Quotes about wash (474 quotes, page 2) | Quotes of famous people

“There's something wrong with a mother who washes out a measuring cup with soap and water after she's only measured water in it.”

Erma Bombeck (1927–1996) When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent le…

Water

“I can’t for the life of me not eat something that I want to eat. You know how if you turned on a faucet in your sink to wash your hands, the idea of leaving the bathroom without turning it off is insane? That’s how I am about ignoring delicious food.”

Mindy Kaling book Why Not Me?

Source: Why Not Me?

Life , Food , Idea

“A woman who will be like a rock in a riverbed, enduring without complaint, her grace not sullied butby the turbulence that washes over her.”

Khaled Hosseini book A Thousand Splendid Suns

Source: A Thousand Splendid Suns

“What a psalm the storm was singing, and how fresh the smell of the washed earth and leaves, and how sweet the still small voices of the storm!”

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

Source: Stickeen

Singing

“The depth of the feeling continued to surprise and threaten me, but each time it hit again and I bore it… I would discover that it hadn't washed me away.”

Anne Lamott (1954) Novelist, essayist, memoirist, activist

Source: Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith

Feeling , Time

“All we have to do is get out and vote, while it's still legal, and we will wash those crooked warmongers out of the White House.”

Hunter S. Thompson (1937–2005) American journalist and author

Housing

“Two lost things that had survived the seas and arrived on a coastline. What did they do? They implanted themselves in the sand and grew into trees and lined the beaches. Sometimes a lot can come of being all washed up. You can really grow.”

Cecelia Ahern (1981) Irish novelist

Source: The Book of Tomorrow

Tree , Sea

“The images of his infinite pasts and infinite futures washed over him as he waited, paralyzed, in the present.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Everything Is Illuminated

Source: Everything Is Illuminated

Waiting , Past , Future

“I washed a sock. Then I put it in the dryer. When I took it out, it was gone.”

Steven Wright (1955) American actor and author

“Was life nothing more than a storm that constantly washed away what had been there only a moment before, and left behind something barren and unrecognizable?”

Arthur Golden book Memoirs of a Geisha

Source: Memoirs of a Geisha

Life

“If I wasn't writing poems, I'd be washing my hands all the time.”

Sherman Alexie (1966) Native American author and filmmaker

Time

“I warn't never meant to be a lady, I know that now. I got streaks of wildness in me that trip me up every time, and just like streaks in clothes, there's some dirt that just won't wash out.”

L.A. Meyer (1942–2014) American writer

Source: Curse of the Blue Tattoo: Being an Account of the Misadventures of Jacky Faber, Midshipman and Fine Lady

Time , Clothes

“I'm all done with hating you. It's all washed out of me. I hate people hard, but I don't hate them very long.”

Raymond Chandler book The Lady in the Lake

Source: The Lady in the Lake

Hate , People

“If you will die for me,
I will die for you
and our graves will be like two lovers washing
their clothes together
in a laundromat
If you will bring the soap
I will bring the bleach.”

Richard Brautigan (1935–1984) American novelist, poet, and short story writer

Lovers , Clothes

“Baking is like washing--the results are equally temporary.”

Patricia Briggs (1965) American writer

Source: Raven's Shadow

“And I'll wash your other clothes. Shall I also order you a new set of leathers?"
"Don't-" Wrath shut his mouth. "Sure. That'd be great. And, ah, could you get me some boxers? Black? XXL?”

Jessica Bird book Dark Lover

Source: Dark Lover

Clothes

“Thisabout Tessa. I knew it was."
Will flushed, a wash of color across the pallor of this face. "Not just her."
"But you love her."
Will stared at him. "Of course I do," he said finally. "I had come to think i would never love anyone, but I love her.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Prince

Source: Clockwork Prince

Love , Color , Thinking

“Al was standing a bare three feet away, his mood almost jovial as he took the paper and it vanished in a wash of black sparkles.

“Thank you, Rachel,” he said, carefully reaching for my hand as Trent stiffened.

“Welcome back, my itchy witch.”

Kim Harrison (1966) Pseudonym

Source: A Perfect Blood

Mood

“I just told you to be quiet. That's one step away from asking you to wash my laundry and make me a sandwich.”

Richelle Mead (1976) American writer

Source: Succubus Dreams

“Why were we so far apart, even when we were together? It was a nice loneliness, like the sensation of washing your face in cold water.”

Banana Yoshimoto book The Lake

Source: The Lake

Water , Loneliness

“If a mute kid swears, should his mother wash his hands with soap?”

Steven Wright (1955) American actor and author

“Now I know that our world is no more permanent than a wave rising on the ocean. Whatever our struggles and triumphs, however we may suffer them, all too soon they bleed into a wash, just like watery ink on paper.”

Arthur Golden book Memoirs of a Geisha

Source: Memoirs of a Geisha

World , Suffering

“Human beings have an inalienable right to invent themselves; when that right is pre-empted it is called brain-washing.”

Germaine Greer (1939) Australian feminist author

The Times, London (1986-02-01)

“The Shell

The sea fills my ear
with sand and with fear.

You may wash out the sand,
but never the sound
of the ghost of the sea
that is haunting me.”

Ted Hughes (1930–1998) English poet and children's writer

Source: The Mermaid's Purse: poems by Ted Hughes

Fear , Sea

“But it's writing, damn it, not washing the car or putting on eyeliner. If you can take it seriously, we can do business. If you can't or won't, it's time for you to close the book and do something else.

Wash the car, maybe.”

Stephen King (1947) American author

Source: On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

Books , Cars , Business , Time

“Words have weight, something once said cannot be unsaid. Meaning is like a stone dropped into a pool; the ripples will spread and you cannot know what back they wash against.”

Philippa Gregory book The Constant Princess

Source: The Constant Princess

“Patience is a virtue,
Virtue is a grace.
Grace is a little girl
Who would not wash her face.”

Dick King-Smith (1922–2011) English writer of children's books

Source: Lady Daisy

Girl , Patience

“If things go badly for me tonight, I want you to stay with Mr. Wynter; he will pay you a decent wage.”

“Will he make me bathe?”

“No, he will debate the matter with you until you decide to wash.”

“Ah. One of those.”

Eoin Colfer book Airman

Source: Airman

“How rarely do our emotions meet the object they seem to deserve? How hopelessly we signal; how dark the sky; how big the waves. We are all lost at sea, washed between hope and despair, hailing something that may never come to rescue us.”

Julian Barnes (1946) English writer

Hope , Sea , Despair

“This is what separates artists from ordinary people: the belief, deep in our hearts, that if we build our castles well enough, somehow the ocean won't wash them away. I think this is a wonderful kind of person to be.”

Anne Lamott (1954) Novelist, essayist, memoirist, activist

Source: Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

People , Thinking , Heart , Personality

“Your tears do not wash away your sorrows. They feed someone else's joy. And that is why you must learn to swallow your own tears.”

Amy Tan The Joy Luck Club

Source: The Joy Luck Club

Tear , Learning , Joy

“Told you. Everything sounds better in the car wash.”

Sarah Dessen book Just Listen

Source: Just Listen

Cars

“A cold realisation washed over me. From now on, my master would not always be there to protect and counsel me.
'This is big. Too big,' I said. 'What do I do?'
'You follow your destiny,' Ryoko said. 'As we all do. With honour and courage.”

Alison Goodman (1966) Australian science-fiction writer

Source: Eon: Dragoneye Reborn

Courage

“If theater is ritual, then dance is too… It's as if the threads connecting us to the rest of the world were washed clean of preconceptions and fears. When you dance, you can enjoy the luxury of being you.”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

Source: The Witch Of Portobello

World , Fear , Dance

“Mom loved my brother more. Not that she didn't love me - I felt the wash of her love every day, pouring over me, but it was a different kind, siphoned from a different, and tamer, body of water. I was her darling daughter; Joseph was her it.”

Aimee Bender (1969) Novelist, short story writer

Source: The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake

Love , Moms , Water , Daughters

“The stupid things you say in the rain, that can't ever be washed away.”

Janet Fitch (1955) American writer

Source: Paint it Black

Stupidity

“That's what tears are for, you know, to wash away the fear and cool the hate.”

Laurie R. King (1952) American novelist

Hate , Fear , Tear

“In the past, I had particularly loved her smell. She always smelled freshed, freshly washed or of freshed laundry or fresh sweat or freshly loved”

Bernhard Schlink book The Reader

Source: The Reader

Love , Past

“Long enough have you dream'd contemptible dreams,
Now I wash the gum from your eyes,
You must habit yourself to the dazzle of the light
and of every moment of your life”

Walt Whitman book Fulles d'herba

Source: Leaves of Grass

Life , Dreams , Light

“We will never be cleansed until we confess we are dirty. And we will never be able to wash the feet of those who have hurt us until we allow Jesus, the one we have hurt, to wash ours.”

Max Lucado (1955) American clergyman and writer

Source: 3:16: The Numbers of Hope

Hurt

“Cupid said, smashing another skeleton to pieces."Nico," Jason managed to say, "it's okay. I get it."

Nico glanced over, pain and misery washing across his face.

"No you don't," he said. "There's no way you can understand."Cupid chided.”

Rick Riordan book The House of Hades

Source: The House of Hades

Pain , Way , Understanding

“You be greater than your feelings. I don't demand this of you - life does. Otherwise you'll be washed away by feelings. You'll be washed out to sea and never seen again.”

Philip Roth book Indignation

Source: Indignation

Life , Feeling , Sea

“My prostate thanks the car wash.”

Bill Allred

Radio From Hell (November 15, 2006)

Cars

“It is not the terrible occurrences that no one is spared, — a husband’s death, the moral ruin of a beloved child, long, torturing illness, or the shattering of a fondly nourished hope, — it is none of these that undermine the woman’s health and strength, but the little daily recurring, body and soul devouring care s. How many millions of good housewives have cooked and scrubbed their love of life away! How many have sacrificed their rosy checks and their dimples in domestic service, until they became wrinkled, withered, broken mummies. The everlasting question: ‘what shall I cook today,’ the ever recurring necessity of sweeping and dusting and scrubbing and dish-washing, is the steadily falling drop that slowly but surely wears out her body and mind. The cooking stove is the place where accounts are sadly balanced between income and expense, and where the most oppressing observations are made concerning the increased cost of living and the growing difficulty in making both ends meet. Upon the flaming altar where the pots are boiling, youth and freedom from care, beauty and light-heartedness are being sacrificed. In the old cook whose eyes are dim and whose back is bent with toil, no one would recognize the blushing bride of yore, beautiful, merry and modestly coquettish in the finery of her bridal garb.”

Dagobert von Gerhardt (1831–1910) German writer

To the ancients the hearth was sacred; beside the hearth they erected their lares and household-gods. Let us also hold the hearth sacred, where the conscientious German housewife slowly sacrifices her life, to keep the home comfortable, the table well supplied, and the family healthy."
"von Gerhardt, using the pen-name Gerhard von Amyntor in", A Commentary to the Book of Life. Quote taken from August Bebel, Woman and Socialism, Chapter X. Marriage as a Means of Support.

Love , Life , Death , God

“Of asphodel, that greeny flower,

::like a buttercup

::::upon its branching stem —

save that's green and wooden —

::I come, my sweet,

::::to sing to you.

We lived long together,

::a life filled,

::::if you will,

with flowers. So that

::I was cheered

::::when I first came to know

that there were flowers also

::in hell.

::::Today

I'm filled with the fading memory of those flowers

::that we both loved,

::::even to this poor

colorless thing —

::I saw it

::::when I was a child —

little prized among the living

::but the dead see,

::::asking among themselves:

What do I remember

::that was shaped

::::as this thing is shaped?
while our eyes fill
::with tears.
::::Of love, abiding love
it will be telling
::though too weak a wash of crimson
::::colors it
to make it wholly credible.
::There is something
::::something urgent
I have to say to you
::and you alone
::::but it must wait
while I drink in
::the joy of your approach,
::::perhaps for the last time.
And so
::with fear in my heart
::::I drag it out
and keep on talking
::for I dare not stop.”

William Carlos Williams book Journey to Love

Journey to Love (1955), Asphodel, That Greeny Flower

Love , Life , Fear , Color

“[In Ethiopia, ] Abeh enrolled all three of us in school, which was taught in Amharic. We spoke only Somali and Arabic, so everything was completely foreign again for a little while. It wasn't until I could communicate that I came to a startling realization: the little girls in school with me were not Muslims. They said they were Kiristaan, Christian, which in Saudi Arabia had been a hideous playground insult, meaning impure. I went bewildered to my mother, who confirmed it. Ethiopians were kufr, the very sound of the word was scornful. They drank alcohol and they didn't wash properly. They were despicable.”

Ayaan Hirsi Ali book Infidel

Source: Infidel (2007), Chapter 4: Weeping Orphans and Widowed Wives

Alcohol , School , Girl , Communication

“When lovely woman stoops to folly,
And finds too late that men betray,
What charm can soothe her melancholy?
What art can wash her guilt away?”

Oliver Goldsmith book The Vicar of Wakefield

Source: The Vicar of Wakefield (1766), Ch. 29, Song, st. 1.

Love , Men , Art

“Keep close to Nature's heart … and break clear away, once in a while, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean.”

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

statement by Muir as remembered by Samuel Hall Young in Alaska Days with John Muir (1915), chapter 7
1910s

Mountain , Nature , Heart

“Let us learn wisdom from this illustrious example. We have passed the Red Sea of slaughter; our garments are yet wet with its crimson spray. We have crossed the fearful wilderness of war, and have led our four hundred thousand heroes to sleep beside the dead enemies of the Republic. We have heard the voice of God amid the thunders of battle commanding us to wash our hands of iniquity, to 'proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof.' When we spurned his counsels we were defeated, and the gulfs of ruin yawned before us. When we obeyed his voice, he gave us victory. And now at last we have reached the confines of the wilderness. Before us is the land of promise, the land of hope, the land of peace, filled with possibilities of greatness and glory too vast for the grasp of the imagination. Are we worthy to enter it? On what condition may it be ours to enjoy and transmit to our children's children? Let us pause and make deliberate and solemn preparation. Let us, as representatives of the people, whose servants we are, bear in advance the sacred ark of republican liberty, with its tables of the law inscribed with the 'irreversible guaranties' of liberty. Let us here build a monument on which shall be written not only the curses of the law against treason, disloyalty, and oppression, but also an everlasting covenant of peace and blessing with loyalty, liberty, and obedience; and all the people will say, Amen.”

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

1860s, Speech in the House of Representatives (1866)

Wisdom , God , War , Children

“But in the judgments they exercise they are most accurate and just, nor do they pass sentence by the votes of a court that is fewer than a hundred. And as to what is once determined by that number, it is unalterable. What they most of all honor, after God himself, is the name of their legislator [Moses], whom if any one blaspheme he is punished capitally. They also think it a good thing to obey their elders, and the major part. Accordingly, if ten of them be sitting together, no one of them will speak while the other nine are against it. They also avoid spitting in the midst of them, or on the right side. Moreover, they are stricter than any other of the Jews in resting from their labors on the seventh day; for they not only get their food ready the day before, that they may not be obliged to kindle a fire on that day, but they will not remove any vessel out of its place, nor go to stool thereon. Nay, on other days they dig a small pit, a foot deep, with a paddle (which kind of hatchet is given them when they are first admitted among them); and covering themselves round with their garment, that they may not affront the Divine rays of light, they ease themselves into that pit, after which they put the earth that was dug out again into the pit; and even this they do only in the more lonely places, which they choose out for this purpose; and although this easement of the body be natural, yet it is a rule with them to wash themselves after it, as if it were a defilement to them.”

Josephus on the Essenes

Jewish War

God , Food , Exercises , Nature

“Made me a ripper, deliver like a river, content a little more thicker, slicker…and they said
oil and water don't mix, now they all down at the beach washing off the fish.”

Lupe Fiasco (1982) rapper

"Pressure"
Albums, Lupe Fiasco's Food & Liquor (2006)

Fish , Water

“The whole history of Israel, its ritual and its government, is explicable only as it is typical of the spiritual Israel, of the sacrifice on Calvary, of the precious blood which alone can wash away sin.”

Abbott Eliot Kittredge (1834–1912) American minister

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 69.

History

“There's no bread, let 'em eat cake
There's no end to what they'll take
Flaunt the fruits of noble birth
Wash the salt into the earth
-- Bastille Day (1975)”

Neil Peart (1952–2020) Canadian-American drummer , lyricist, and author

Rush Lyrics

Birth

“Does he really want to step into the ring with best fighter of this era and embarrass himself? Being the coward that he is, I doubt he'll get in the ring. We'll see what his excuse will be this time… When I retire, I'll get Ricky Hatton to wash my clothes and cut my lawn and buckle my shoes.”

Floyd Mayweather Jr. (1977) American boxer

About Ricky Hatton, as quoted in BBC http://news2.thdo.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/boxing/6328555.stm.

Shoe , Time , Clothes

“O Warden, I surender to you,
Your fists cain't hurt me anymore,
You know, these hands will never wash,
These dirty Death Row floors.”

Nick Cave (1957) Australian musician

Song lyrics, The Firstborn Is Dead (1985), Knockin' on Joe

Death , Hurt

“I linger on the flathouse roof, the moonlight is divine.
But my heart is all aflutter like the washing on the line.”

Nathalia Crane (1913–1998) American writer

"The Flathouse Roof"
The Janitor's Boy And Other Poems (1924)

Heart

“I come here to your beautiful country -’ Mr Raj saw through the window bare branches, coil after coil of dirty clouds, washing on neighbour lines, forlorn pecking birds, a distant brace of gasometers. ‘- your beautiful country, I say,’ he said defiantly. ‘…So far I have had mixed career. Fights and insults, complete lack of sexual sustenance - most necessary to men in prime of life - and inability to find accommodation commensurate with social position and academic attainments…”

Anthony Burgess (1917–1993) English writer

Fiction, The Right to an Answer (1960)

Life , Men , Beauty , Bird

“When the honoured month of Ramazdn, 588 H., the season of mercy and pardon, arrived, fresh intelligence was received at the auspicious Court, that the accursed Jatwan, having admitted the pride of Satan into his brain, and placed the cup of chieftainship and obstinacy upon his head, had raised his hand in fight against Nusratu-d din… The armies attacked each other "like two hills of steel, and the field of battle became tulip-dyed with the blood of the warriors."… The Hindus were completely defeated, and their leader slain." Jatwan, who was the essence of vice and turbulence, and the rod of infidelity and perverseness, the friend of grief, and the con- panion of shame, had his standards of God-plurality and ensigns of perdition lowered by the hand of power;" "and the dust of the field of battle was commingled with the blood of that God- abandoned wretch, and the whole country was washed from the filth of his idolatry.'"”

Muhammad of Ghor (1160–1206) Ghurid Sultan

About the flight of Jatwan and his death in battle, Kutbu-d din (general of Muhammad of Ghor). Hasan Nizami. Elliot and Dowson, Vol. II : Elliot and Dowson, History of India as told by its own Historians, 8 Volumes, Allahabad Reprint, 1964. pp. 217-218. Also quoted in Jain, Meenakshi (2011). The India they saw: Foreign accounts.

God , Intelligence , Fight , Country

“We could make an epic catalog of male achievements, from paved roads, indoor plumbing, and washing machine to eyeglasses, antibiotics and disposable diapers. We enjoy safe, fresh milk and meat, and vegetables and tropical fruits heaped in snowbound cities. When I cross the George Washington Bridge or any of America’s great bridges, I think: men have done this. Construction is a sublime male poetry. When I see a giant crane passing on a flatbed truck, I pause in awe and reverence as would for a church processions.”

Camille Paglia (1947) American writer

Source: Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson (1990), p. 37

Men , Thinking

“I used to be able to look at myself and grin without giving a damn about how ugly it made me look. Now I was looking at myself the same way those people did back there. I was looking at a big guy with an ugly reputation, a guy who had no earthly reason for existing in a decent, normal society. That's what the judge had said.
I was sweating and cold at the same time. Maybe it did happen to me over there. Maybe I did have a taste for death. Maybe I liked it too much to taste anything else. Maybe I was twisted and rotted inside. Maybe I would be washed down the sewer with the rest of all the rottenness sometime. What was stopping it from happening now? Why was I me with some kind of lucky charm around my neck that kept me going when I was better off dead?”

Mickey Spillane book One Lonely Night

One Lonely Night (1951)

Death , People , Way , Guy

“The truth is that dinosaurs have always lived with man. They were called dragons for most of human history and man killed most of them. In 1841, a new name "dinosaur" was given to them. It is quite possible that a few are still alive. There have been thousands of sightings of creatures, such as the Loch Ness Monster or the dead dinosaur that washed up on the beach in California in 1925.”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

Source: Are you being brainwashed?: Propaganda in science textbooks (2007), pp. 22-23

Truth , History , Dead

“Go to the bookstore and look at how many bookshelves are filled with books trying to explain how to work the devices. We don't see shelves of books on how to use television sets, telephones, refrigerators or washing machines. Why should we for computer-based applications?”

Donald A. Norman (1935) American academic

Source: The Invisible Computer (1998), Ch. 10

Books

“Isn't it better to talk about the relative merits of washing machines than the relative strength of rockets? Isn't this the kind of competition you want?”

Richard Nixon (1913–1994) 37th President of the United States of America

Remarks to Soviet premier Nikita Krushchev during the Kitchen Debate (24 July 1959)
1950s

“Forgotten? No, we never do forget:
We let the years go; wash them clean with tears,
Leave them to bleach out in the open day,
Or lock them careful by, like dead friends' clothes,
Till we shall dare unfold them without pain, —
But we forget not, never can forget.”

Dinah Craik (1826–1887) English novelist and poet

"A Flower of a Day"
Poems (1866)

Pain , Tear , Clothes , Dead

“If, when Christ was on his way to Calvary, some brave soul had rescued him from the pious mob, he would not only have been damned for his pains, but would have rendered impossible the salvation of any human being. The Christian world has been trying for nearly two thousand years to explain the atonement, and every effort has ended in an admission that it cannot be understood, and a declaration that it must be believed. Has the promise and hope of forgiveness ever prevented the commission of a sin? Can men be made better by being taught that sin gives happiness here; that to live a virtuous life is to bear a cross; that men can repent between the last sin and the last breath; and that repentance washes every stain of the soul away?”

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer

Some Reasons Why (1881)

Life , Men , Pain , World

“Listen to satsang. It is a very good thing. God created day and night. After that He created excellent things to eat, and then he landed us in this world. Isn't this human body beautiful? There is a nose to breathe with. Tell me, could we have survived without it? See what a good job of seeing these eyes do. Look how beautiful are the hands and the feet. If no seva is done, then these hands are of no use. These two ears have been given, if we don’t listen to satsang with them, aren’t they useless? If you do not go to satsang walking with these feet, they are also worthless. God has created all the parts of this body quite well, but if we don't use them properly, it is our fault, not the Creator's. The river flowing over there is the Ganga, but it is not flowing for its own use. It is we who drink its water, wash our clothes in it, and irrigate our fields with it. By bathing in it only the dirt of this body is washed, but by bathing in the Ganga of satsang, all the evils are removed. What I am telling you is also written in the Gita. But Gita cannot make you understand. Only the satguru can make you understand the satnam (true name), so do practice Knowledge. Look at Lord Shiva sitting with eyes closed [pointing towards a fountain with a statue of Shiva]. He always stays in the contemplation of Guru Maharaj. Whenever I see him he doesn’t do any other work. I don’t know whether he doesn’t like doing any other work or what. Therefore, you too should also practice Knowledge like this.”

Prem Rawat (1957) controversial spiritual leader

Prem Nagar, Hardwar August 21,1962 (translated from Hindi). Birthday Celebrations, as published in "Hansadesh" magazine, Issue 1, Mahesh Kare, January 1963. (First published address.)
1960s

God , World , Beauty , Drink

“A man should not marry after thirty years of age; should not enter the government service after the age of forty; should not have any more children after the age of fifty; and should not travel after the age of sixty. This is because the proper time for those things has passed. At sunrise the country is bright and fresh, and you dress, wash, and eat your breakfast, but before long it is noon. Then you realize how quickly time passes. I am always surprised when people talk about other people's ages, because what is a lifetime but a small part of much greater period? Why talk about insects when the whole world is before you? How can you count time by years? All that is clear is that time passes, and all the time there is a continual change going on. Some change has taken place ever since I began to write this. This continual change and decay fills me with sadness.”

Shi Nai'an (1296–1372) Chinese writer

Variant translation by Lin Yutang: "A man should not marry after thirty if he is not already married, and should not enter the government service if he is not already in the service. At fifty, he should not start to raise a family, and at sixty should not travel abroad. This is because there is a time for everything; done out of season and time, there may be more disadvantages than advantages. One wakes up at dawn completely refreshed, washes his face and puts on the headdress, has his breakfast; chews willow branches [for brightening his teeth], and attends to various things. Before he knows it he asks is it noon, and is told it is long past noon. As the morning goes, so goes the afternoon, and as one day passes, so pass the 36,000 days of one's life. If one is going to be upset by this thought, how can one ever enjoy life? I often wonder at a statement that such and such a person is so many years old. By this one means an accumulation of years. But where have the years accumulated? Can one lay hold of them and count them? This shows that the me of the past has long vanished. Moreover, when I have completed this sentence, the preceding sentence has already vanished. That is the tragedy." (The Importance of Understanding, 1960; pp. 83–84)
Preface to Water Margin

Children , People , Age , World

“Circle' was published at last [constructivist manifesto, in 1937 - with Naum Gabo, Ben Nicholson a. o. ]. Mondrian has made his studio opposite so very beautiful, and his company was always inspiring, as it had been in Paris when we used to visit him. After a while he really seemed to our domestic scene. His studio and Ben’s [the sculptor Ben Nicholson; Barbara was his wife then] were most austere, but my studio was a jumble of children, rocks, sculptures, trees, importunate flowers and washing.”

Barbara Hepworth (1903–1975) English sculptor

Source: 1961 - 1975, Barbara Hepworth, A Pictorial autobiography', 1970, p. 283

Children , Beauty , Flowers , Tree

“I have a wash more now than I used to y'know… I have a shower everynight.”

Fred Dibnah (1938–2004) English steeplejack and television personality, with a keen interest in mechanical engineering

Unsourced

“You are the descendant of a tiny cell of primordial protoplasm washed up on an empty beach three and a half billion years ago. You are the blind and arbitrary product of time, chance, and natural forces. You are a mere grab-bag of atomic particles, a conglomeration of genetic substance. You exist on a tiny planet in a minute solar system in an empty corner of a universe. You are a purely biological entity, different only in degree but not in kind from a microbe, virus, or amoeba. You have no essence beyond your body, and at death you will cease to exist entirely. In short you come from nothing and are going to nowhere.”

Randy Alcorn (1954) American Protestant author

Quoted in Dinesh D'Souza, What's so Great About Christianity (Regnery, 2007), p. 15

Death , Nature , Universe , Chance

“This was probably rooted in a belief that had been inculcated to him from the get-go: that there was an objective reality, which all people worth talking to could observe and understand, and that there was no point in arguing about anything that could be so observed and so understood. As long as you made a point of hanging out exclusively with people who had the wit to see and to understand that objective reality, you didn’t have to waste a lot of time talking. When a thunderstorm was headed your way across the prairie, you took the washing down from the line and closed the windows. It wasn’t necessary to have a meeting about it. The sales force didn’t need to get involved.”

Neal Stephenson book Reamde

Day 20
Reamde (2011), Part II: American Falls

People , Way , Understanding , Reality

“There are a large number of religious establishments ["convents "] which they call khanqahs, and the nobles vie with one another in building them. Each of these is set apart for a separate school of darwishes, mostly Persians, who are men of good education and adepts in the mystical doctrines. Each has a superior and a doorkeeper and their affairs are admirably organized. They have many special customs one of which has to do with their food. The steward of the house comes in the morning to the darwishes, each of whom indicates what food he desires, and when they assemble for meals, each person is given his bread and soup in a separate dish, none sharing with another. They eat twice a day. They are each given winter clothes and summer clothes, and a monthly allowance of from twenty to thirty dirhams. Every Thursday night they receive sugar cakes, soap to wash their clothes, the price of a bath, and oil for their lamps. These men are celibate; the married men have separate convents.”

Ibn Battuta (1304–1377) Moroccan explorer

Travels in Asia and Africa (Rehalã of Ibn Battûta)

Men , Education , School , Food

“The Church recruited people who had been starched and ironed before they were washed.”

John Wesley (1703–1791) Christian theologian

John Wesley Lord, as quoted in TIME magazine (1 February 1963)
Misattributed

People

“The example of the five (daily) prayers is like that of a clear-water river flowing in front of your houses in which a person washes himself five times a day – cleansing him from all dirt.”

Muhammad (570–632) Arabian religious leader and the founder of Islam

Kanzul `Ummal, Volume 7, Tradition 18931
Shi'ite Hadith

Water , Time , Housing , Personality

“It is commonly observed — but not commonly enough! — that old folks removed from their homes to hospital settings are put at a tremendous disadvantage, even though their basic bodily needs are well provided for. They often appear to be quite demented — to be utterly incapable of feeding, clothing, and washing themselves, let alone engaging in any activities of greater interest. Often, however, if they are returned to their homes, they can manage quite well for themselves. How do they do this? Over the years, they have loaded their home environments with ultrafamiliar landmarks, triggers for habits, reminder of what to do, where to find the food, how to get dressed, where the telephone is, and so forth. An old person can be a veritable virtuoso of self-help in such a hugely overlearned world, in spite of his or her brain's increasing imperviousness to new bouts of learning… Taking them out of their homes is literally separating them from large parts of their minds — potentially just as devastating a development as undergoing brain surgery.”

Daniel Dennett (1942) American philosopher

Kinds of Minds (1996)

World , Food , Home , Learning

“He was caught up in a lie he half-believed,
Found her hiding high in the family tree.
Washed his hands, and put her 'cross his knee.
She said "daddy, you've been a mother to me."”

Tom Petty (1950–2017) American musician

Ankle Deep
Lyrics, Highway Companion (2006)

Lie , Family , Tree

“Rahula, develop meditation that is like water. … Just as people wash clean things and dirty things, excrement, urine, spittle, pus, and blood in water, and the water is not horrified, humiliated, and disgusted because of that, so too, Rahula, develop meditation that is like water.”

Gautama Buddha (-563–-483 BC) philosopher, reformer and the founder of Buddhism

Sutta 62, verse 14, p. 530
Pali Canon, Sutta Pitaka, Majjhima Nikaya (Middle Length Discourses)

People , Water

“Now, such an enterprise as would be the drawing and printing [by lithography ] of a series of, for instance, thirty pages of types of workmen, a sower, a digger, a woodcutter, a plowman, a wash-woman, then also a child's cradle or a man from the almshouse - well, the whole immeasurable field lies open, there are plenty of beautiful subjects - I should think the following would be the best way: as it is useful and necessary that Dutch drawings are made, printed, and spread, destined for the houses of workmen, a few persons should unite in order to use their full strength for this end.”

Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890) Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890)

quote in his letter to brother Theo, from The Hague, The Netherlands in Autumn 1882; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935 https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_1996_300061887.pdf, (letter 249), p. 20
1880s, 1882

Beauty , Way , Thinking , Drawing

“[About airports with advanced equipment] You know, you can have fun with that if you do it like I do. I take two Viagra and demand a pat down. "What's that in your pants, Mr. White?" "I have no idea. You're gonna need to pat that down… Pat it back up again… Give it a couple twists. See if it's connected to anything… You might wanna go wash your hands."”

Ron White (1956) American comedian

A Little Unprofessional

Idea

“Nothing, but nothing, is as washed up as a rock star past her prime.”

Bart Bull American journalist

Arizona Republic, 1984

Star , Past

“The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it.”

Edward FitzGerald (1809–1883) English poet and writer

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

Tear

“The peasant will be told what the Church has destroyed for them: the whole of the secret knowledge of nature, of the divine, the shapeless, the daemonic. The peasant will learn to hate the Church on that basis… We shall wash off the Christian veneer and bring out a religion particular to our race.”

Hermann Rauschning (1887–1982) German politician

Source: The Voice of Destruction (1940), p. 55

Hate , Secret , Religion , Nature

“She [Lucrezia] also had bright yellow hair, which she washed once a week with a mixture of saffron, box shavings, wood ash, barley straw, madder, cumin seed, and one thing and another to bring out the hidden glints and restore its natural color. You left it on your head for twenty-four hours and washed it off with lye made from cabbage stalks, the only hazard of which was the second-degree burn. If your hair remained on the scalp, you were a blonde.”

Will Cuppy (1884–1949) American writer

The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (1950), Part III: Strange Bedfellows, Lucrezia Borgia

Color , Nature , Box

“O white and midnight sky, O starry bath,
Wash me in thy pure, heavenly crystal flood:
Cleanse me, ye stars, from earthly soil and scath—
Let not one taint remain in spirit or blood!”

Richard Watson Gilder (1844–1909) editor

The Celestial Passion, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Star

“See, if I come into a black neighborhood and say, "Thanks for watching my show," and give out high fives and all that, I'm not doing no good. I go out and see a kid grabbing his crotch. Ain't nobody telling them that. Where do they get it from? They watch MTV. I say, "If you wash up more often, you won't have to grab your crotch." I'm telling these guys, "Why you gotta grab your crotch?"”

Mr. T (1952) American actor and retired professional wrestler

Then you see Michael Jackson grabbing his crotch 50 times. What's with him?

Guy , Time

“I'm a wife in watercolors I can wash away what seventeen cold showers couldn't wash away.”

St. Vincent (musician) (1982) American singer-songwriter

"Save Me from What I Want"
Actor (2009)

“It's outrageous to line your pockets off the misery of the poor.
Outrageous, the crimes some human beings must endure.
It's a blessing to wash your face in the summer solstice rain.
It's outrageous a man like me stand here and complain.
But I'm tired.”

Paul Simon (1941) American musician, songwriter and producer

Outrageous
Song lyrics, Surprise (2006)

Summer

“If [Apple] is smart it will call the iPhone a "reference design" and pass it to some suckers to build with someone else's marketing budget. Then it can wash its hands of any marketplace failures. It should do that immediately before it's too late.”

John C. Dvorak (1952) US journalist and radio broadcaster

"Apple should pull the plug on the iPhone" in MarketWatch (28 March 2007) http://www.marketwatch.com/story/apple-should-pull-the-plug-on-the-iphone
2000s

Failure