Quotes about whisper
page 6

“Sometimes, if you stand very still in the shadows of those places, you can hear songs on the wind, whispers in the trees. That is why I travel.”

Valya Dudycz Lupescu (1974) American writer

The Silence of Trees (2010)

Travel, Tree

“I stood on the stage and watched Marco in rather indignantly, look at Governor Bush and say, someone told you that because we’re running for the same office, that criticizing me will get you to that office. It appears that the same someone who has been whispering in old Marco’s ear too. So the indignation that you carry on, some of the stuff, you have to also own then. So let’s set the facts straight. First of all, I didn’t support Sonia Sotomayor. Secondly, I never wrote a check to Planned Parenthood. Third, if you look at my record as governor of New Jersey, I have vetoed a 50-caliber rifle ban. I have vetoed a reduction this clip size. I vetoed a statewide I. D. system for gun owners and I pardoned, six out-of-state folks who came through our state and were arrested for owning a gun legally in another state so they never have to face charges. And on Common Core, Common Core has been eliminated in New Jersey. So listen, this is the difference between being a governor and a senator. See when you’re a senator, what you get to do is just talk and talk and talk. And you talk so much that nobody can ever keep up with what you’re saying is accurate or not. When you’re a governor, you’re held accountable for everything you do. And the people of New Jersey, I’ve seen it. And the last piece is this. I like Marco too, and two years ago, he called me a conservative reformer that New Jersey needed. That was before he was running against me. Now that he is, he’s changed his tune. I’m never going to change my tune. I like Marco Rubio. He’s a good guy, a smart guy, and he would be a heck of a lot better president than Hillary Rodham Clinton would ever be.”

Chris Christie (1962) 55th Governor of New Jersey, former U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey

Full Transcript of the Sixth Republican Debate in Charleston http://time.com/4182096/republican-debate-charleston-transcript-full-text/, Time (14 January 2016).

People, Guy, Support, Appearance

“We are not called on to believe this or that doctrine which may be proposed to us till we can do so from honest conviction. But we are called on to trust, — to trust ourselves to God, being sure that He will lead us right, — to keep close to Him, — and to trust the promises which He whispers through our conscience; this we can do, and we ought to do.”

John Campbell Shairp (1819–1885) British writer

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 195.

God

“With whisper of her mellowing grain,
With treble of brook and bud and tree,
Earth joys for ever to sustain
The bass eternal of the sea.”

Roden Noel (1834–1894) English poet

"Beatrice", in Beatrice, and other Poems (1868).

Tree, Joy, Sea

“O singers, resinous and soft your songs
Above the sacred whisper of the pines,
Give virgin lips to cornfield concubines,
Bring dreams of Christ to dusky cane-lipped throngs.”

Jean Toomer (1894–1967) American poet and novelist

from "Georgia Dusk"
Poems from Cane (1923)

Dreams, Christ

“[Describing the bazar held in Delhi near the Red Fort, Francois Bernier (seventeenth century) says that] “Hither, likewise, the astrologers resort, both Mahometan and Gentile. These wise doctors remain seated in the sun, on a dusty piece of carpet, handling some old mathematical instruments, and having open before them a large book which represents the sign of the Zodiac. In this way they attract the attention of the passenger… by whom they are considered as so many infallible oracles. They tell a poor person his fortune for a payssa… Silly women, wrapping themselves in a white cloth from head to foot, flock to the astrologers, whisper to them all the transaction of their lives, and disclose every secret with no more reserve than is practised by a penitent in the presence of her confessor. The ignorant and infatuated people really believe that the stars have an influence (on their lives) which the astrologers can control.””

François Bernier (1620–1688) French physician and traveller

Quoted from Lal, K. S. (1992). The legacy of Muslim rule in India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 1
Travels in the Mogul Empire (1656-1668)

Women, People, Secret, Books

“What had it been like the first time Da tried to read the same page? She could almost see his finger under each word, the whisper of his voice as he sounded out the words to himself. How had he ever done that? It seemed impossible.”

Patricia Reilly Giff (1935) American children's writer

Source: Water Street (2006), Chapters 11-20, p. 95-96

Time, Reading

“As long as he could whisper, he would go on as he had begun, bluntly refusing to meet his creator with the admission that the creation had taught him nothing except that the square of the hypotenuse of a right-angled triangle might for convenience be taken as equal to something else. Every man with self-respect enough to become effective, if only as a machine, has had to account to himself for himself somehow, and to invent a formula of his own for his universe, if the standard formulas failed.”

Henry Adams (1838–1918) journalist, historian, academic, novelist

The Education of Henry Adams (1907)

Universe

“The men of the Niagara Movement coming from the toil of the year's hard work and pausing a moment from the earning of their daily bread turn toward the nation and again ask in the name of ten million the privilege of a hearing. In the last year the work of the Negro hater has flourished in the land. Step by step the defenders of the rights of American citizens have retreated. The work of stealing the black man's ballot has progressed and the fifty and more representatives of stolen votes still sit in the nation's capital. Discrimination in travel and public accommodation has so spread the some of our weaker brethren are actually afraid to thunder against color discrimination as such and are simply whispering for ordinary decencies.”

W.E.B. Du Bois (1868–1963) American sociologist, historian, activist and writer

The Niagara Movement, Address to the Country

Men, Color, Travel

“It is by self-reliance, humanly speaking, by the independence which has been the motive and impelling force of our race, that the Scots have thriven in India and in Canada, in Australia and New Zealand, and even in England, where at different times they were banned. As things are we in Scotland do not take much or even ask much from the State, but the State invites us every day to lean upon it. I seem hear the wheedling and alluring whisper, "Sound you may be; we bid you be a cripple. Do you see? Be blind. Do you hear? Be deaf. Do you walk? Be not venturesome; here is a crutch for one arm. When you get accustomed to it you will soon want another, the sooner the better." The strongest man, if encouraged, may soon accustom himself to the methods of an invalid; he may train himself to totter or to be fed with a spoon. The ancient sculptors represent Hercules leaning on his club; our modern Hercules would have his club elongated and duplicated and resting under his arms. (Laughter.) The lesson of our Scottish teaching was "Level up"; the cry of modern civilization is "Level down; let the Government have a finger in every pie," probing, propping, disturbing. ("Hear, hear," and laughter.) Every day the area for initiative is being narrowed, every day the standing ground for self-reliance is being undermined, every day the public infringes, with the best intentions, no doubt, on the individual. The nation is being taken into custody by the State. Perhaps the current cannot now be stemmed; agitation or protest may be alike unavailing; the world rolls on, it may be part of its destiny, a necessary phase in its long evolution, a stage in its blind, toilsome progress to an invisible goal. I neither affirm nor deny. All in the long run is doubtless for the best; but, speaking as a Scotsman to Scotsmen, I plead for our historical character, for the maintenance of those sterling national qualities which have meant so much to Scotland in the past.”

Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery (1847–1929) British politician

Cheers.
Speech to Glasgow University (12 June 1908), reported in The Times (13 June 1908), p. 12.

World, Motivation, Laughter, Time

“She throws a kiss, and bids me run
In whispers sweet as roses’ breath;
I know I can not win the race,
And at the end, I know, is death.”

Maurice Thompson (1844–1901) American novelist

Atalanta’s Race.

Death, Kiss

“What's up with the racewalkers? I mean I respect them as athletes but come on… a contest to see who can walk the fastest is like having a contest to see who can whisper the loudest.”

Bob Costas (1952) American sportscaster

On the September 24, 2000 Olympic w:racewalk broadcast, quoted in "No Respect for Olympic Racewalking" https://www.verywellfit.com/no-respect-for-olympic-racewalking-3435871

“Fond Hope keeps the spark alive, whispering ever that to-morrow things will mend.”
Credula vitam spes fovet et fore cras semper ait melius.

Tibullus (-50–-19 BC) poet and writer (0054-0019)

Credula vitam
spes fovet et fore cras semper ait melius.
Bk. 2, no. 6, line 19.
Elegies

Hope

“Yonder in the unknown vastness"—his long finger stabbed at the black silent jungle which brooded beyond the firelight—"yonder lies mystery and adventure and nameless terror. Once I dared the jungle—once she nearly claimed my bones. Something entered into my blood, something stole into my soul like a whisper of unnamed sin. The jungle! Dark and brooding—over leagues of the blue salt sea she has drawn me and with the dawn I go to seek the heart of her. Mayhap I shall find curious adventure—mayhap my doom awaits me. But better death than the ceaseless and everlasting urge, the fire that has burned my veins with bitter longing.”

Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) American author

"The Hills of the Dead" (1930)

Death, Soul, Heart, Sea

“To hear never-heard sounds,
To see never-seen colors and shapes,
To try to understand the imperceptible
Power pervading the world;
To fly and find pure ethereal substances
That are not of matter
But of that invisible soul pervading reality.
To hear another soul and to whisper to another soul;
To be a lantern in the darkness
Or an umbrella in a stormy day;
To feel much more than know.
To be the eyes of an eagle, slope of a mountain;
To be a wave understanding the influence of the moon;
To be a tree and read the memory of the leaves;
To be an insignificant pedestrian on the streets
Of crazy cities watching, watching, and watching.
To be a smile on the face of a woman
And shine in her memory
As a moment saved without planning.”

Dejan Stojanovic (1959) poet, writer, and businessman

Task of a Poet http://www.poetrysoup.com/famous/poem/21367/Task_of_a_Poet From the poems written in English

World, Smile, Color, Feeling

“Words are not deeds. In published poems — we think first of Eliot's "Jew", words edge closer to deeds. In Céline's anti-Semitic textbooks, words get as close to deeds as words can well get. Blood libels scrawled on front doors are deed.
In a correspondence, words are hardly even words. They are soundless cries and whispers, "gouts of bile," as Larkin characterized his political opinions, ways of saying, "Gloomy old sod, aren't I?" Or more simply, "Grrr."
Correspondences are self-dramatizations. Above all, a word in a letter is never your last word on any subject. There was no public side to Larkin's prejudices, and nothing that could be construed as a racist — the word suggest a system of thought, rather than an absence of thought, which would be closer to the reality, closer to the jolts and twitches of self response.”

Martin Amis (1949) Welsh novelist

"Political Correctness: Robert Bly and Philip Larkin" (1997)

Way, Thinking, Reality

“His heart beating faster, his throat drying, Nabby whispered to the driver, ‘Not so bloody fast.’
‘Tuan?’
‘All right, all right.’ One of these days he must really get down to the language. There never seemed to be the time, somehow….”

Anthony Burgess (1917–1993) English writer

Fiction, Time for a Tiger (1956)

Time, Heart

“Later Julian would give me another book he had culled from among the Archival duplicates, a short novel called The Time Machine by Mr. H. G. Wells, about a marvelous but apparently imaginary cart which carried a man into the future—and it fascinated me—but the Archive itself was a Time Machine in everything but name. Here were voices preserved on browning paper like pressed flowers, whispering apostasies into the ear of a new century.”

Robert Charles Wilson book Julian Comstock: A Story of 22nd-Century America

Source: Julian Comstock: A Story of 22nd-Century America (2009), p. 332

Books, Flowers, Time, Future

“Had Japan been a tenth as wise as Abraham Lincoln, had Hitler been a hundredth part as sensible, we today, the United States and England, would not have a chance in this war. Had those two enemies of ours coveted the lands upon subject peoples dwell today and had they whispered the magic word freedom to those peoples, they might have set half the world against us in a moment. But they have lost because they attacked lands already free, and because they have enslaved peoples accustomed to freedom. By this one thing alone, if by no other, they are doomed. They have misread the hearts and minds of men. By their enslavement of the peoples whom they have made subject by force of arms, they have aroused against themselves a greater force than can be found in any army, in any weapon. It is this- the will of men everywhere to be free. Let us learn today from Abraham Lincoln, as we fight this war still so far from victory. He could not win that war until he lit the fire in the hearts of men and women enslaved. Nothing had been enough to make men rise up and shout aloud for victory until that moment. A few men like war and enjoy it as a game. But most men and all women hate war. They will not fight with their whole hearts unless they are set aflame. And the torch is always the same words. Whisper those words and men and women will shout them aloud and sing them as they march. The words are simple but they are the most potent in the universe- they are the spiritual dynamite of victory. The words? "All persons held as slaves… are and henceforward shall be free."”

Pearl S. Buck (1892–1973) American writer

Source: What America Means to Me (1943), p. 195

Women, Men, Hate, War

“Tiredness and fatigue are effects caused by ignorance of Nature and disobedience to her inexorable law. You may command Nature to the extent only in which you are willing to obey her. You cannot intelligently obey that which you do not comprehend. Ask of Nature that you may be one with her and she will whisper her secrets to you to the extent in which you are prepared to listen. Seek to be alone much to commune with Nature and be thus inspired by her mighty whisperings within your consciousness. Nature is a most jealous god, for she will not whisper her inspiring revelations to you unless you are absolutely alone with her.”

Walter Russell (1871–1963) American philosopher

The Man who Tapped the Secrets of the Universe

God, Secret, Law, Intelligence

“We notice it the moment our eyes meet someone else's
We feel it when coming into contact with him [or her]
But then once
We feel weak in the knees
The wind strokes my cheeks and makes it feel real
And whispering quietly
That this is not an illusion at all”

Ayumi Hamasaki (1978) Japanese recording artist, lyricist, model, and actress

Fated
Lyrics, Guilty

Feeling

“But these things are often unknown to the world; for there is much pain that is quite noiseless; and vibrations that make human agonies are often a mere whisper in the roar of hurrying existence. There are glances of hatred that stab and raise no cry of murder; robberies that leave man or woman for ever beggared of peace and joy, yet kept secret by the sufferer – committed to no sound except that of low moans in the night, seen in no writing except that made on the face by the slow months of suppressed anguish and early morning tears. Many an inherited sorrow that has marred a life has been breathed in no human ear.”

George Eliot book Felix Holt, the Radical

Introductory chapter (at page 11-12 – page numbers per the 'Wordsworth Classics' edition 1997.)
Felix Holt, the Radical (1866)

Life, Pain, Secret, World

“Shells with lip, or tooth, or bleeding gum,
Tell-tale shells, and shells that whisper 'Come',
Shells that stammer, blush, and yet are dumb – "
"O let me hear!”

Thomas Sturge Moore (1870–1944) British playwright, poet and artist

"A Duet", line 5; from The Sea is Kind (London: Grant Richards, 1914) p. 78.

“Thirty-six million / miles of whispering welcome. / Mars, you called us home.”

Vanna Bonta (1958–2014) Italian-American writer, poet, inventor, actress, voice artist (1958-2014)

Haiku aboard NASA spaceship MAVEN, Mars mission (2013)

Home

“Hush, not a whisper! Let your heart alone go dreaming.
Dream unto dream may pass: deep in the heart alone
Murmurs the Mighty One his solemn undertone.”

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

The Nuts of Knowledge (1903)

Dreams, Heart

“The pine trees whispering, the gerons cry
The plover's passing wing, his lullaby”

Pauline Johnson (1861–1913) Canadian poet and performer

from The Camper

Tree, Cry

“Stella, I never knew you but here I am, in your room, a week after your death. … I thought of you, Stella, and wondered if you watched your moments, or if they all snuck by. I whispered your name into the day, carried on for you in reverence, and I felt you rest and continue the smile.”

Vanna Bonta (1958–2014) Italian-American writer, poet, inventor, actress, voice artist (1958-2014)

"Stella's Earrings"
Degrees: Thought Capsules and Micro Tales (1989)

Death, Smile

“You can't get a big head about [fame]. When people stare at me, they could be whispering to their friend, 'That guy sucks! Have you seen him before? He's horrible.”

David Spade (1964) American stand-up comedian

Hollywood Minute, Saturday Night Live

People, Guy

“A tiny whisper at the back of her mind warned her to be wary of what one asked the gods for, lest they grant it.”

Robert Lynn Asprin (1946–2008) American science fiction and fantasy author

Source: Wagers of Sin (1996), Chapter 18 (p. 366)

God

“This is the place of my song-dream, the place the music played to me,' whispered the Rat, as if in a trance. 'Here, in this holy place, here if anywhere, surely we shall find Him!'
Then suddenly the Mole felt a great Awe fall upon him, an awe that turned his muscles to water, bowed his head, and rooted his feet to the ground. It was no panic terror — indeed he felt wonderfully at peace and happy — but it was an awe that smote and held him and, without seeing, he knew it could only mean that some august Presence was very, very near. With difficulty he turned to look for his friend and saw him at his side cowed, stricken, and trembling violently. And still there was utter silence in the populous bird-haunted branches around them; and still the light grew and grew.”

Kenneth Grahame book The Wind in the Willows

Source: The Wind in the Willows (1908), Ch. 7

Happiness, Peace, Dreams, Music

“Convince yourself. Kovno is a treasure-trove for artists. It is gloomy, the lamps don't make it lighter and the streets are getting darker. Their violet windows hover threateningly in the darkness. The elusive lines of low houses, on them - the glimmer of green and red flames - illuminating rows of shops. Bright green bright red stripes [all] fall on the violet sidewalk. And all those shadows are full of people who only speak about one thing, about love, in the dialect, Polish or broken Russian. Whispers and loud words touch the silence, like the green and red bands of light - the darkness of the night. Something terrible, terrible lies over everything, I feel a shudder, it seems I am in another world, far away from real life.”

Marianne von Werefkin (1860–1938) expressionist painter

Quote from Werefkin's letter to Alexej von Jawlensky, between December 1909 and Spring 1910; as cited in 'Ambiguity of Home: Identity and Reminiscence in Marianne Werefkin's Return Home, c. 1909', Adrienne Kochman http://www.19thc-artworldwide.org/spring06/52-spring06/spring06article/171-ambiguity-of-home-identity-and-reminiscence-in-marianne-werefkins-return-home-c-1909 1906 - 1911

Love, Life, People, World

“Once there ruled in the distant city of Wirani a king who was both mighty and wise. And he was feared for his might and loved for his wisdom. Now, in the heart of that city was a well, whose water was cool and crystalline, from which all the inhabitants drank, even the king and his courtiers; for there was no other well. One night when all were asleep, a witch entered the city, and poured seven drops of strange liquid into the well, and said, “From this hour he who drinks this water shall become mad.” Next morning all the inhabitants, save the king and his lord chamberlain, drank from the well and became mad, even as the witch had foretold. And during that day the people in the narrow streets and in the market places did naught but whisper to one another, “The king is mad. Our king and his lord chamberlain have lost their reason. Surely we cannot be ruled by a mad king. We must dethrone him.” That evening the king ordered a golden goblet to be filled from the well. And when it was brought to him he drank deeply, and gave it to his lord chamberlain to drink. And there was great rejoicing in that distant city of Wirani, because its king and its lord chamberlain had regained their reason.”

Khalil Gibran (1883–1931) Lebanese artist, poet, and writer

The Madman (1918)

Love, Wisdom, People, Fear

“At this time a high-ranking SS leader hinted to me that Himmler was preparing decisive steps. In February 1945, the Reichsführer-SS had assumed command of the Vistula Army Group, but he was no better than his successor at stopping the Russian advance. Hitler was now berating him also. Thus what personal prestige Himmler had retained was used up by a few weeks of commanding frontline troops. Nevertheless, everyone still feared Himmler, and I felt distinctly shaky one day on learning that Himmler was coming to see me about something that evening. This, incidentally, was the only time he ever called on me. My nervousness grew when Theodor Hupfauer, the new chief of our Central Office- with whom I had several times spoken rather candidly- told me in some trepidation that Gestapo chief Kaltenbrunner would be calling on him at the same hour. Before Himmler entered, by adjutant whispered to me: "He's alone." My office was without window panes; we no longer bothered replacing them since they were blasted out by bombs every few days. A wretched candle stood at the center of the table; the electricity was out again. Wrapped in our coats, we sat facing one another. Himmler talked about minor matters, asked about pointless details, and finally made the witless observation: "When the course is downhill there's always a floor to the valley, and once it is reached, Herr Speer, the ascent begins again." Since I expressed neither agreement nor disagreement with this proverbial wisdom and remained virtually monosyllabic throughout the conversation, he soon took his leave. I never found out what he wanted of it, or why Kaltenbrunner called on Hupfauer at the same time. Perhaps t hey had heard about my critical attitude and were seeking allies; perhaps they merely wanted to sound us out.”

Albert Speer (1905–1981) German architect, Minister of Armaments and War Production for Nazi Germany

Source: Inside the Third Reich: Memoirs (1970), p. 427-428

Wisdom, Fear, Decision, Learning

“We wake and whisper awhile,
But, the day gone by,
Silence and sleep like fields
Of amaranth lie.”

Walter de la Mare (1873–1956) English poet and fiction writer

All That's Past.

Lie, Sleep, Silence

“Girl, tell me only this:
That I'll have your heart for always.
And you want me by your side,
Whispering the words "I'll always love you."”

Lionel Richie (1949) American singer-songwriter, musician, record producer and actor

Truly.
Song lyrics, Lionel Richie (1982)

Love, Girl, Heart

“These are the gentry who are today wrapped up in the American flag, who shout their claim from the housetops that they are the only patriots, and who have their magnifying glasses in hand, scanning the country for evidence of disloyalty, eager to apply the brand of treason to the men who dare to even whisper their opposition to Junker rule in the United Sates. No wonder Sam Johnson declared that "patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel." He must have had this Wall Street gentry in mind, or at least their prototypes, for in every age it has been the tyrant, the oppressor and the exploiter who has wrapped himself in the cloak of patriotism, or religion, or both to deceive and overawe the people.”

Eugene V. Debs (1855–1926) American labor and political leader

The Canton, Ohio Speech, Anti-War Speech (1918)

Men, People, Age, Religion

“How deep, how merciless, the love represt,
That robs the silent midnight of its rest;
That sees in gather'd crowds but one alone;
That hears in mingled footsteps only one;
That turns the poet's page, to only find
Some mournful image for itself design'd;
That seeks in music, but the plaining tone
Which secret sorrow whispers is its own!”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

The Neglected One
The Venetian Bracelet (1829)

Love, Secret, Music

“He knew what she'd be reading first as she started from the beginning, reading what he'd had to say when he was younger, and then growing older, stories at first about tiny mice who lived in families in back of the wall, and stories about school, and apartments in Greenpoint and Carnasie and Flatbush, elves in Ireland that he'd pictured as Pop had told him about them, and the woman with lace on her sleeves.
She kept turning pages, and then halfway through, she whispered, "Water Street."
Thomas knew she was reading now about a boy who listened at a register, thinking about a family, and a lighthouse, and then she turned the next page and took a breath.
It was the story he really wanted her to see: a story about a girl who though less of herself than everyone else did, who worried about everyone, even when she didn't want to, even when it made her irritable. A girl who was afraid, and who hardly knew it yet, but was on her way to being a healer like her mother, because there'd never be anything else for her, and how lucky they were just to know her.”

Patricia Reilly Giff (1935) American children's writer

Source: Water Street (2006), Chapters 21-29, p. 135-136

School, Family, Way, Girl

“[The Jews who roamed through Moscow looking for work] had a special kind of face … a special kind of whisper and a special kind of footstep … They were like hunted animals.”

Roman Vishniac (1897–1990) American photographer

Animals

“For philosophy, the whisper of the serpent is no longer a resistible temptation. It is instead a constitutive principle, or foundation. If there is a difference between a Socratic daemon and a diabolical demon, it is not one that matters philosophically. There can be no refusal of any accessible information. This is an assumption so basic that philosophy cannot exist until it has passed beyond question. Ultimate religious transgression is the initiation.”

Nick Land (1962) British philosopher

"What is Philosophy?(Part 2)" http://www.xenosystems.net/what-is-philosophy-part-2a/ (2013)

Question

“I drug your ghost across the country, and we plotted out my death.
Every city and memory we whispered "Here is where you rest."
Well I was determined in Chicago but I dug my teeth into my knees
And I settled for a telephone, sang into your machine:
"You are my sunshine, my only sunshine."”

Conor Oberst (1980) American musician

The Calendar Hung Itself
Fevers and Mirrors (2000)

Death, Memory, Country

“Now sometimes words can serve me well
Sometimes words can go to hell
For all that they do.
And for every dream that took me high
There's been a dream that's passed me by.
I know it's so true
And I can see it clear out to the end
And I'll whisper to her now again
Because she shared my life.
For more than all the ghosts of glory
She makes up the story,
She's the only story
Of my life.”

Harry Chapin (1942–1981) American musician

Story of a Life
Song lyrics, Sequel (1981)

Life, Dreams, Hell

“You won't always be here. But before you go, whisper this to your sons and their sons "The work was free. Keep it so."”

L. Ron Hubbard (1911–1986) American science fiction author, philosopher, cult leader, and the founder of the Church of Scientology

"Scientology: Clear Procedure - Issue One" (December 1957).
Scientology Bulletins

“When I contemplate the green serenity of the fields or look into the depths of clear eyes through which shines a fellow-soul, my consciousness dilates, I feel the diastole of the soul and am bathed in the flood of the life that flows about me, and I believe in my future; but instantly the voice of mystery whispers to me, "Thou shalt cease to be!" the angel of Death touches me with his wing, and the systole of the soul floods the depth of my spirit with the blood of divinity.”

Miguel de Unamuno (1864–1936) 19th-20th century Spanish writer and philosopher

The Tragic Sense of Life (1913), III : The Hunger of Immortality

Life, Death, Angels, Feeling

““It was an old passion,” he said. “I haven’t touched a violin for months. I didn’t know what that would be like.”
“What is it like?” she asked.
He began to walk so that she almost missed his answer. “An amputation,” he whispered.”

Octavia E. Butler book Clay's Ark

Source: Clay's Ark (1984), Chapter 14 (p. 533)

Passion

“He heard them whispering—whispering… The independence seeped out of him and he walked the streets alone, afraid of men's cynical eyes and the incessant hiss of whispering.”

Sinclair Lewis book Babbitt

Babbitt (1922), Ch. 32

Men

“In the terrible years of the Yezhov terror, I spent seventeen months in the prison lines of Leningrad. Once, someone "recognized" me. Then a woman with bluish lips standing behind me, who, of course, had never heard me called by name before, woke up from the supor to which everyone had succumbed and whispered in my ear (everyone spoke in whispers there):
"Can you describe this?"
And I answered: "Yes, I can."
Then something that looked like a smile passed over what had once been her face.”

Anna Akhmatova (1889–1966) Russian modernist poet

Leningrad, 1 April 1957
Requiem; 1935-1940 (1963; 1987), Instead of a Preface

Smile

“Mother of quartz, your words writhe into my ear.
Renew the light, lewd whisper.”

Theodore Roethke (1908–1963) American poet

"The Shape of the Fire," ll. 54 - 55
The Lost Son and Other Poems (1948)

Light

“Let him play,” whispered Cheeta. “Let him make believe that he’s alive again.”

Mervyn Peake book Titus Alone

Source: Titus Alone (1959), Chapter 105 (p. 1000)

“It is impossible that the whisper of a faction should prevail against the voice of a nation.”

John Russell, 1st Earl Russell (1792–1878) leading Whig and Liberal politician who served as Prime Minister on two occasions

Source: Letter to T. Attwood, October 1831, after the rejection in the House of Lords of the Reform Bill (7 October 1831).

“It seemed to whisper 'Quietness,'
Then quietly itself was gone:
Yet echoes of its mute caress
Were with me as the years went on.”

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

The Nuts of Knowledge (1903)
Context: It was the fairy of the place,
Moving within a little light,
Who touched with dim and shadowy grace
The conflict at its fever height.
It seemed to whisper 'Quietness,'
Then quietly itself was gone:
Yet echoes of its mute caress
Were with me as the years went on.

“And in Life's noisiest hour,
There whispers still the ceaseless Love of Thee,
The heart's Self-solace and soliloquy.
You mould my Hopes, you fashion me within.”

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) English poet, literary critic and philosopher

" The Presence of Love http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/stc/Coleridge/poems/Presence_Love.html" (1807), lines 1-4.

Love, Life, Hope, Fashion

“And, like some low and mournful spell,
To whisper but one word—farewell!”

Park Benjamin, Sr. (1809–1864) American journalist

A Thought on Parting.
Context: But then to part! to part when Time
Has wreathed his tireless wing with flowers,
And spread the richness of a clime
Of fairy o'er this land of ours;
When glistening leaves and shaded streams
In the soft light of Autumn lay,
And, like the music of our dreams,
The viewless breezes seemed to stray—
'T was bitter then to rend the heart
With the sad thought that we must part;
And, like some low and mournful spell,
To whisper but one word—farewell!

“It's a cute acting trick, this whispering, mumbling thing. I realised a long time ago, when people are mumbling or whispering they're either talking about sex, or money, or lying. So if you're not doing that, you'd better speak up.”

William H. Macy (1950) American actor, screenwriter, teacher and director in theater, film and television

Interview in The Guardian (2011)
Context: People have said, in one form or another, your diction is too good. At first you think, are you insane? And then I realised, I spent so much time in the theatre, and Mamet was such a stickler about that and I am, too – that I had been spoilt. It's a cute acting trick, this whispering, mumbling thing. I realised a long time ago, when people are mumbling or whispering they're either talking about sex, or money, or lying. So if you're not doing that, you'd better speak up.

Money, People, Sex, Lying

“The cause which is blocking all progress today is the subtle scepticism which whispers in a million ears that things are not good enough to be worth improving. If the world is good we are revolutionaries, if the world is evil we must be conservatives.”

G. K. Chesterton book The Defendant

"In Defence Of A New Edition" - Preface to the second edition (1902)
The Defendant (1901)
Context: The cause which is blocking all progress today is the subtle scepticism which whispers in a million ears that things are not good enough to be worth improving. If the world is good we are revolutionaries, if the world is evil we must be conservatives. These essays, futile as they are considered as serious literature, are yet ethically sincere, since they seek to remind men that things must be loved first and improved afterwards.

World, Evil

“Where the ring of twilight gleams
Round the sanctuary wrought,
Whispers haunt me — in my dreams
We are one yet know it not.”

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

The Nuts of Knowledge (1903)
Context: Where the ring of twilight gleams
Round the sanctuary wrought,
Whispers haunt me — in my dreams
We are one yet know it not.
Some for beauty follow long
Flying traces; some there be
Seek thee only for a song:
I to lose myself in thee.

Dreams

“I sat and cursed myself. Why did I always appear so dumb when I was called upon to perform something in a crowd? I knew how to write as well as any pupil in the classroom, and no doubt I could read better than any of them, and I could talk fluently and expressively when I was sure of myself. Then why did strange faces make me freeze? I sat with my ears and neck burning, hearing the pupils whisper about me, hating myself, hating them; I sat still as stone and a storm of emotion surged through me”

Richard Wright book Black Boy

Black Boy (1945)

Hate, Appearance, Reading

“It was the measure of a whole society — their ideals and their standards! It was the way they spent their time, repeating nasty scandals about each other; living in an atmosphere of suspicion and cynicism, with endless whispering and leering, and gossip of low intrigue.”

Upton Sinclair (1878–1968) American novelist, writer, journalist, political activist

Metropolis (1908)
Context: A new burst of rage swept over him — What did it matter whether it was true or not — whether anything was true or not? What did it matter if anybody had done all the hideous and loathsome things that everybody else said they had done? It was what everybody was saying! It was what everybody believed — what everybody was interested in! It was the measure of a whole society — their ideals and their standards! It was the way they spent their time, repeating nasty scandals about each other; living in an atmosphere of suspicion and cynicism, with endless whispering and leering, and gossip of low intrigue.

Way, Time

“And the sign said "The words of the prophets
Are written on the subway walls
And tenement halls
And whispered in the sound of silence"”

Paul Simon (1941) American musician, songwriter and producer

The Sound of Silence
Song lyrics, Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M. (1964)
Context: And the people bowed and prayed
To the neon god they made
And the sign flashed out its warning
In the words that it was forming
And the sign said "The words of the prophets
Are written on the subway walls
And tenement halls
And whispered in the sound of silence"

Silence

“And in Life's noisiest hour,
There whispers still the ceaseless Love of Thee,
The heart's Self-solace and soliloquy.”

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) English poet, literary critic and philosopher

" The Presence of Love http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/stc/Coleridge/poems/Presence_Love.html" (1807), lines 1-4. Context: p>And in Life's noisiest hour, There whispers still the ceaseless Love of Thee, The heart's Self-solace and soliloquy.You mould my Hopes, you fashion me within.</p

Love, Life, Heart

“Every dimwit editor who sees himself as the source of all dreary blanc-mange plain porridge unleavened literature, licks his guillotine and eyes the neck of any author who dares to speak above a whisper or write above a nursery rhyme.”

Ray Bradbury book Fahrenheit 451

Fahrenheit 451 (1953), Coda (1979)
Context: There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running about with lit matches. Every minority, be it Baptist/Unitarian, Irish/Italian/Octogenarian/Zen Buddhist, Zionist/Seventh-day Adventist, Women's Lib/Republican, Mattachine/FourSquareGospel feels it has the will, the right, the duty to douse the kerosene, light the fuse. Every dimwit editor who sees himself as the source of all dreary blanc-mange plain porridge unleavened literature, licks his guillotine and eyes the neck of any author who dares to speak above a whisper or write above a nursery rhyme.

Literature

“Sometimes we like a book, sometimes we prefer music. Sometimes we want to sing out with hundreds, sometimes only whisper with a few. Sometimes we want to say it with words, sometimes with a deep silence.”

Henri Nouwen (1932–1996) Dutch priest and writer

With Open Hands (1972)
Context: Only within this kind of life does a spoken prayer make sense. A prayer in church, at table or in school is only a witness to what we want to make of our entire lives. Such a prayer reminds us that praying is living and it invites us to make this an ever-greater reality. Thus, there are as many ways to pray as there are moments in life. Sometimes we seek out a quiet spot and want to be alone, sometimes we look for a friend and want to be together. Sometimes we like a book, sometimes we prefer music. Sometimes we want to sing out with hundreds, sometimes only whisper with a few. Sometimes we want to say it with words, sometimes with a deep silence.

Books, Music, Silence, Singing

“When he came to me, he touched me on the brow, and on the nose, and on the chin, and he said to me, in a whisper, “Live forever.” And I decided to.”

Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) American writer

The Paris Review interview (2010)
Context: The need for romance is constant, and again, it’s pooh-poohed by intellectuals. As a result they’re going to stunt their kids. You can’t kill a dream. Social obligation has to come from living with some sense of style, high adventure, and romance. It’s like my friend Mr. Electrico. … he was a real man. That was his real name. Circuses and carnivals were always passing through Illinois during my childhood and I was in love with their mystery. One autumn weekend in 1932, when I was twelve years old, the Dill Brothers Combined Shows came to town. One of the performers was Mr. Electrico. He sat in an electric chair. A stagehand pulled a switch and he was charged with fifty thousand volts of pure electricity. Lightning flashed in his eyes and his hair stood on end. … Mr. Electrico was a beautiful man, see, because he knew that he had a little weird kid there who was twelve years old and wanted lots of things. We walked along the shore of Lake Michigan and he treated me like a grown-up. I talked my big philosophies and he talked his little ones. Then we went out and sat on the dunes near the lake and all of a sudden he leaned over and said, I’m glad you’re back in my life. I said, What do you mean? I don’t know you. He said, You were my best friend outside of Paris in 1918. You were wounded in the Ardennes and you died in my arms there. I’m glad you’re back in the world. You have a different face, a different name, but the soul shining out of your face is the same as my friend. Welcome back.
Now why did he say that? Explain that to me, why? Maybe he had a dead son, maybe he had no sons, maybe he was lonely, maybe he was an ironical jokester. Who knows? It could be that he saw the intensity with which I live. Every once in a while at a book signing I see young boys and girls who are so full of fire that it shines out of their face and you pay more attention to that. Maybe that’s what attracted him.
When I left the carnival that day I stood by the carousel and I watched the horses running around and around to the music of “Beautiful Ohio,” and I cried. Tears streamed down my cheeks. I knew something important had happened to me that day because of Mr. Electrico. I felt changed. He gave me importance, immortality, a mystical gift. My life was turned around completely. It makes me cold all over to think about it, but I went home and within days I started to write. I’ve never stopped.
Seventy-seven years ago, and I’ve remembered it perfectly. I went back and saw him that night. He sat in the chair with his sword, they pulled the switch, and his hair stood up. He reached out with his sword and touched everyone in the front row, boys and girls, men and women, with the electricity that sizzled from the sword. When he came to me, he touched me on the brow, and on the nose, and on the chin, and he said to me, in a whisper, “Live forever.” And I decided to.

“There has fallen a splendid tear
From the passion-flower at the gate.
She is coming, my dove, my dear;
She is coming, my life, my fate;
The red rose cries, "She is near, she is near;"
And the white rose weeps, "She is late;"
The larkspur listens, "I hear, I hear;"
And the lily whispers, "I wait."”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892) British poet laureate

Part I, section xxii, stanza 10
Maud; A Monodrama (1855)

Life, Fate, Flowers, Tear

“A secret is not something unrevealed, but something told privately, in a whisper.”

Marcel Pagnol (1895–1974) novelist, playwright and filmmaker from France

Secret

“And then, a little Jew, with a long nose and a pale complexion, Poor but satisfied, pensive and reserved, A subtle but hollow spirit, less read than celebrated, Hidden under the mantle of Descartes, his mentor, Walking with measured steps, comes close to the great being: Excuse me, he says, addressing him in a whisper, But I think, just between us, that you do not exist at all.”

Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) Dutch philosopher

Voltaire's poem, as quoted in António Damásio's Looking for Spinoza: Joy, Sorrow, and the Feeling Brain (Orlando, FL: Harcourt, 2003)
S - Z

Thinking, Reading

“Sylvia went furthest in the sense that her secret was most dangerous to her. She desperately needed to reveal it. You can’t overestimate her compulsion to write like that. She had to write those things — even against her most vital interests. She died before she knew what The Bell Jar and the Ariel poems were going to do to her life, but she had to get them out. She had to tell everybody... like those Native American groups who periodically told everything that was wrong and painful in their lives in the presence of the whole tribe. It was no good doing it in secret; it had to be done in front of everybody else. Maybe that’s why poets go to such lengths to get their poems published. It’s no good whispering them to a priest or a confessional. And it’s not for fame, because they go on doing it after they’ve learned what fame amounts to. No, until the revelation’s actually published, the poet feels no release. In all that, Sylvia was an extreme case, I think.”

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

The Paris Review interview

Life, Pain, Secret, Feeling

“A white man addressing a Negro behaves exactly like an adult with a child and starts smirking, whispering, patronizing, cozening. It is not one white man I have watched, but hundreds; and I have not limited my investigation to any one class but, if I may claim an essentially objective position, I have made a point of observing such behavior in physician, policemen, employers.”

Frantz Fanon book Black Skin, White Masks

Source: Black Skin, White Masks (1952), pp. 31

Behavior

“Freely and boldly I declare that I have never heard a single donkey-cunt doctor of theology, in the smallest of his divisions and points, even whisper, to say nothing of speaking loudly, and points, even whisper, to say nothing of speaking loudly, about the order (established in God and all his creatures).”

Thomas Müntzer (1489–1525) early Reformation-era German pastor who was a rebel leader during the German Peasants' War

"A Protest about the Condition of the Bohemians"
Wu Ming Presents Thomas Müntzer, Sermon to the Princes

God

Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) Dutch philosopher

Voltaire's poem, as quoted in António Damásio's Looking for Spinoza: Joy, Sorrow, and the Feeling Brain (Orlando, FL: Harcourt, 2003)
S - Z

Thinking, Reading

“What made her talent so great was her capacity to live what she sang. Her music was deepened by her connection to the struggles and the triumphs of the African American experience growing up in her father’s church, the community of Detroit, and her awareness of the turmoil of the South. She had a lifelong, unwavering commitment to civil rights and was one of the strongest supporters of the movement. She was our sister and our friend. Whenever I would see her, from time to time, she would always inquire about the well-being of people she met and worked with during the sixties.When she sang, she embodied what we were fighting for, and her music strengthened us. It revived us. When we would be released from jail after a non-violent protest, we might go to a late night club and let the music of Aretha Franklin fill our hearts. She was like a muse whose songs whispered the strength to continue on. Her music gave us a greater sense of determination to never give up or give in, and to keep the faith. She was a wonderful, talented human being. We mourn for Aretha Franklin. We have lost the Queen of Soul.”

Aretha Franklin (1942–2018) American musician, singer, songwriter, and pianist

John Lewis, "Congressman John Lewis on Aretha Franklin: ‘One of God’s precious gifts’" https://www.ajc.com/lifestyles/congressman-john-lewis-aretha-franklin-one-god-precious-gifts/PRXHP5dgRpjhhuIUdjGEsO/, Atlanta Journal-Constitution (August 16, 2018)

People, Faith, Music, Soul

“But if we look a little deeper we shall find there is a pathetic, one might almost say a tragic, side to the picture. A shy man means a lonely man—a man cut off from all companionship, all sociability. He moves about the world, but does not mix with it. Between him and his fellow-men there runs ever an impassable barrier—a strong, invisible wall that, trying in vain to scale, he but bruises himself against. He sees the pleasant faces and hears the pleasant voices on the other side, but he cannot stretch his hand across to grasp another hand. He stands watching the merry groups, and he longs to speak and to claim kindred with them. But they pass him by, chatting gayly to one another, and he cannot stay them. He tries to reach them, but his prison walls move with him and hem him in on every side. In the busy street, in the crowded room, in the grind of work, in the whirl of pleasure, amid the many or amid the few—wherever men congregate together, wherever the music of human speech is heard and human thought is flashed from human eyes, there, shunned and solitary, the shy man, like a leper, stands apart. His soul is full of love and longing, but the world knows it not. The iron mask of shyness is riveted before his face, and the man beneath is never seen. Genial words and hearty greetings are ever rising to his lips, but they die away in unheard whispers behind the steel clamps. His heart aches for the weary brother, but his sympathy is dumb. Contempt and indignation against wrong choke up his throat, and finding no safety-valve whence in passionate utterance they may burst forth, they only turn in again and harm him. All the hate and scorn and love of a deep nature such as the shy man is ever cursed by fester and corrupt within, instead of spending themselves abroad, and sour him into a misanthrope and cynic.”

Jerome K. Jerome book Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow

Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow (1886)

Love, Men, Hate, Pleasure

“Steeped in sentiment as she lies, spreading her gardens to the moonlight, and whispering from her towers the last enchantments of the Middle Age, who will deny that Oxford, by her ineffable charm, keeps ever calling us nearer to the true goal of all of us, to the ideal, to perfection, — to beauty, in a word, which is only truth seen from another side?”

Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) English poet and cultural critic who worked as an inspector of schools

nearer, perhaps, than all the science of Tübingen. Adorable dreamer, whose heart has been so romantic who hast given thyself so prodigally, given thyself to sides and to heroes not mine, only never to the Philistines! home of lost causes, and forsaken beliefs, and unpopular names, and impossible loyalties!
Preface to the Second Edition (1869)
Essays in Criticism (1865)

Truth, Age, Beauty, Perfection

“Please respect our need to grieve privately. My heart is broken. I am the mother of the most tender-hearted, high-spirited, beautiful little girl who is the spitting image of her father. All that I can cling to is his presence inside her that reveals itself every day. His family and I watch Matilda as she whispers to trees, hugs animals, and takes steps two at a time, and we know that he is with us still. She will be brought up with the best memories of him.”

Heath Ledger (1979–2008) Australian actor

[Michelle Williams: Heath Ledger Has Broken My Heart, http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,23147754-5001021,00.html, The Daily Telegraph, Web, news.com.au, February 1, 2008, 2008-02-01, http://web.archive.org/web/20080206234312/http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,23147754-5001021,00.html, 2008-02-06]</ref>
[Michelle Williams Breaks Silence on Heath's Death, http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20175486,00.html, People, Web, people.com (Time Inc.), February 1, 2008, 2008-02-02]

Family, Beauty, Girl, Tree

“They could not have known that Ella’s whispered story of deception and murder had been the first experience in my life that had elicited from me a total emotional response. No words or punishment could have possibly made me doubt. I had tasted what to me was life, and I would have more of it, somehow, someway.”

Richard Wright book Black Boy

Black Boy (1945)

Life

“Zealousness to learn from life is seldom found, but all the more frequently a desire, inclination, and reciprocal haste to be deceived by life. Undaunted, people do not seem to have a Socratic fear of being deceived, for the voice of God is always a whisper, while the demand of the age is a thousand-tongued rumor, not an all-powerful call that creates great men but a stirring in the offal that creates confused pates, an abracadabra that produces after its kind as is the case with all production. Even less do people seem to have above all a Socratic fear of being deceived by themselves, do not seem to be the least aware that if the self-deceived are the most miserable of all, then among these, again, the most miserable are those who are presumptuously deceived by themselves in contrast to those who are piously deceived.”

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

Two Ages: The Age of Revolution and the Present Age. A Literary Review. By Soren Kierkegaard, 1846 edited and translated by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong 1978 Princeton University Press P. 10
1840s, Two Ages: A Literary Review (1846)

Life, Men, God, People

“The white fathers told us, I think therefore I am; and the black mothers in each of us-the poet-whispers in our dreams, I feel therefore I can be free. Poetry coins the language to express and charter this revolutionary awareness and demand, the implementation of that freedom.”

Audre Lorde (1934–1992) writer and activist

"Poetry is Not a Luxury"
Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches (1984)

Dreams, Feeling, Thinking, Freedom

“We see dimly in the Present what is small and what is great,
Slow of faith how weak an arm may turn this iron helm of fate,
But the soul is still oracular; amid the market's din,
List the ominous stern whisper from the Delphic cave within,—
"They enslave their children's children who make compromise with sin."”

James Russell Lowell The Present Crisis

St. 9
The Present Crisis (1844)

Fate, Children, Making love, Faith

“After such knowledge, what forgiveness? Think now
History has many cunning passages, contrived corridors
And issues, deceives with whispering ambitions,
Guides us by vanities. Think now
She gives when our attention is distracted
And what she gives, gives with such supple confusions
That the giving famishes the craving. Gives too late
What's not believed in, or if still believed,
In memory only, reconsidered passion. Gives too soon
Into weak hands, what's thought can be dispensed with
Till the refusal propagates a fear. Think
Neither fear nor courage saves us. Unnatural vices
Are fathered by our heroism. Virtues
Are forced upon us by our impudent crimes.
These tears are shaken from the wrath-bearing tree.”

T.S. Eliot book Poems

"Gerontion"
Poems (1920)

Fear, History, Forgiveness, Courage

“We are now raring to die for our country's sake
Let's see how much of strength the assassin can display!
O traveller on the path of love, do not drop mid-way,
It is the distance of the goal that glorifies the chase.
It is the distance of the goal that glorifies the chase.
Standing by the gallows the hangman makes a call,
Come, if there be any, by the martyr's zeal enthralled.
We'll tell you all, O sky, wait till he time arrives,
How can we at this stage, our secret plans unveil?
O martyrs in the nation's cause, kudos to your sacrifice,
Even in the enemy they talk of you with praise.
Fired by patriotic fervour, many a maddened youth.
Has gathered at the crossing, itching for the cross.
Why are they mute and silent? no whisper, no talk,
Everyone that I see has got his lips locked.”

Ram Prasad Bismil (1897–1927) revolutionary, poet & writer

Masterpieces of Patriotic Urdu Poetry, p. 109
Poetry, Desire for Self-sacrifice (Sarfaroshi Ki Tamanna)

Love, Secret, Youth, Making love

“I wouldn't be everlasting' cockin' me earth hear every little whisper that was floatin' around me! It's my rule never to lose me temper till it would be dethrimental to keep it.”

Sean O`Casey The Plough and the Stars

Fluther Good, Act 2
The Plough and the Stars (1926)

“I get to whisper to them, "I love you, I see you, I know. I know you're scared, and it's OK to be scared, and if you can't be scared out there you can be scared in here. Within the pages of this book, you can be who you wholly are."”

Jason Reynolds (1983) author of young adult novels

And perhaps that might be empowering enough to at least add a bit of significance to their lives.

As quoted in [Goncalves, Delia, 'I get to whisper to them, I love you', Jason Reynolds on writing for youth, growing up in DC and his mission, https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/local/dc-native-author-jason-reynolds-mission-writing-for-youth/65-ef42a5db-8423-4149-8f18-ae8e1f52d845, 10 March 2020, WUSA, February 3, 2020]

Love, Books, Making love

“What one hears in Ranke. The whisper of statecraft. Not the tramp of democracy's earthquake feet. Not the dull roar of surging opinion.”

John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton (1834–1902) British politician and historian

Private notes, quoted in Herbert Butterfield, ‘Acton: His Training, Methods and Intellectual System’, in A. O. Sarkissian (ed.), Studies in Diplomatic History and Historiography in honour of G. P. Gooch, C.H. (1961), p. 192
Undated

Democracy

“Each day you hear the sand as it moves and whispers,
Come and sail on my golden sea,
Maybe one day you’ll be just like me,
And that’s free.”

Ronnie James Dio (1942–2010) American singer

"Egypt (The Chains Are On)" on The Last in Line (1984)
Lyrics

Sea

“Now I tell what is very strong magic. I woke in the midst of the night. When I woke, the fire had gone out and I was cold. It seemed to me that all around me there were whisperings and voices. I closed my eyes to shut them out. Some will say that I slept again, but I do not think that I slept. I could feel the spirits drawing my spirit out of my body as a fish is drawn on a line.
Why should I lie about it? I am a priest and the son of a priest. If there are spirits, as they say, in the small Dead Places near us, what spirits must there not be in that great Place of the Gods? And would not they wish to speak? After such long years? I know that I felt myself drawn as a fish is drawn on a line. I had stepped out of my body — I could see my body asleep in front of the cold fire, but it was not I. I was drawn to look out upon the city of the gods.
It should have been dark, for it was night, but it was not dark. Everywhere there were lights — lines of light — circles and blurs of light — ten thousand torches would not have been the same. The sky itself was alight — you could barely see the stars for the glow in the sky. I thought to myself "This is strong magic" and trembled. There was a roaring in my ears like the rushing of rivers. Then my eyes grew used to the light and my ears to the sound. I knew that I was seeing the city as it had been when the gods were alive.”

Stephen Vincent Benét book By the Waters of Babylon

Source: By the Waters of Babylon (1937)

God, Lie, Feeling, Star

“Men and women whisper to each other because they have turned a sacred gesture into a sinful act.”

Paulo Coelho book Manuscript Found in Accra

Manuscript Found in Accra (2012), About sex

Women, Men

“Many of the most profound truths come not in shouting and scandal but, rather, in a whisper. In our noisy world, they are easily missed or dismissed.”

Arthur C. Brooks (1964) American policy analyst and musician

" Individuality Is an Illusion, https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2021/02/dalai-lama-gentle-transgressive-individuality-happiness/617901/" The Atlantic (04 February 2021)

Truth, World

“We love because Love sets us free, and we say things that we once never even had the courage to whisper to ourselves.”

Paulo Coelho book Manuscript Found in Accra

Manuscript Found in Accra (2012), Love has always passed me by

Love, Courage

“Fear and superstition always follow the unseen, the unknown, the whispered of.”

Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) American fiction writer

Source: The Margarets (2007), Chapter 34, “I Am M’urgi/On B’Yurngrad” (p. 312)

Fear

“There is a flower, a purple flower
Sown by the wind, nursed by the shower,
O'er which Love has breathed a power and spell
The truth of whispering hope to tell.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

According to the Lady's Book of Flowers, 1842 , this is the centaury
Source: The London Literary Gazette, 1824