musician

"The Celts", from The Celts (1987) Translations for The Celts http://www.pathname.com/enya/celts.html#the-celts, from Enya: Translations and Lyrics. English translation by Fidelma McGinn, Daniel Quinlan, and Willie Arbuckle.
Song lyrics

Life

“It is frustrating to be translating other people's autobiographies whilst mine is lying unpublished, banned by the Home Office.”

Dennis Nilsen (1945–2018) British serial killer

As quoted in Exclusive: Dennis Nilsen: My Prison Life of Drink and Drugs http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/exclusive-dennis-nilsen-prison-life-555104, Mirror.co.uk (27 August, 2005)

People , Home , Lying

“I will give my best today for the sake of my loved ones”

Ritsuko Okazaki (1959–2004) Japanese singer

Serenade, Siki
Lyrics

Love

“He was dancing to some music
No one else had ever heard
He'd speak in unknown languages
She would translate every word
And then when the world was laughing
At his castles in the sky
She'd hold him in her body
Till he once again could fly.”

Harry Chapin (1942–1981) American musician

Shooting Star
Song lyrics, Verities & Balderdash (1974)

World , Music , Dance , Flying

“Drink! live like the Greeks! eat! gorge!. (translator unknown)”
Bibite ! pergraecamini ! Este ! effercite vos !

Plautus Mostellaria

Mostellaria, Act I, scene 1, lines 61-62
Mostellaria (The Haunted House)

Drink

“All the Universe is full of the life of perfect creatures.”

Konstantin Tsiolkovsky (1857–1935) Russian and Soviet rocket scientist and pioneer of the astronautic theory

from "The Scientific Ethics", 1930 https://web.archive.org/web/20050808081615/http://www.informatics.org/museum/tsiol.html

Life , Universe , Perfection

“"For Freedom", or "For Liberty" are translations of the Latin motto of Clan Wallace.”

William Wallace (1270–1305) Scottish landowner and leader in the Wars for Scottish Independence

Freedom

“I'm a feminist, but I don't want to push these issues so hard that I create hostilities in society.”

Göran Persson (1949) Swedish politician, Swedish Social Democratic Party, thirty-second Prime minister of Sweden

Said to the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet (January 24, 2002).

Hostility

“Unity, stability and wellfare are the uppermost to press ahead the development agenda, build strength and sovereignty of the nation.”

Abdul Halim of Kedah (1927–2017) King of Malaysia

Maulidur Rasul 1434H https://books.google.com.my/books?id=P3ZODwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false, 24/1/2013

“… as a matter of fact it is nice to paint a happy picture after a sad one. I think there is a kind of loneliness in a lot of them which I don't think about as the fact that I'm lonely and therefore I paint lonely pictures, but I like kind of lonely things anyhow; so if the forms express that to me, there is a certain excitement that I have about that.... What I try to do is to create the painting so that the overall thing has the particular emotion; not just the forms in it.... in other words, there's a particular static or heavy form that can have a look to it, an experience that translated through the form; so then it does have a mood. And when that is there, well then it becomes it becomes a painting whereas all the other pictures that have far more interesting shapes and so on, don't become that to me.”

Franz Kline (1910–1962) American painter

n.p.
1960's, Living Art, 1963

Sadness , Mood , Thinking , Painting

“I have been an active member of Mandela's ANC since the end of the 60's or the beginning of the 70's. Hassan II, the King of Morocco, talked me into helping fund the ANC. […] I remember that at the time, the South African President, who must have been Vorster, was putting a lot of pressure on our ministers, so that they come to South Africa. A number of French ministers accepted these invites. I too was frequently asked to go… The leaders of South Africa wanted to make us believe that the apartheid was normal, or did not exist. I declared officially and most clearly, urbi et orbi, that I wouldn't set a foot there as long as the apartheid would exist.”

Jacques Chirac (1932–2019) 22nd President of France

J'ai été militant de l'ANC de Mandela depuis la fin des années soixante, le début des années soixante-dix. J'ai été approché par Hassan II, le roi du Maroc, pour aider au financement de l'ANC. [...] Je me souviens qu'à l'époque, le président sud-africain, que devait être Vorster, exerçait d'énormes pressions auprès de nos ministres pour qu'ils viennent en Afrique du sud. Un certain nombre de ministres français ont accepté ces invitations. Moi aussi, j'ai été très sollicité... Les dirigeants de l'Afrique du Sud voulaient nous faire croire que l'apartheid était normal, ou n'existait pas. J'ai déclaré officiellement, et de la manière la plus claire, urbi et orbi que je n'y mettrais pas les pieds tant que l'apartheid existerait.
L'Inconnu de l'Élysée, Pierre Péan, Fayard, 2007, p. 8 et 9

Time , Help

“Alternative translation: In politics… shared hatreds are almost always the basis of friendships.”

Alexis De Tocqueville (1805–1859) French political thinker and historian

Recollections of Alexis de Tocqueville, p. 96 http://books.google.com/books?id=3gtoAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA96&vq=%22hatred+is+almost+always+the+foundation%22&source=gbs_search_s&cad=0
1850s and later

Friendship

“For me these things are like an onion, as you discover more layers, you cry even more. There are no winners in wars, only blood and losers.”

Guillermo del Toro (1964) Mexican film director

Para mí estas cosas son como una cebolla, entre más capas descubres, más vas llorando. No hay vencedores en las guerras, sólo sangre y vencidos.
Interview with Guillermo del Toro on 10/09/2006. http://www.elmundo.es/encuentros/invitados/2006/10/2192/

War , Cry

““Now here is a treasure, Averroës Commentaries on Aristotle in a tolerable translation from the Arabic by Gerard of Cremona.” He lasciviously stroked the red leather boards, knowing well how his pupil ached for the chance to pore through it. “A liar’s gloss on a liar’s lies. Surely this is a rare criminal.””

Michael Swanwick book Jack Faust

Source: Jack Faust (1997), Chapter 1, “Trinity” (p. 7)

Chance

“Any art is a concentrated feeling of love elevated to a world view and translated into an artistic language of symbols.”

Marianne von Werefkin (1860–1938) expressionist painter

Quote from Werefkin's lecture in 1914; as quoted in M. K. ČIURLIONIS AND MARIANNE VON WEREFKIN: THEIR PATHS AND WATERSHEDS, by Laima Lauckaité; Institute of Culture, Philosophy and Art, Vilnius
Werefkin gave her lecture during a regular Art Society meeting, 22 March 1914
after 1911

Love , World , Art , Feeling

“[one watercolor] is in spite of all its difficulties, and perhaps because she has given so much trouble, less fresh and has become a little heavy - I myself have considered for a long time whether she was good enough to send it [for a exhibition in Utrecht] (translation from original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek)”

Willem Roelofs (1822–1897) Dutch painter and entomologist (1822-1897)

(original Dutch: citaat van Willem Roelofs, in het Nederlands:) [een aquarel] is niettegenstaanden alle moeite, en misschien wel omdàt zij moeite heeft gekost, minder frisch en wat zwaar geworden – Ik heb zelf lang in beraad gestaan of zij goed genoeg was om te zenden [naar Utrecht]
In a letter to P. verLoren van Themaat, 23 Nov. 1866; in Haagsch Gemeentearchief / Municipal Archive of The Hague
1860's

Time

“My endeavour has been to render the sense of my author as nearly as possible, which could never be done merely by translating his words.”

John Hoole (1727–1803) British translator

Preface to Jerusalem Delivered, an Heroic Poem; translated from the Italian of Torquato Tasso (1764), p. xix

Sense

“Then make those studies outside. With the utmost simplicity you try to get rid of all the so-called manners, and try in one word to follow nature with feeling, but without thinking about the works of others. (translation from original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek)”

Willem Roelofs (1822–1897) Dutch painter and entomologist (1822-1897)

(original Dutch: citaat van Willem Roelofs, in het Nederlands:) Maak dan die studies buiten; met de grootste eenvoudigheid, tracht u van alle zogenaamde manier te ontdoen en tracht in een woord de natuur met gevoel maar zonder denken aan het werk van anderen, na te volgen.
Quote in Roelof's letter to his pupil Hendrik W. Mesdag, 1866; as cited in Zó Hollands - Het Hollandse landschap in de Nederlandse kunst sinds 1850, Antoon Erftemeijer https://www.franshalsmuseum.nl/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/zohollands_eindversie_def_1.pdf; Frans Hals museum | De Hallen, Haarlem 2011, p. 16, note 7
1860's

Feeling , Nature , Thinking , Study

“He ploughs the waves, sows the sand, and hopes to gather the wind in a net, who places his hopes on the heart of woman.”

Jacopo Sannazaro (1458–1530) Italian writer

Ne l'onde solca, e ne l'arena semina,
E'l vago vento spera in rete accogliere
Chi sue speranze fonda in cor di femina.
Ecloga Octava; "Plough the sands" found in Juvenal, Satires, VII. Jeremy Taylor, Discourse on Liberty of Prophesying (1647), Introduction.

Hope , Heart

“I beheld with my eyes. And handled with my hands the gold plates from which it was translated. I also beheld the Interpreters.”

Oliver Cowdery (1806–1850) American Mormon leader

Miller, Diary, quoted in Bushman, Rough Stone Rolling, p. 78 (October 21, 1848).

“Translated by Todd Nichol along with Prefaces 1997”

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

1840s, Writing Sampler (1844)

“Just as, in the case of the sunlight, on one who has never from the day of his birth seen it, all efforts at translating it into words are quite thrown away; you cannot make the splendour of the ray shine through his ears; in like manner, to see the beauty of the true and intellectual light, each man has need of eyes of his own; and he who by a gift of Divine inspiration can see it retains his ecstasy unexpressed in the depths of his consciousness; while he who sees it not cannot be made to know even the greatness of his loss. How should he? This good escapes his perception, and it cannot be represented to him; it is unspeakable, and cannot be delineated. We have not learned the peculiar language expressive of this beauty. … What words could be invented to show the greatness of this loss to him who suffers it? Well does the great David seem to me to express the impossibility of doing this. He has been lifted by the power of the Spirit out of himself, and sees in a blessed state of ecstacy the boundless and incomprehensible Beauty; he sees it as fully as a mortal can see who has quitted his fleshly envelopments and entered, by the mere power of thought, upon the contemplation of the spiritual and intellectual world, and in his longing to speak a word worthy of the spectacle he bursts forth with that cry, which all re-echo, "Every man a liar!"”

Gregory of Nyssa (335–395) bishop of Nyssa

I take that to mean that any man who entrusts to language the task of presenting the ineffable Light is really and truly a liar; not because of any hatred on his part of the truth, but because of the feebleness of his instrument for expressing the thing thought of.
On Virginity, Chapter 10

Truth , World , Beauty , Birth

“You have sung this song as if it had been hit by a bus.”

Kuba Wojewódzki (1963) Polish journalist

Zaśpiewałaś tą piosenkę, jakby uderzył w nią autobus.
To Idol contestants

“After examining the doctrinal manifestations of this single-axis framework, I will discuss how it contributes to the marginalization of Black women in feminist theory and in antiracist politics. I argue that Black women are sometimes excluded from feminist theory and antiracist policy discourse because both are predicated on a discrete set of experiences that often does not accurately reflect the interaction of race and gender. These problems of exclusion cannot be solved simply by including Black women within an already established analytical structure. Because the intersectional experience is greater than the sum of racism and sexism, any analysis that does not take intersectionality into account cannot sufficiently address the particular manner in which Black women are subordinated. Thus, for feminist theory and antiracist policy discourse to embrace the experiences and concerns of Black women, the entire framework that has been used as a basis for translating “women’s experience” or “the Black experience” into concrete policy demands must be rethought and recast.”

Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw book Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex

Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex (1989)

Women , Problem

“Well says the proverb, that it is better to live with wild beasts in caves, than in the same house with a cross-grained and quarrelsome woman.”

Agnolo Firenzuola (1493–1543) Italian poet and litterateur

(Ben dice il proverblo ch’) egli è megllo abitare colle fiere in le spilonche, che avere in casa una femmina litlgiosa e perversa.
Act I., Scene II. — (Lucido Tolto).
Translation reported in Harbottle's Dictionary of quotations French and Italian (1904), p. 297.
I Lucidi (published 1549)

Housing

“It is in the translation that the innocence lost after the first reading is restored under another guise, since the reader is once again faced with a new text and its attendant mystery. That is the inescapable paradox of translation, and also its wealth.”

Alberto Manguel (1948) writer

The Translator As Reader, p. 273-274.
A History of Reading (1996)

Reading , Wealth

“It is clear that we have to pay more, it is the simple option, not always affordable, ("but simple," said in actual recording) but the ways to solve the problem are many.”

Vladimir Putin (1952) President of Russia, former Prime Minister

Понятно, что надо больше платить, это самый простой вариант, не всегда возможный,(но простой) но способов решения проблемы много
On human capital flight, in address to Committee for Education, Science and Technology (26 October 2004).
2000 - 2005

Way , Problem

“If we paint the phases of a riot, the crowd bustling with uplifted fists and the noisy onslaughts of cavalry are translated upon the canvas in sheaves of lines corresponding with all the conflicting forces, following the general laws of violence of the picture... These force-lines must encircle and involve the spectator so that he will in a manner be forced to struggle himself with the persons in the picture.”

Umberto Boccioni (1882–1916) Italian painter and sculptor

Source: 1912, Les exposants au public', 1912, p. 8.

Law , Painting , Personality

“Where we observe the predominance of one technology or one economic outcome over its competitors we should thus be cautious of any exercise that seeks the means by which the winner's innate 'superiority' came to be translated into adoption.”

W. Brian Arthur (1946) American economist

Source: Competing Technologies, Increasing Returns and Lock-in by Historical Events, (1989), p. 127, as cited in: John Gowdy (1994) Coevolutionary Economics: The Economy, Society and the Environment. p. 148

Exercises

“He [ Johannes Warnardus Bilders ] painted – was living in Utrecht, [he] immediately attracted attention and had many ideas, got good prices for that time; and once he thought 'Is this really beautiful, as people say - but the people are crazy or I am - I came to the conclusion – the people are wrong - picked up my things and went to Oosterbeek' [Autumn of 1841, where he thoroughly started to study nature: branches, stems, plants. Etc.. ] (translation from Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek).”

Marie Bilders-van Bosse (1837–1900) painter from the Netherlands

version in original Dutch (citaat uit een brief van MarieBilders-van Bosse, in het Nederlands:) Hij schilderde – woonde te Utrecht, [hij] trok aanstonds de aandacht en had veel ideeën, kreeg voor den tijd goede prijzen; en dacht op eenmaal 'Moet dat nu mooi heeten – maar de menschen zijn gek of ik – Ik kwam tot de conclusie – de menschen slaan de bal mis – pakte mijn rommeltje en ging naar ' [herfst van 1841, waar Bilders grondig studie van de natuur begint te maken: takken, stammen, planten. Etc..]
In a letter of Marie Bilders-van Bosse to A. C. Loffelt, c. 1891; as cited in Van Oosterbeek naar Haagsche School, E. Maas; kunsthandel Kupperman, Amsterdam, 1994, p. 57
Marie Bosse-Bilders was first a pupil of the older Bilders; later they married

People , Beauty , Idea , Autumn

“Universal coding for computers is sought that uses relative addresses and a pseudocode and that assembles and translates, printing out a directory of final addresses of key commands, variables, and constants.”

Saul Gorn (1912–1992) computer scientist

Saul Gorn (1954) Planning Universal Semi-Automatic Coding

Universe

“"I quit. I can't play anymore. I lack the desire to do it. "”

Romário (1966) Brazilian association football player

Parei. Não dá mais. Não tenho mais vontade.
Source: Veja Magazine; 1886 Edition. January 5th, 2005.
Context: Announcing his retirement.

“I have found, by trial, Homer a more pleasing task than Virgil (though I say not the translation will be less laborious); for the Grecian is more according to my genius, than the Latin poet.”

John Dryden book Fables, Ancient and Modern

Preface to the Fables http://www.bartleby.com/39/25.html
Fables, Ancient and Modern (1700)

“"Believe only half of what you see, and nothing that you hear," is a cynical saying, and yet less bitter than at first appears. It does not argue that human nature is false, but simply that it is human nature. How can any fallible human being with two eyes, two ears, one judgment, and one brain — all more or less limited in their apprehensions of things external, and biased by a thousand internal impressions, purely individual — how can we possibly decide on even the plainest actions of another, to say nothing of the words, which may have gone through half-a-dozen different translations and modifications, or the motives, which can only be known to the Omniscient Himself?”

Dinah Craik (1826–1887) English novelist and poet

Source: A Woman's Thoughts About Women (1858), Ch. 8; Craik is sometimes credited with originating the proverb "Believe only half of what you see, and nothing that you hear" — but in this passage she appears to be merely quoting it

Motivation , Nature , Appearance , Falseness

“If I knew of something that could serve my nation but would ruin another, I would not propose it to my prince, for I am first a man and only then a Frenchman, because I am necessarily a man, and only accidentally am I French.”

Montesquieu (1689–1755) French social commentator and political thinker

Si je savais une chose utile à ma nation qui fût ruineuse à une autre, je ne la proposerais pas à mon prince, parce que je suis homme avant d’être Français, parce que je suis nécessairement homme, et que je ne suis Français que par hasard
I.
Pensées et Fragments Inédits de Montesquieu (1899)

“Drawing is but a means to an end. One imagines that drawing can be beautiful-it is not the lines which are beautiful, but what they signify, the sentiments which they translate. In reality, there is no such thing as beauty in drawing, or color beauty lies alone in revelation of truth.”

Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) French sculptor

RODIN, AUGUSTE. L'Art. Entretiens réunis par Paul Gsell, 1911

Truth , Beauty , Color , Imagination

“Generally, it is a question of the people. Particularly, in the present case, it is the question of the Konkani people—at home and abroad. The Konkani people just cannot afford to sit tight while communities all around strive with zeal for progress and honourable recognition; while Maharashtra on one side and Karnataka on the other side make their presence felt and their demands expressive. Emphatically, the Konkani people have a need to unite for uplifting the Konkan. These are the aspirations of all the Konkani speaking Indians. It is with these thoughts in mind, the Konkani people will be proud to hail the Konkani way of life. If the Konkani people give their support and cooperation in the way it is essential, there is no doubt that the Konkani way of life will strive to live up to the sterling idea it has set forth.
VJP Saldanha's quote from one of his editorials in Poinnari, a Konkani weekly. Undated. Translated from it's original text in Konkani and quoted by Edwin J. F. D'Souza in his biography of Saldanha, Makers of Indian Literature: VJP Saldanha, p. 20.”

V.J.P. Saldanha

Poinnari, On the need for a Konkani reawakening

Life , People , Way , Quotes

“"Recognise and acknowledge your mistake, but never admit your mistake."”

Cao Cao (155–220) Chinese warlord during the Eastern Han Dynasty

Statement to one of his advisors when he realised that Cao Cao made a mistake. Source: Romance of the Three Kingdoms. An adaptation of the Sanguo Zhi new 2010.
Attributed

“Envy, my son, wears herself away, and droops like a lamb under the influence of the evil eye.”

Jacopo Sannazaro (1458–1530) Italian writer

L'invidia, figliuol mio, se stessa macera,
E si dilegua come agnel per fascino.
Ecloga Octava; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), "Envy".

Evil , Envy

“Nothing so closely approaches a grand style as turgid nonsense: the ridiculous is one of the extremes of the subtle.”

Jean-Louis Guez de Balzac (1597–1654) French author, best known for his epistolary essays

Rien n'est si voisin du haut style que le galimatias: le ridicule est une des extrémités du subtil.
Socrate Chrétien, Discours X.
Translation reported in Harbottle's Dictionary of quotations French and Italian (1904), p. 202.
Socrate Chrétien (1662)

“No statistician present at this moment will have been in doubt about the meaning of my words when I mentioned the common statistical model. It must be a stochastic device producing random results. Tossing coins or a dice or playing at cards are not flexible enough. The most general chance instrument is the urn filled with balls of different colours or with tickets bearing some ciphers or letters. This model is continuously used in our courses as a didactic tool, and in our statistical analyses as a means of translating realistic problems into mathematical ones. In statistical language " urn model " is a standard expression.”

Hans Freudenthal (1905–1990) Dutch mathematician

Source: The Concept and the Role of the Model in Mathematics and Natural and Social Sciences (1961), p. 79; Partly cited in: Norman L. Johnson and Samuel Kotz (1977) Urn Models and Their Application: an. Approach to Modern Discrete Probability Theory http://dis.unal.edu.co/~gjhernandezp/sim/hide/Urn%20Models%20and%20Their%20Application%20-%20An%20approach%20to%20modern%20discrete%20probability%20theory_Norman%20L.Johnson(Wiley%201977%20413s).pdf, John Wiley & Sons.

Mathematics , Problem , Chance

“Europe is divided by the walls of 30 languages. Fortunately, among these national languages, around 10,000 words of Greek and Latin origin are common. This precious linguistic treasure ought to be used maximally without mutilating one single word or inventing others.”

Ric Berger (1894–1984) Swiss professor of design, decoration and art history

Europa es dividite per le muros de 30 linguas. Felicemente, inter iste linguas national, circa 10.000 parolas de origine grec e latin son commun. Iste preciose tresor linguistic debe esser utilisate al maximo sin mutilar un sol parola o inventar alteres.
Revista de Interlingua, nº 48, 1970.

“By a common effort, we will soon succeed in tranforming Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Sachsen-Anhalt, Brandenburg, Sachsen and Thüringen into blossoming landscapes, where it is worth to live and work.”

Helmut Kohl (1930–2017) former chancellor of West Germany (1982-1990) and then the united Germany (1990-1998)

Durch eine gemeinsame Anstrengung wird es uns gelingen, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern und Sachsen-Anhalt, Brandenburg, Sachsen und Thüringen schon bald wieder in blühende Landschaften zu verwandeln, in denen es sich zu leben und zu arbeiten lohnt.
In a television speech about East Germany after the Reunification. (June 1990)

Effort

“I was thrilled to find America so rich with so many new motives to be translated into a new art. Steel and electricity had created a new world. A new drama had surged from the unmerciful violation of darkness at night, by the violent blaze of electricity and a new polyphony was ringing all around with the scintillating, highly colored lights. The steel had leaped to hyperbolic altitudes and expanded to vast latitudes with the skyscrapers and with bridges made for the conjunction of worlds. A new architecture was created, a new perspective.”

Joseph Stella (1877–1946) American artist

Joseph Stella (1912); As cited in: Metropolitan Museum of Art (1965) American Painting in the Twentieth Century. p. 69

World , Art , Color , Motivation

“Every false philosophy is an imagination of a world propitious to irrational demands and unregulated desires. The false philosopher's dream infects someone in closer touch than himself with everyday experience, this agent of his desire seeks to translate the dream into reality, and disaster follows. It is the Cinderella story in actual life. Rousseau was Robespierre's fairy godmother, Karl Marx was Lenin's, Nietzsche was Hitler's.”

Hugh Kingsmill (1889–1949) British writer and journalist

"Oscar Wilde's Fairy Godmother", The Best of Hugh Kingsmill (1973) p. 278 (1948)

Life , World , Dreams , Imagination

“He who puts up at the first inn he comes across, very often passes a bad night.”

Filippo Baldinucci (1625–1697) Italian art historian

Chi alloggia alia prima osteria in ch’ ei avviene, trova ben spesso la mala notte.
La Veglia. (Ed. Milan, 1812. Opere, Vol. XIV., p. 223).
Translation reported in Harbottle's Dictionary of quotations French and Italian (1904), p. 261.

Night

“Lately I have been asking for landscape [paintings] with animals, so I have devoted a lot of time this year sketching cows. (translation from original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek)”

Willem Roelofs (1822–1897) Dutch painter and entomologist (1822-1897)

(original Dutch: citaat van Willem Roelofs, in het Nederlands:) In den laatsten tijd vraagt men mij steeds landschap met beesten zoodat ik mij van dit jaar veel op studie van koeijen heb toegelegd.
In a letter of Roelofs to P. verLoren van Themaat, 3 Sept, 1882; Haagsch Gemeente-archief / Municipal Archive of The Hague
1880's

Time , Animals , Painting

“In fact, in the plantation areas conditions amounting to slavery were re‑established by the planters with the acquiescence of the Government. Some idea of the misery to which the population of these areas was reduced by this system of merciless exploitation in the interests of British capital may be gained from the Bengal Indigo Commission's Report and from some of the literature of the period. Nil Darpan or the Mirror of Indigo, a Bengali drama, created a sensation by throwing a little light on this dark corner of Britain's action in India, and the reaction in official circles was so great that a European missionary, Mr Long, who translated and published it in English, was fined and imprisoned. During the whole of this period, in fact till the rise of nationalism after the Great War, conditions in plantations were of a kind which showed the worst features of European relations with Asia.”

K. M. Panikkar (1895–1963) Indian diplomat, academic and historian

Asia and Western Dominance: a survey of the Vasco Da Gama epoch of Asian history, 1498–1945

War , Literature , Idea , Light

“The further I get, the more I stand at the beginning. I'am Benner, but I do not say, I got it. (translation from Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018)”

Gerrit Benner (1897–1981) Dutch painter

version in original Dutch (citaat van Gerrit Benner, in het Nederlands:) Hoe verder ik kom, hoe meer ik aan het begin sta. Ik bin Benner, mar ik zeg niet ik ben-er.
Quote of Benner (1961), in interview 'Benner: ik leef hier bijna net zo geïsoleerd als in Leeuwarden', Dutch newspaper 'Leeuwarder Courant', 20 Dec. 1961
1950 - 1980

“The whole secret of the study of nature lies in learning how to use one's eyes.”

George Sand (1804–1876) French novelist and memoirist; pseudonym of Lucile Aurore Dupin

Apprendre à voir, voilà tout le secret des études naturelles.
http://books.google.com/books?id=btRg0Qw2X9MC&q=%22Apprendre+%C3%A0+voir+voil%C3%A0+tout+le+secret+des+%C3%A9tudes+naturelles%22&pg=PA51#v=onepage
Letter to Juliette Lambert-Adam (7 April 1868)

Secret , Nature , Study , Learning

“All parties need to practise utmost courtesy, always be patient and be tolerant, respect and love among each other.”

Abdul Halim of Kedah (1927–2017) King of Malaysia

Maal Hijrah 1438H https://books.google.com.my/books?id=P3ZODwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false, 13/12/2011

Love

“Then the works of Max Weber, first translated from the German in the 1940s — he wrote around 1910, incredibly — began to find their way into social science thought. At first, with his celebration of the efficiency of bureaucracy, he was received with only reluctant respect, and even with hostility. All writers were against bureaucracy. But it turned out, surprisingly, that managers were not. When asked, they acknowledged that they preferred clear lines of communication, clear specifications of authority and responsibility, and clear knowledge of whom they were responsible to. They were as wont to say "there ought to be a rule about this," as to say "there are too many rules around here," as wont to say "next week we've got to get organized," as to say "there is too much red tape." Gradually, studies began to show that bureaucratic organizations could change faster than non-bureaucratic ones, and that morale could be higher where there was clear evidence of bureaucracy.”

Charles Perrow (1925–2019) American sociologist

Source: 1970s, "The short and glorious history of organizational theory", 1973, p. 6

Hostility , Way , Communication , Knowledge

“The most interesting thing in nature is that two species exist, only two species, which are expansionist: mankind and insects. All other species are territorial. The insect is a devourer, an expander, it keeps on expanding so much and it doesn’t even care. And mankind is like that, as well… The two species which are going to end up fighting over the world are going to be insects and human beings.”

Guillermo del Toro (1964) Mexican film director

Lo que más interesante es en la naturaleza existen dos especies, unicamente dos especies que son expansionistas: el hombre y los insectos. Las demás especies son territoriales. El insecto es devorador, expansionista, hasta que se siegue expandiendo y no le importa. Y el hombre es así... las dos especies que van a acabar peleándose por el mundo van a ser insectos y hombres.
Interview with Guillermo del Toro. http://www.filmoteca.com/sec4/guidtoro.htm

World , Nature , Fight