Quotes about voice (2650 quotes, page 10)

“My tears, O Ryno! are for the dead; my voice for those that have passed away. Tall thou art on the hill; fair among the sons of the vale. But thou shalt fall like Morar; the mourner shall sit on thy tomb. The hills shall know thee no more; thy bow shall lie in thy hall, unstrung!
Thou wert swift, O Morar! as a roe on the desert; terrible as a meteor of fire. Thy wrath was as the storm. Thy sword in battle, as lightning in the field. Thy voice was a stream after rain; like thunder on distant hills. Many fell by thy arm; they were consumed in the flames of thy wrath. But when thou didst return from war, how peaceful was thy brow! Thy face was like the sun after rain; like the moon in the silence of night; calm as the breast of the lake when the loud wind is laid.
Narrow is thy dwelling now! dark the place of thine abode! With three steps I compass thy grave, O thou who wast so great before. Four stones, with their heads of moss, are the only memorial of thee. A tree with scarce a leaf, long grass, which whistles in the wind, mark to the hunter's eye the grave of the mighty Morar.”

James Macpherson (1736–1796) Scottish writer, poet, translator, and politician

"The Songs of Selma"
The Poems of Ossian

War , Lie , Peace , Art

“Dear friends, on 9 October 2012, the Taliban shot me on the left side of my forehead. They shot my friends, too. They thought that the bullets would silence us, but they failed. And out of that silence came thousands of voices. The terrorists thought they would change my aims and stop my ambitions. But nothing changed in my life except this: weakness, fear and hopelessness died. Strength, power and courage was born. I am the same Malala. My ambitions are the same. My hopes are the same. And my dreams are the same. Dear sisters and brothers, I am not against anyone. Neither am I here to speak in terms of personal revenge against the Taliban or any other terrorist group. I am here to speak for the right of education for every child. I want education for the sons and daughters of the Taliban and all the terrorists and extremists. I do not even hate the Talib who shot me.”

Malala Yousafzai (1997) Pakistani children's education activist

UN speech, June 2013

Life , Hate , Education , Fear

“Many nights I stood on the bridge — and in the middle alone — lost — a defenseless prey to the surrounding swarming darkness — crushed by the mountainous black impenetrability of the skyscrapers — here and there lights resembling suspended falls of astral bodies or fantastic splendors of remote rites — shaken by the underground tumult of the trains in perpetual motion, like blood in the arteries—at times, ringing as alarm in a tempest, the shrill sulphurous voice of the trolley wires — now and then strange moanings of appeal from tugboats, guessed more than seen, through the infernal recesses below — I felt deeply moved, as if on the threshold of a new religion or in the presence of a new DIVINITY.”

Joseph Stella (1877–1946) American artist

Source: "The Brooklyn Bridge (A page of my life)," 1929, p. 88; Cited in: Beth Venn, Adam D. Weinberg. Frames of Reference: Looking at American Art, 1900-1950 : Works from the Whitney Museum of American Art. University of California Press, 1999. p. 123

Religion , Mountain , Light , Time

“Marxism has only killed 100 million people, so naturally at the new voice of the mainstream center Democratic Party, they’re ready to give it another chance.”

Charles Foster Johnson (1953) American musician

August 26, 2007 http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=26823_Daily_Kos_Diary-_Mainstream_Marxism&only

People , Nature , Chance

“Then, does everyone lives in fear?'
The firelight barely reached the huge man standing beside Raskan, and the deep voice that came from that vague shape sounded loose, unguarded. 'I would say, most of the time, yes. Fear that our opinion might be chalanged. Fear that our way of seeing things might be called ignorant, self-serving, or indeed evil. Fear for our persons. Fear for our future, our fate. Our moment of death. Fear of failing in all that we set out to achieve. Fear of being forgotten.”

Steven Erikson book Forge of Darkness

Forge of Darkness (2013)

Death , Fate , Fear , Way

“Gone are the days when my heart was young and gay,
Gone are my friends from the cotton fields away,
Gone from the earth to a better land I know,
I hear their gentle voices calling "Old Black Joe."”

Stephen Foster (1826–1864) American songwriter

Old Black Joe, Firth, Pond & Co. (1860).

Heart

“For it stirs the blood in an old man’s heart,
And makes his pulses fly,
To catch the thrill of a happy voice
And the light of a pleasant eye.”

Nathaniel Parker Willis (1806–1867) American magazine writer, editor, and publisher

Saturday Afternoon.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations (1919)

Light , Heart , Flying , Happiness

“The first thoughts of an Englishman on appointment to the office of Foreign Secretary must be that he speaks in the name, not of Great Britain only, but of the British Dominions beyond the seas, and that it is his imperative duty to preserve in word and act the diplomatic unity of the British Empire. Our interests are one. Our intercourse must be intimate and constant, and we must speak with one voice in the Councils of the world.”

Austen Chamberlain (1863–1937) British politician

1924. Quoted in H. Blair Neatby, William Lyon Mackenzie King (Methuen, 1963), p. 40.
1920s

World , Sea

“Crowds of silent voices whisper in our ears, transforming the nature of what we see and hear. Some are those of childhood authorities and heroes; others come from family and peers. The strangest emerge from beyond the grave.”

Howard Bloom (1943) American publicist and author

Source: Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century (2000), Ch.8 Reality is a Shared Hallucination

Family , Nature , Childhood

“Years ago, my mother and I fell in love with Busybee’s voice, its calm, even tone, and a smile which was always audible in the language. My father, meanwhile, is clipping his nails fastidiously, letting them fall on to an old, spread-out copy of the Times of India, till he sneezes explosively, as he customarily does, sending the crescent-shaped nail-clippings flying into the universe.”

Amit Chaudhuri (1962) contemporary Indian-English novelist

Afternoon Raag (1993)

Love , Smile , Universe , Time

“Eichmann, much less intelligent and without any education to speak of, at least dimly realized that it was not an order but a law which had turned them all into criminals. The distinction between an order and the Führer's word was that the latter's validity was not limited in time and space, which is the outstanding characteristic of the former. This is also the true reason why the Führer's order for the Final Solution was followed by a huge shower of regulations and directives, all drafted by expert lawyers and legal advisors, not by mere administrators; this order, in contrast to ordinary orders, was treated as a law. Needless to add, the resulting legal paraphernalia, far from being a mere symptom of German pedantry and thoroughness, served most effectively to give the whole business its outward appearance of legality.And just as the law in civilized countries assumes that the voice of conscience tells everybody, "Thou shalt not kill," even though man's natural desires and inclinations may at times be murderous, so the law of Hitler's land demanded that the voice of conscience tell everybody: "Thou shalt kill," although the organizers of the massacres knew full well that murder is against the normal desires and inclinations of most people. Evil in the Third Reich had lost the quality by which most people recognize it — the quality of temptation.”

Hannah Arendt book Eichmann in Jerusalem

Source: Eichmann in Jerusalem (1963), Ch. VIII.

People , Education , Law , Intelligence

“On a mellow evening in September, I was coming from the garden with a heavy basket of apples which I had been gathering. It had got dusk, and the moon looked over the high wall of the court, causing undefined shadows to lurk in the corners of the numerous projecting portions of the building. I set my burden on the house steps by the kitchen door, and lingered to rest, and draw in a few more breaths of the soft, sweet air; my eyes were on the moon, and my back to the entrance, when I heard a voice behind me say”

Emily Brontë book Wuthering Heights

Nelly Dean (Ch. X).
Wuthering Heights (1847)

Drawing , Housing

“Obey the voice at eve obeyed at prime.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

Terminus
1860s, May-Day and Other Pieces (1867)

“late news was suicide of Jan Masaryk - In my view, Jan Masaryk was thoroughly corrupt, who bumped himself off because he saw at last where his moral cowardice and ideological 'Playboyery' had led him. I vividly remember visiting him in Washington, fat, slightly tight, coming into the room looking like a broken-down butler with his master, the little Communist, Clementis, [-] and saying in a loud voice -'Has anyone seen an Iron Curtain? I haven't.”

Malcolm Muggeridge (1903–1990) English journalist, author, media personality, and satirist

Well, he has now.
Like It Was, p.255

Suicide

“I could not fight the Nazis in the present, as they had the power to still my voice, so I decided to fight them in the future.”

Friedrich Kellner (1885–1970) German Justice inspector

“Ich entschloss mich, die Nazis in der Zukunft zu bekämpfen,” Giessener Anzeiger, Giessen, Germany, April 6, 2005.
Attributed

Future , Fight

“It's offense you maybe can't live with because it opens up a crack inside your thinking, and if you look down into it you see there are evil things down there, and they have little yellow eyes that don't blink, and there's a stink down there in that dark and after a while you think maybe there's a whole other universe where a square moon rises in the sky, and the stars laugh in cold voices, and some of the triangles have four sides, and some have five, and some have five raised to the fifth power of sides. In this universe there might grow roses which sing. Everything leads to everything, he would have told them if he could. Go to your church and listen to your stories about Jesus walking on the water, but if I saw a guy doing that I'd scream and scream and scream. Because it wouldn't look like a miracle to me. It would look like an offense.”

Stephen King book It

It (1986)

Guy , Star , Thinking , Universe

“The watchdog's voice that bayed the whispering wind,
And the loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind.”

Oliver Goldsmith The Deserted Village

Source: The Deserted Village (1770), Line 121.

“The past speaks to us in a thousand voices, warning and comforting, animating and stirring to action. What its great thinkers have thought and written on the deepest problems of life, shall we not hear and enjoy? The future calls upon us to prepare its way. Dare we fail to answer its solemn summons?”

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

Founding Address (1876)

Life , Way , Problem , Past

“God has matured. He is not the impulsive, bowelless being of the Testaments - the vehement glorymonger, with His bag of cheap carny tricks and his booming voice - the fiery huckster with his burning bushes and his wonder wands. Nowadays God knows what He wants and He knows who He wants.”

Nick Cave (1957) Australian musician

Euchrid Eucrow in Cave's novel And the Ass Saw the Angel (1988)
God and religion

God

“The judicial ought to be kept entirely distinct from the legislative and executive power in the State. This separation is necessary both to secure the independence of the judicial functions and to prevent their being influenced by the interests of party or by the voice of the people.”

Henry Brougham, 1st Baron Brougham and Vaux (1778–1868) English barrister, politician, and Lord Chancellor of Great Britain

The British Constitution (1844), 322, 323; reported in James William Norton-Kyshe, The Dictionary of Legal Quotations (1904), p. 2-8.

People

“Once again, my family and I find ourselves being assaulted by the obscenity that is Mumia Abu-Jamal. On Sunday October 5th, my husband's killer will once again air his voice from what masquerades as a prison, and spew his thoughts and ideas at another college commencement. Mumia Abu-Jamal will be heard and honored as a victim and a hero by a pack of adolescent sycophants at Goddard College in Vermont. Despite the fact that 33 years ago, he loaded his gun with special high-velocity ammunition designed to kill in the most devastating fashion, then used that gun to rip my husband's freedom from him--today, Mumia Abu-Jamal will be lauded as a freedom fighter. Undoubtedly the administrators at Goddard who first accepted, then enthusiastically supported Abu-Jamal as their speaker will be moved by his "important message" when, if one distills that message to its basic meaning, it amounts to nothing more than the same worn out hatred for this country and everyone in law enforcement that Mumia Abu-Jamal has harbored his entire life. Many at Goddard College have said that this is a matter of Abu-Jamal's First Amendment right to speak and be heard. What a convenient way to dodge their responsibility to take a moral position on this situation. This is not a matter of First Amendment rights -- it's a matter of right and wrong. Across the country, people have been voicing their disgust with the wrong that the college is about to commit by allowing a convicted cop-killer to speak to them. Is this the message to be heard? How could they allow him to speak when Danny no longer has a voice? It is my opinion that all murderers should forfeit their right to free speech when they take the life of an innocent person. I have repeatedly seen college administrators deny conservative and religious speakers access to their campuses when even the tiniest minority feel their message is in some way offensive. What could be more offensive than having a person who violently took the life of another imparting his "unique perspective" on your students? Let's be honest. The instructors, administrators and graduates at Goddard College embrace having this killer as their commencement speaker not despite the fact that he brutally murdered a cop, but because he brutally murdered a cop. Otherwise, like so many other speakers that have been denied access to college campuses across the country, Goddard's administration would have lived up to their moral responsibility and pulled the plug on this travesty long ago. Shame on Goddard College and all associated with that school for choosing to honor an arrogant remorseless killer as their commencement speaker. Unfortunately, this is something that I am certain they will be proud of for the rest of their lives.”

Mumia Abu-Jamal (1954) Prisoner, Journalist, Broadcaster, Author, Activist

Statement http://6abc.com/news/mumia-abu-jamal-speech-met-with-vigil-for-slain-officer/337357/ by Maureen Faulkner, widow of Daniel Faulkner, upon Abu-Jamal's delivering the Commencement Address at Goddard College in 2014
About

Life , People , School , Family

“"Why!" said Huxter, suddenly, "that's not a man at all. It's just empty clothes. Look! You can see down his collar and the linings of his clothes. I could put my arm—"He extended his hand; it seemed to meet something in mid-air, and he drew it back with a sharp exclamation. "I wish you'd keep your fingers out of my eye," said the aerial voice, in a tone of savage expostulation. "The fact is, I'm all here: head, hands, legs, and all the rest of it, but it happens I'm invisible. It's a confounded nuisance, but I am. That's no reason why I should be poked to pieces by every stupid bumpkin in Iping, is it?"”

H. G. Wells book The Invisible Man

Source: The Invisible Man (1897), Chapter 7: The Unveiling of the Stranger

Stupidity , Clothes

“Play us a tune on an unbroken spinet, and let the bells ring, let the bells ring! Play music now: play us a tune on an unbroken spinet. Do not make echoes of forgotten time, do not strike music from old broken keys, do not make ghosts with faded tinklings on the yellowed board; but play us a tune on an unbroken spinet, play lively music when the instrument was new, let us see Mozart playing in the parlor, and let us hear the sound of the ladies' voices. But more than that; waken the turmoil of forgotten streets, let us hear their sounds again unmuted, and unchanged by time, throw the light of Wednesday morning on the Third Crusade, and let us see Athens on an average day.”

Thomas Wolfe book Of Time and the River

Of Time and the River (1935)

Music , Light , Time

“O Blithe newcomer! I have heard,
I hear thee and rejoice.
O Cuckoo! shall I call thee Bird,
Or but a wandering Voice?”

William Wordsworth (1770–1850) English Romantic poet

To the Cuckoo, st. 1 (1804).

Bird

“For many years now, I have been an outspoken supporter of civil and human rights for gay and lesbian people. Gays and lesbians stood up for civil rights in Montgomery, Selma, in Albany, Ga. and St. Augustine, Fla., and many other campaigns of the Civil Rights Movement. Many of these courageous men and women were fighting for my freedom at a time when they could find few voices for their own, and I salute their contributions”

Coretta Scott King (1927–2006) American author, activist, and civil rights leader. Wife of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Chicago Tribune (1 April 1998)

Women , Men , People , Courage

“A celebrity has just as much right to speak out as people who hold real jobs. This is America, after all, and you should not be precluded from voicing your opinions just because you sing songs, mouth other peoples' words on a sitcom or, for that matter, spin a giant multi-colored wheel on a game show.”

Pat Sajak (1946) American television host

2005 column about celebrities and politics, cited in: " Sajak says... http://ex-donkey.new.mu.nu/?page=111," at ;;ex-donkey.new. posted by: Gary at 04:33 PM.
2000s

People , Color , Game , Singing

“I did miss the music a bit - but only in the wings, when I was waiting to go on. It seemed dreadfully quiet, rather unnerving. But the wonderful thing was that one didn't have to be quite so obsessive about one's health, and one's voice.”

Elaine Paige (1948) English singer and actress

Regarding the run of Le Misanthrope
Show girl (2000)

Health , Music , Waiting

“What can we do? We can do much! We can inject the voice of reason into world affairs. We can mobilise all the spiritual, all the moral, all the political strength of Asia and Africa on the side of peace. Yes, we! We, the peoples of Asia and Africa, 1,400,000,000 strong, far more than half the human population of the world, we can mobilise what I have called the Moral Violence of Nations in favour of peace. We can demonstrate to the minority of the world which lives on the other continents that we, the majority are for peace, not for war, and that whatever strength we have will always be thrown on to the side of peace.”

Sukarno (1901–1970) first President of the Republic of Indonesia

Speech at the Opening of the Bandung Conference

War , People , World , Peace

“This extremist ideology is not true Islam. I have said it myself many, many times, and it’s absolutely right to do so. And I’ll say it again today. But simply denying any connection between the religion of Islam and the extremists doesn’t work, because these extremists are self-identifying as Muslims. … It is an exercise in futility to deny that. And more than that, it can be dangerous. To deny it has anything to do with Islam means you disempower the critical reforming voices; the voices that are challenging the fusing of religion and politics; the voices that want to challenge the scriptural basis which extremists claim to be acting on; the voices that are crucial in providing an alternative worldview that could stop a teenager’s slide along the spectrum of extremism.”

David Cameron (1966) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

2010s, 2015, Speech on extremism (20 July 2015)

Religion , Exercises , Time

“But as he warmed and glowed, in his simple and eloquent language,
Quite forgetful of self, and full of the praise of his rival,
Archly the maiden smiled, and, with eyes over-running with laughter,
Said, in a tremulous voice, "Why don't you speak for yourself, John?"”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow The Courtship of Miles Standish

Pt. III, The Lover's Errand.
The Courtship of Miles Standish (1858)

Smile , Laughter , Forgetting

“Let the League of Nations say whatever it pleases, let America offer whatever interference, let China decry Japan's action at the top of her voice, but Japan must adhere to her course unswervingly.”

Sadao Araki (1877–1966) Japanese general

Quoted in "China and America" - Page 200 - by Foster Rhea Dulles - Political Science - 1981

“The pipe-call, mentioned by Burton, is noticed under a different denomination by Chaucer; "Lo," says he, "the birde is begyled with the merry voice of the foulers' whistle, when it is closed in your nette," --alluding to the deceptive art of the bird-catchers in his time.”

Joseph Strutt (1749–1802) British engraver, artist, antiquary and writer

pg. 39
The Sports and Pastimes of the People of England (1801), Hunting

Art , Bird , Time

“Elegy to Lin Zhao, Lone Voice of Chinese Freedom”

Liu Xiaobo (1955–2017) Chinese literary critic, writer, professor, and human rights activist

2004
No Enemies, No Hate: Selected Essays and Poems

Freedom

““Sir Tristano spoke: “Stop! You are taking the great green pearl!”
“Naturally!” said the voice from a point close behind. “That is the whole point of robbery: to acquire the victim’s valuables!””

Jack Vance Lyonesse Trilogy

Source: Lyonesse Trilogy (1983-1989), The Green Pearl (1985), Chapter 1, section 4 (p. 375)

Nature

“My father had a dark glimmer in his eye as he moved behind her. “Old?” He spoke in a low voice as he began to rub her shoulders again. “Woman, I have a mind to prove you wrong.”
She smiled a wry smile. “Sir, I have a mind to let you.””

Patrick Rothfuss book The Name of the Wind

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

Smile

“There was such idiot minstrelsy in rain,
So many clappers going without bells,
That these bethous compose a heavenly gong. One voice repeating, one tireless chorister,
The phrases of a single phrase, ke-ke,
A single text, granite monotony”

Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) American poet

Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction (1942), It Must Change

“Dark and deserted as it was, the night was full of small noises, song and chatter and rustling, telling of the busy little population who were up and about, plying their trades and vocations through the night till sunshine should fall on them at last and send them off to their well-earned repose. The water's own noises, too, were more apparent than by day, its gurglings and 'cloops' more unexpected and near at hand; and constantly they started at what seemed a sudden clear call from an actual articulate voice.”

Kenneth Grahame book The Wind in the Willows

Source: The Wind in the Willows (1908), Ch. 7, "The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn"

Business , Water , Night

“We ask no favours of the enemy. We seek from them no compunction. On the contrary, if tonight the people of London were asked to cast their votes as to whether a convention should be entered into to stop the bombing of all cities, an overwhelming majority would cry, "No, we will mete out to the Germans the measure, and more than the measure, they have meted out to us." {applause} The people of London with one voice would say to Hitler: "You have committed every crime under the sun. Where you have been the least resisted there you have been the most brutal. It was you who began the indiscriminate bombing. We remember Warsaw! In the first few days of the war. We remember Rotterdam. We have been newly reminded of your habits by the hideous massacre in Belgrade. We know too well the bestial assaults you're making upon the Russian people, to whom our hearts go out in their valiant struggle! {cheers} We will have no truce or parley with you, or the grisly gang who work your wicked will! You do your worst!”

Winston S. Churchill book The Second World War

and we will do our best! {sustained cheering} Perhaps it may be our turn soon. Perhaps it may be our turn now."
July 14, 1941, in a speech before the London County Council. The original can be found in Churchill's The Unrelenting Struggle (English edition 187; American edition 182) or in the Complete Speeches VI:6448.
The Second World War (1939–1945)

War , People , Sun , Heart

“You held me down, but I got up
Already brushing off the dust.
You hear my voice, you hear that sound,
Like thunder, gonna shake the ground.
You held me down, but I got up,
Get ready cause I’ve had enough.
I see it all, I see it now.I got the eye of the tiger, a fighter, dancing through the fire.
Cause I am a champion and you’re gonna hear me ROAR.
Louder, louder than a lion,
Cause I am a champion and you’re gonna hear me ROAR.
Oh oh oh oh oh oh,
You’re gonna hear me roar.”

Katy Perry (1984) American singer, songwriter and actress

Roar, written by Katy Perry, Lukasz Gottwald, Max Martin, Bonnie McKee, and Henry Walter
Song lyrics, Prism (2013)

Dance

“We are no longer afraid to voice our opinions, to use our power, to pool our resources, to allow our differences to unite us instead of keeping us apart.”

Margaret Cho (1968) American stand-up comedian

From Her Books, I Have Chosen To Stay And Fight, ACTIVISM

“Himmler steepled his fingers. "Well, Reinhard, what brings you up from Prague today?" His voice was fussy and precise, like a schoolmaster's.”

Harry Turtledove (1949) American novelist, short story author, essayist, historian

Source: The Man With the Iron Heart (2008), p. 7

“Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean:
And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!”

Samuel Taylor Coleridge Kubla Khan

Kubla Khan (1797 or 1798)

War

“I am ever solicitous for your future prosperity, and I wish that I could convince you, as I feel convinced, that it all depends upon your bringing out with spirit the talents you possess. I wish that I could impart to you a little of that Bonapartian feeling with which I am imbued—a feeling that spurs me on with the conviction that all the obstacles to fortune with which I am impeded, will (nay, shall) yield if assailed with energy. All is lost to you, if you succumb to those desponding views which you mentioned when we last spoke. Dame Fortune, like other fair ones, loves a brisk and confident wooer. I want to see you able to pitch your voice in a higher key, especially when you are espousing your own interests, and above all, never to see you yield or become passive and indifferent when your cause is just, and only wants to be spiritedly supported to be sure of a triumph. But all this must proceed from within, and can be only the fruits of a larger growth of spirit, to the cultivation of which without further lecture I most earnestly commend you.”

Richard Cobden (1804–1865) English manufacturer and Radical and Liberal statesman

Letter to his brother (30 January 1832), quoted in John Morley, The Life of Richard Cobden (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1905), p. 20.
1830s

Love , Feeling , Confidence , Support

“Shake (shift) parts of some of the letters in Voice (2). A-not-complete-unit, or a new unit. The elements in the 3 parts should neither fit nor not fit together. One would like not to be led. Avoid the idea of a puzzle which could be solved. Remove the signs of "thought". It is not the "thought" which needs showing... It is not interesting and should not be shown (to be) as interesting that the parts can be shifted. It was always true that they can be shifted. 'Duchamp's ironing board.'”

Jasper Johns (1930) American artist

Does Teeny Duchamp have an ironing board?
Book B (sketchbook), c 1967: as quoted in Jasper Johns, Writings, sketchbook Notes, Interviews, ed. Kirk Varnedoe, Moma New York, 1996, p. 64
1960s

Idea , Parting

“Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death's dream kingdom´
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind's singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.”

T.S. Eliot book The Hollow Men

The Hollow Men (1925)

Death , Dreams , Star , Tree

“And then there is all this highly improper manipulation of time, these indecent dealings, sneaking into its mechanism at the back and tampering dangerously with its precarious secrets. Sometimes, one wants to bang on the table and shout at the top of one’s voice, “Enough of this! Keep your hands off time! Time is untouchable! It is not permissible to aggravate time! Space is for man. In space you may go where you please; you may turn somersaults, fall head over heels, leap from star to star… But for the love of God, leave time alone!””

Bruno Schulz (1892–1942) Polish novelist and painter

“The Sanatorium at the Sign of the Hourglass” http://www.schulzian.net/translation/sanatorium/sanatorium1.htm
His father, Time

Love , God , Secret , Star

“To deny political equality is to rob the ostracised of all self-respect; of credit in the market place; of recompense in the world of work; of a voice among those who make and administer the law; a choice in the jury before whom they are tried, and in the judge who decides their punishment.”

Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902) Suffragist and Women's Rights activist

Solitude of Self (1892)

World , Law

“All of us have the privilege of making music that helps and heals — to make music that makes people happier, stronger and kinder. Don't forget: music is God's voice.”

Brian Wilson (1942) American musician, singer, songwriter and record producer

At the induction ceremony of The Beach Boys into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (January 1988) · Video of acceptance speech http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZSAQX2uuUY

God , People , Music , Help

“I have come to join you today to add our own voice to the universal call for Palestinian self-determination and statehood. We would be beneath our own reason for existence as government and as a nation, if the resolution of the problems of the Middle East did not feature prominently on our agenda.”

Nelson Mandela (1918–2013) President of South Africa, anti-apartheid activist

1990s, The International Day Of Solidarity With The Palestinian People (1997)

Problem , Universe

“We bow our heads in worship on this day and give thanks to the Almighty for the bounty He has bestowed upon us over the past year. We raise our voices in holy gladness to celebrate the victory of the risen Christ over the terrible forces of death. Easter is a joyful festival! It is a celebration because it is indeed a festival of hope! Easter marks the renewal of life! The triumph of the light of truth over the darkness of falsehood! Easter is a festival of human solidarity, because it celebrates the fulfilment of the Good News! The Good News borne by our risen Messiah who chose not one race, who chose not one country, who chose not one language, who chose not one tribe, who chose all of humankind! Each Easter marks the rebirth of our faith. It marks the victory of our risen Saviour over the torture of the cross and the grave. Our Messiah, who came to us in the form of a mortal man, but who by his suffering and crucifixion attained immortality. Our Messiah, born like an outcast in a stable, and executed like criminal on the cross. Our Messiah, whose life bears testimony to the truth that there is no shame in poverty: Those who should be ashamed are they who impoverish others. Whose life testifies to the truth that there is no shame in being persecuted: Those who should be ashamed are they who persecute others. Whose life proclaims the truth that there is no shame in being conquered: Those who should be ashamed are they who conquer others. Whose life testifies to the truth that there is no shame in being dispossessed: Those who should be ashamed are they who dispossess others. Whose life testifies to the truth that there is no shame in being oppressed: Those who should be ashamed are they who oppress others.”

Nelson Mandela (1918–2013) President of South Africa, anti-apartheid activist

At his speech in Moria, on 3 April 1994
1990s, Speech at the Zionist Christian Church Easter Conference (1994)

Life , Death , Truth , Faith

“But I have seen the unknown dead, those little men of the Republic. It was they who woke me up. If a stranger, an enemy, becomes a thing like that when he dies, if one stops short and is afraid to walk over him, it means that even beaten our enemy is someone, that after having shed his blood, one must placate it, give this blood a voice, justify the man who shed it. Looking at certain dead is humiliating. One has the impression that the same fate that threw these bodies to the ground holds us nailed to the spot to see them, to fill our eyes with the sight. It's not fear, not our usual cowardice. One feels humiliated because one understands–touching it with one's eyes–that we might be in their place ourselves: there would be no difference, and if we live we owe it to this dirtied corpse. That is why every war is a civil war; every fallen man resembles one who remains and calls him to account.”

Cesare Pavese (1908–1950) Italian poet, novelist, literary critic, and translator

Source: The house on the hill (1949), Chapter 23, p. 176

Men , Fate , War , Fear

“The three bodies that we would tenderly bear to the churchyard, and would bury in consecrated ground with all the solemn rites of religion, are not here. They are away in a foreign and hostile land (hear, hear), where they have been thrown into unconsecrated ground, branded by the triumphant hatred of our enemies as the vile remains of murderers (cries of 'no murderers,' and cheers). Those three men whose memories we are here to-day to honour - Allen, O'Brien, and Larkin - they were not murderers (great cheering). (A Voice - Lord have mercy on them.) Mr. Martin - These men were pious men, virtuous men - they were men who feared God and loved their country. They sorrowed for the sorrows of the dear old native land of their love (hear, hear). They wished, if possible, to save her, and for that love and for that wish they were doomed to an ignominious death at the hands of the British hangman (hear, hear). It was as Irish patriots that these men were doomed to death (cheers)…”

John Martin (1812–1875) (1812-1875) Irish nationalist activist

Love , Death , Men , God

“Everything we feared about communism – that we would lose our houses and savings and be forced to labor eternally for meager wages with no voice in the system – has come true under capitalism.”

Jeff Sparrow (1969) Australian writer

Communism: A Love Story (2007)

Fear , Communication , Housing

“Advancing the vision of freedom serves our highest ideals, as expressed in the U. N.'s Charter's commitment to the dignity and worth of the human person. Advancing this vision also serves our security interests. History shows that when citizens have a voice in choosing their own leaders, they are less likely to search for meaning in radical ideologies. And when governments respect the rights of their people, they're more likely to respect the rights of their neighbors.”

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

2000s, 2008, Address to the United Nations General Assembly (September 2008)

People , History , Search , Freedom

“The true object of religion is to bind mankind together, and to bind them all to God. If we see that in the name of religion, men, instead of promoting peace on earth and good-will among men, are trying to show their antagonism and animosity towards each other, then certainly we must stand forward with our voice of protest, and say that religion is defeating its own legitimate object.”

Keshub Chunder Sen (1838–1884) Indian academic

Speech delivered at Freemasons’ Hall, Great Queen Street, London, in a meeting held to constitute a Theistic Association in London on 20th July 1870. See Universal Religion for full speech.

Men , God , Peace , Religion

“The sun was gone now; the curl'd moon
Was like a little feather
Fluttering far down the gulf; and now
She spoke through the still weather.
Her voice was like the voice the stars
Had when they sang together.”

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

The Blessed Damozel http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/715.html (1850)

Star , Sun , Weather

“And that was as far as he got before i heard it. The thumping of footsteps, running up the lawn toward me: It seemed like I could hear it through the grass, like leaning your ear to a railroad track and feeling the train coming, miles away. As the noise got closer I could hear ragged breaths, and then a voice.”

Sarah Dessen book Dreamland

Dreamland (2000)

Feeling , Grass , Training

“I thought—To lose all this forever?
And I hallucinated Aenea’s voice saying To lose all this forever is the essence of being human, my love.”

Dan Simmons book The Rise of Endymion

Source: The Rise of Endymion (1997), Chapter 10 (p. 163)

Love

“E'en from the tomb the voice of Nature cries,
E'en in our Ashes live their wonted Fires.”

Thomas Gray (1716–1771) English poet, historian

St. 23
Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard http://www.thomasgray.org/cgi-bin/display.cgi?text=elcc (written 1750, publ. 1751)

Nature

“In an age when nations and individuals routinely exchange murder for murder, when the healing grace of authentic spirituality is usurped by the divisive politics of religious organization, and when broken hearts bleed pain in darkness without the relief of compassion, the voice of an exceptional poet producing exceptional work is not something the world can afford to dismiss.”

Aberjhani (1957) author

Visions of the Poets, p. 247
Book Sources, The American Poet Who Went Home Again (2008)

Pain , Age , World , Heart

“The human voice conspires to desecrate everything on Earth.”

Jerome David Salinger book Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction

Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction (1963), Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters (1955)

““That wasn’t very godly,” Alec calls up to him.
“And what has God to do with me?” Nicholas shouts back. “No voices speak to me out of any burning bush. No word at all. Hideous vacancy, monstrous indifference, and a senseless universe!”
“Well,” says Alec cautiously, “I would think that was a good thing. Shouldn’t you have grown out of this by now? What do you want meaning in the universe for, anyway? Nothing means anything! We’re just here to go along for the adventure.””

Kage Baker book The Sons of Heaven

Source: The Sons of Heaven (2007), Chapter 23, Section 1 “Child Care in the Cyborg Family, Volume Ten: The Awkward Years” (pp. 274-275)

God , Thinking , Universe , Indifference

“We are very blessed to call this nation our home. And that is what America is: it is our home. It’s where we raise our families, care for our loved ones, look out for our neighbors, and live out our dreams. It is my prayer, that on this Thanksgiving, we begin to heal our divisions and move forward as one country, strengthened by a shared purpose and very, very common resolve. In declaring this national holiday, President Lincoln called upon Americans to speak with “one voice and one heart.” That’s just what we have to do. We have just finished a long and bruising political campaign. Emotions are raw and tensions just don’t heal overnight. It doesn’t go quickly, unfortunately, but we have before us the chance now to make history together to bring real change to Washington, real safety to our cities, and real prosperity to our communities, including our inner cities. So important to me, and so important to our country. But to succeed, we must enlist the effort of our entire nation. This historic political campaign is now over. Now begins a great national campaign to rebuild our country and to restore the full promise of America for all of our people. I am asking you to join me in this effort. It is time to restore the bonds of trust between citizens. Because when America is unified, there is nothing beyond our reach, and I mean absolutely nothing. Let us give thanks for all that we have, and let us boldly face the exciting new frontiers that lie ahead. Thank you. God Bless You and God Bless America.”

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

A Thanksgiving Message from President-Elect Donald J. Trump https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUnv6Kb7syQ (23 November 2016)
2010s, 2016, November

Love , God , People , Lie

“There goes the last DJ
Who plays what he wants to play,
And says what he wants to say.
Hey, hey, hey.
There goes your freedom of choice;
There goes the last human voice.
There goes the last DJ.”

Tom Petty (1950–2017) American musician

The Last DJ
Lyrics, The Last DJ (2002)

Freedom

“Tell me, suit, don’t you wonder if it’s all worth it?’
“If what’s all worth what?” it says, and I can hear that condescending tone in its voice again.
“You know; living. Is it worth all the… bother?”
“No.”
“No?”
“No, I don’t ever wonder about it.”
“Why not?” I’m keeping my questions short as we walk, conserving energy and breath.
“I don’t need to wonder about that. It’s not important.”

Iain Banks (1954–2013) Scottish writer

“Not important?”
“It’s an irrelevant question. We live; that’s enough.”
“Descendant” (p. 44)
Short fiction, The State of the Art (1991)

Question

“And Nelly turned to her and laughed a horrible laugh. She startled herself. She paused to light another cigarette, choking, blowing a cloud to hide her face; and when she could, continued in a gentle voice:
"You will do me a favour? Save me from disillusionment. Let the man coming back with you on Wednesday be a sensible man, who admits it all, defeat and hopelessness and the bitterness; but sanity." "But I don't know why I should," said Camilla, seriously.
"Won't you do what I ask, love? I know him, poor lad. I know what's best. I don't want him roaming the countryside, footloose and aimless and perhaps in some pub, on some roadside pick up some other harpy, instead of swallowing the bitter pill and facing the lonely road."”

Christina Stead book Dark Places of the Heart

Dark Places of the Heart (aka Cotters' England) (1966)

Love , Light

“When the voice of a prophet out of the deeps of antiquity merely echoes to him a sentiment of his infancy, a prayer of his youth, he then pierces to the truth through all the confusion of tradition and the caricature of institutions. Rare, extravagant spirits come by us at intervals, who disclose to us new facts in nature. I see that men of God have, from time to time, walked among men and made their commission felt in the heart and soul of the commonest hearer.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

1840s, Essays: First Series (1841), History

Men , God , Truth , Youth

“Hear the trumpets, hear the pipers.
One hundred million angels singin'.
Multitudes are marching to the big kettle drum.
Voices callin', voices cryin'.
Some are born an' some are dyin.”

Johnny Cash (1932–2003) American singer-songwriter

It's Alpha and Omega's Kingdom come.
Song lyrics, American IV: The Man Comes Around (2002), The Man Comes Around

Angels

“"Ignorance has been our king. Since the death of empire, he sits unchallenged on the throne of Man. His dynasty is age-old. His right to rule is now considered legitimate. Past sages have affirmed it. They did nothing to unseat him.
"Tomorrow, a new prince shall rule. Men of understanding, men of science shall stand behind his throne, and the universe will come to know his might. His name is Truth. His empire shall encompass the Earth. And the mastery of Man ever the Earth shall be renewed. A century from now, men will fly through the air in mechanical birds. Metal carriages will race along roads of man-made stone. There will be buildings of thirty stories, ships that go under the sea, machines to perform all works.
"And how will this come to pass?" He paused and lowered his voice. "In the same way all change comes to pass, I fear. And I am sorry it is so. It will come to pass by violence and upheaval, by flame and by fury, for no change comes calmly over the world."”

Walter M. Miller, Jr. book A Canticle for Leibowitz

Ch 20
A Canticle for Leibowitz (1959), Fiat Lux

Death , Men , Truth , Age

“Thrown into a dungeon,
Bread and water was my portion,
Faith - my only weapon,
To rest the devil's legion.
The speak-hole would slide open,
A viper's voice would pleade,
A voice think with innuendo,
Syphillis and greed.”

Nick Cave (1957) Australian musician

Song lyrics, Tender Prey (1988), Mercy

Faith , Thinking , Water

“We have allowed the sexual debate to be defined by women, and that's not right. Men must speak, and speak in their own voices, not voices coerced by feminist moralists.”

Camille Paglia (1947) American writer

Playboy interview (May 1995)

Women , Men

“Even the street, the sunshine, the very air had a special Sunday quality. We walked differently on Sundays, with greater propriety and stateliness. Greetings were more formal, more subdued, voices more meticulously polite. Everything was so smooth, bland, polished. And genuinely so, because this was Sunday. In church the rustling and the stillness were alike pervaded with the knowledge that all was for the best. Propriety ruled the universe. God was in His Heaven, and we were in our Sunday clothes.”

Rose Wilder Lane (1886–1968) American journalist

Source: Old Home Town (1935), Ch. 1.

God , Knowledge , Universe , Clothes

“I love animals, always had. It's totally unfair what we do to animals who have no voice, who can't say anything, who can't do anything about it. And since they can't help themselves, someone needs to … I think people definitely need to pay more attention because it's so unfair. … [If you see an animal in need or mistreated] just make sure that you don't forget about the animal, because you wouldn't want anybody to forget about you if you couldn't talk.”

Marlen Esparza (1989) boxer

"Marlen Esparza: Don't Forget About Animals in Need" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t78Ns8vsoVU, interview with PETA (16 January 2013).

Love , People , Thinking , Help

“Hoyt began moving his lips as if he were trying to suck the ice cream off the top of a cone without using his teeth. She tried to make her lips move in sync with his. The next thing she knew, Hoyt had put his hand sort of under her thigh and hoisted her leg up over his thigh. What was she to do? Was this the point she should say, “Stop!”? No, she shouldn’t put it that way. It would be much cooler to say, “No, Hoyt,” in an even voice, the way you would talk to a dog that insists on begging at the table.
Slither slither slither slither went the tongue, but the hand that was what she tried to concentrate on, the hand, since it has the entire terrain of her torso to explore and not just the otorhinolaryngological caverns – oh God, it was not just at the border where the flesh of the breast joins the pectoral sheath of the chest – no, the hand was cupping her entire right – Now! She must say “No, Hoyt” and talk to him like a dog[…]”

Tom Wolfe (1930–2018) American author and journalist

Source: I am Charlotte Simmons (2004), p. 368-9, winner of the 12th annual The Literary Review Bad Sex Award

God , Dogs , Way

“We commemorate a man, a leader, who in the years of creation and achievement towered above his contemporaries in figure and manner, in voice and power, who worked and fought, and who suffered—as they all suffered who dared to preach socialism in an unreceptive and hostile age. He was a man who had vision, and dared all in those years to make that vision a reality; a man who inspired affection in his associates as in his own domestic circle, and who, daring all, created a lasting and durable political instrument which today 60 years after its first political success, provides the Government of this country and in so providing owes more than many are prepared to admit to the young Ramsay MacDonald.”

Harold Wilson (1916–1995) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech at a luncheon in the House of Commons to commemorate the centenary of Ramsay MacDonald's birth (12 October 1966), quoted in The Times (13 October 1966), p. 12.
Prime Minister

Hostility , Age , Reality , Suffering

“Cannon his name,
Cannon his voice, he came.”

George Meredith (1828–1909) British novelist and poet of the Victorian era

Napoléon, I (1898).

“This twentieth century has been a period of terrific dynamism. Perhaps the last fifty years have seen more developments and more material progress than the previous five hundred years. Man has learned to control many of the scourges which once threatened him. He has learned to consume distance. He has learned to project his voice and his picture across oceans and continents. Lie has probed deep into the secrets of nature and learned how to make the desert bloom and the plants of the earth increase their bounty. He has learned how to release the immense forces locked in the smallest particles of matter.”

Sukarno (1901–1970) first President of the Republic of Indonesia

Speech at the Opening of the Bandung Conference

Lie , Secret , Nature , Learning

“Do not be amazed at this, for the hour is coming in which all those in the memorial tombs will hear his voice and come out, those who did good things to a resurrection of life, and those who practiced vile things to a resurrection of judgment.”

John the Evangelist (10–98) author of the Gospel of John; traditionally identified with John the Apostle of Jesus, John of Patmos (author o…

John 5:28-29 http://wol.jw.org/en/wol/b/r1/lp-e/nwt/E/2013/43/5#h=34:352-34:604, New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures
Gospel of John

Life , Memory

“In the 8th Grade I found I had a voice for opera, so I followed that path a little, but my impulse has always been an actor, I have always liked cinema, and let's face it, opera singers are just bad actors! I didn't want to translate myself in that direction. My heroes were people like Spencer Tracy, Bogart, Robert Mitchum, Marvin, Richardson, Caine, all those sort.”

Robert Davi (1953) American actor and jazz singer

People

“Learn their lesson, that if you would teach people you first must capture their interest with news; that your service rather than your sermons must be your claim upon their attention; that what you say must be simple, and brief, and above all sincere — the unmistakable voice of true regard and affection.”

Bruce Fairchild Barton book The Man Nobody Knows

On the teachings of Jesus, in Ch. 5 : His Advertisements
The Man Nobody Knows (1924)

People , Learning , Sincerity

“Nothing ever begins.
There is no first moment; no single word or place from which this or any other story springs.
The threads can always be traced back to some earlier tale, and to the tales that preceded that: though as the narrator’s voice recedes the connections will seem to grow more tenuous, for each age will want the tale told as if it were of its own making.
Thus the pagan will be sanctified, the tragic become laughable; great lovers will stoop to sentiment, and demons dwindle to clockwork toys.
Nothing is fixed. In and out the shuttle goes, fact and fiction, mind and matter woven into patterns that may have only this in common: that hidden amongst them is a filigree which will with time become a world.
It must be arbitrary then, the place at which we chose to embark.
Somewhere between a past half forgotten and a future as yet only glimpsed.”

Clive Barker (1952) author, film director and visual artist

Part One “Wild Blue Yonder”, Chapter i “Homing”, Section 1 (p. 19; opening words)
(1987), BOOK ONE: IN THE KINGDOM OF THE CUCKOO

Age , World , Spring , Lovers

“The Southern past, the Southern present, the Southern future, concentrated into Gertrude's voice, became one of red clay pine-barrens, of chain-gang camps, of housewives dressed in flour sacks who stare all day dully down into dirty sinks.”

Randall Jarrell book Pictures from an Institution

Source: Pictures from an Institution (1954) [novel], Ch. 2, p. 66

Past , Future

“Did you know that when God made the universe, he didn't lift one finger? He didn't turn one screw or pound one nail. He just spoke and every molecule lined up. That's incredible to think about. When He speaks, the waves lay down; the wind quits blowing. When He speaks, the dead come to life. When He speaks, the universe is created! Everything obeys the voice of God, except us. He's having some trouble out of us right now. But He's going to fix that one of these days when "every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father," coming to a city near you. But the scoffers are willingly ignorant of how God made the heavens by His Word, and they're ignorant of how the earth was standing out of the water and in the water.”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

Creation seminars (2003-2005), The Garden of Eden

Life , God , Thinking , Universe

“There is another passage from the Old Testament that comes nearer to my own sympathies—"And behold the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake: and after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice. …And behold there came a voice unto him, and said. What doest thou here, Elijah?"”

Arthur Stanley Eddington (1882–1944) British astrophysicist

Science and the Unseen World (1929)

Mountain , Strong

“There's always a voice saying the right thing to you somewhere, if you'll only listen for it.”

Thomas Hughes book Tom Brown at Oxford

Source: Tom Brown at Oxford (1861), Ch. 48

“As we turn over the pages of nineteenth century literature, we are constantly confronted with the question of alienation. Baudelaire, Marx, Kierkegaard, Chateaubriand, Cardinal Newman — it does not matter whether the voice comes from the Left or the Right; all are agreed in their rejection of the values of the prevailing ethic. Yet we never get a clear definition of alienation: what is man alienated from, and why? Perhaps it is precisely the democratic society, the growing affluence and education, that have revealed the natural state of man — much as the development of medicine has enabled greater accuracy of diagnosis, with the resultant tremendous increase in the record of certain diseases. Perhaps the discovery of human self-alienation was simply a statistical refinement made possible by the spread of the privileges of culture to the middle classes.”

Kenneth Rexroth (1905–1982) American poet, writer, anarchist, academic and conscientious objector

Gustave Flaubert: A Sentimental Education (p. 187)
Classics Revisited (1968)

Education , Disease , Literature , Question

“I dream of a time when the people will retake their airways and use them to achieve a voice to rediscover democracy, and to see the divine potential of man.”

Gerry Spence (1929) American lawyer

Source: Give Me Liberty! (1998), Ch. 20 : The Media : The Perpetual Voice of the Master, the Abiding Ear of the Slave, p. 243. Dream 7 : A Propaganda for People, Not Things

People , Dreams , Democracy , Time

“The other economic camp made for quite a different story. James Tobin (an east-coast Ivy League policy advisor) had already won the Nobel Prize when I spoke with him. A true gentleman, he spoke softly about his life and his Keynesian approach to economics. With due respect, I worried after a time that the interview sounded so automatic, so “done” before, that it would add little to the book. Then I brought up Lucas’s criticism. Tobin began to speak much louder and faster (on transcribing the tape I actually had to adjust the volume). He remained reasonable and gentlemanly but his voice betrayed his indignation toward Lucas and his camp, about how they were misleading sensible Keynesian economic thought.”

Arjo Klamer (1953) Dutch columnist, economist and politician

Source: Speaking of economics: how to get in the conversation (2007), Ch. 1 : The strangeness of the discipline

Life , Books , Time

“When Siddhartha listened attentively to this river, to the song of a thousand voices; when he did not listen to the sorrow or laughter, when he did not bind his soul to any one particular voice and absorb it in his Self, but heard them all, the whole, the unity; then the great song of a thousand voices consisted of one word: Om — perfection.”

Hermann Hesse (1877–1962) German writer

Source: Siddhartha (1922), p. 94

Soul , Laughter , Perfection

“One of the first evidences of man's sinfulness and misery by it, was that he could not endure, but hid himself from the voice and face of God”

Ralph Venning (1621–1673) English minister

Genesis 3:8
The Sinfulness of Sin

God

“I get the willies when I see closed doors. Even at work, where I am doing so well now, the sight of a closed door is sometimes enough to make me dread that something horrible is happening behind it, something that is going to affect me adversely; if I am tired and dejected from a night of lies or booze or sex or just nerves and insomnia, I can almost smell the disaster mounting invisibly and flooding out toward me through the frosted glass panes. My hands may perspire, and my voice may come out strange. I wonder why. Something must have happened to me sometime.”

Joseph Heller book Something Happened

Opening Lines
Something Happened (1974)

Sex , Night

“Already at the age of 21 I played the complete organ works of Bach - and this by memory. As a child and youngster I had been taught by one of the last master-students of the legendary Helmut Walcha, and I completely had been affected by this style of insight into Bach and the internal structures. This method of regarding the independent coherence of all the voices gave me a special comprehension of Bach and his philosophy. Lastly one can say that I have been growing up with Bach, even to this day. If you understand the free organ works (preludes, toccatas, fugues), the chorales, and especially the trio sonatas, you have an insight into Bach that others don’t have. Especially the soloistic and independent leadings of the three voices of the trio sonatas is artistically the major aim of an organist; and already the Orgelbüchlein, the part 5 of the Peters Edition, shows Bach in all his structural and emotional effects. Albert Schweitzer described the Orgelbüchlein as something where the tonal speech of Bach is unbeatable. The comprehension of the organ-Bach is an understanding of the counterpoint and the polyphonic structures, and the coherence of Bach himself.”

Burkard Schliessmann classical pianist

Talkings on Bach

Age , Understanding , Memory , Parting

“But in view of the lessons of the years of contest that have crowned the nation with victory, with the inspirations of liberty and truth brightly lighting the pathway of the people, who can doubt the equity of their voice? The nations of the earth must not be allowed to point at us as pitiful examples of weak selfishness. In the exigencies of this hour, our duty must be so done that the eternal scrolls of justice will ever bear record of the nobility of the nation's heart Animated, inspired, generous, fearless, in the work of liberty and truth, long will the Republic live, a bulwark of God's immutable justice.”

James A. Garfield (1831–1881) American politician, 20th President of the United States (in office in 1881)

1860s, Oration at Ravenna, Ohio (1865)

God , People , Truth , Justice

“Too great this largess from thy hand I know
Yet ask that some few drops of it may light
And listened to thy voice, and in it found
The very Spring and Soul of Poetry”

George Gilfillan (1813–1878) Scottish writer

From Proem 3 Night: A Poem by George Filfillan, Jackson, Walford & Hodder 1867
Other Quotes

Soul , Spring , Light

“The grey road whereupon we trod became as holy ground:
The eve was all one voice that breathed its message with no sound:
And burning multitudes pour through my heart, too bright, too blind,
Too swift and hurried in their flight to leave their tale behind.”

George William Russell (1867–1935) Irish writer, editor, critic, poet, and artistic painter

By Still Waters (1906)

Heart

“The trends that produced Schumann’s early piano works started out not so much from Weber’s refined brilliance as from Schubert’s more intimate and deeply soul-searching idiom. His creative imagination took him well beyond the harmonic sequences known until his time. He looked at the fugues and canons of earlier composers and discovered in them a Romantic principle. In the interweaving of the voices, the essence of counterpoint found its parallel in the mysterious relationships between the human psyche and exterior phenomena, which Schumann felt impelled to express. Schubert’s broad melodic lyricism has often been contrasted with Schumann’s terse, often quickly repeated motifs, and by comparison Schumann is often erroneously seen as short-winded. Yet it is precisely with these short melodic formulae that he shone his searchlight into the previously unplumbed depths of the human psyche. With them, in a complex canonic web, he wove a dense tissue of sound capable of taking in and reflecting back all the poetical character present. His actual melodies rarely have an arioso form; his harmonic system combines subtle chromatic progressions, suspensions, a rapid alternation of minor and major, and point d’orgue. The shape of Schumann’s scores is characterized by contrapuntal lines, and can at first seem opaque or confused. His music is frequently marked by martial dotted rhythms or dance-like triple time signatures. He loves to veil accented beats of the bar by teasingly intertwining two simultaneous voices in independent motion. This highly inde-pendent instrumental style is perfectly attuned to his own particular compositional idiom. After a period in which the piano had indulged in sensuous beauty of sound and brilliant coloration, in Schumann it again became a tool for conveying poetic monologues in musical terms.”

Burkard Schliessmann classical pianist

Talkings about Chopin and Schumann

Love , Beauty , Music , Color

“We may also, I think, congratulate ourselves on the part that the British Empire has played in this struggle, and on the position which it fills at the close. Among the many miscalculations of the enemy was the profound conviction, not only that we had a "contemptible little Army," but that we were a doomed and decadent nation. The trident was to be struck from our palsied grasp, the Empire was to crumble at the first shock; a nation dedicated, as we used to be told, to pleasure-taking and the pursuit of wealth was to be deprived of the place to which it had ceased to have any right, and was to be reduced to the level of a second-class, or perhaps even of a third-class Power. It is not for us in the hour of victory to boast that these predictions have been falsified; but, at least, we may say this—that the British Flag never flew over a more powerful or a more united Empire than now; Britons never had better cause to look the world in the face; never did our voice count for more in the councils of the nations, or in determining the future destinies of mankind. That that voice may be raised in the times that now lie before us in the interests of order and liberty, that that power may be wielded to secure a settlement that shall last, that that Flag may be a token of justice to others as well as of pride to ourselves, is our united hope and prayer.”

George Curzon, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston (1859–1925) British politician

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/lords/1918/nov/18/the-armistice-address-to-his-majesty in the House of Lords (18 November 1918).

Pleasure , Lie , World , Justice

“"Woken up, have you?" the woman said. Her voice was like broken glass in an ice bucket.†
† Unexpectedly sharp. And cold. No one can say I don't work hard describing things for you.”

Jonathan Stroud book The Amulet of Samarkand

The Amulet of Samarkand (2003)

“For the first book, I interviewed one mother of four little kids, skinny, pretty, bad teeth — meaning no dental care — and the kids are jumping around, 'cause they want to hear their mamma's voice played back… and so I play it back, and she listens to what she said on the tape and she says, 'Oh my God,' she says. ' I never knew I felt that way before' … That's pretty hot stuff, isn't it? That's hot stuff. That's the stuff.”

Studs Terkel (1912–2008) American author, historian and broadcaster

The Guardian interview (2002)

God , Books , Way

“Perhaps the central reason that Ahmadinejad’s message, and the hundreds of thousands of voices echoing his call throughout the world, are so dangerous is because the Free World is making precious little effort to assert its own message.”

Caroline Glick (1969) deputy managing editor of the Jerusalem Post

Reprinted in [Live from NY’s 92nd Street Y continues, http://www.vaildaily.com/article/20071007/AE/71007002, Vail Daily, October 7, 2007]
Discussing Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

World , Effort

Quotes about voice page 10

Quotes about voice
page 10