Quotes about wish
page 26

Ignatius Sancho photo
Edward Hopper photo

“I wish I could paint more... I do dozens of sketches for oils.... if I do one that interests me I go on to make a painting but that happens only two or three times a year.”

Edward Hopper (1882–1967) prominent American realist painter and printmaker

Quote in 'Travelling Man', Time January 1948
1941 - 1967

Danny Elfman photo

“We don't wanna leave you, but…but we got to…wish this point right here, wish it could last forever right now! Yeah…it's kinda like one big orgasm!”

Danny Elfman (1953) American composer, record producer, and actor

Spoken before the performance of Only A Lad from Oingo Boingo's farewell concert on October 31, 1995 (which was released on CD, VHS and DVD).

Edward Young photo

“Like our shadows,
Our wishes lengthen as our sun declines.”

Source: Night-Thoughts (1742–1745), Night V, Line 661.

“I often wished during those years that I could be a lyricist with a camera. […] I took great delight in [Edward Weston's] and many other photographers’ work. I envied them the freedom to photograph a landscape apparently without concern for the implications of its possession.”

David Goldblatt (1930–2018) South African photographer

In an interview with Okwui Enwezor, as quoted in "The Camera Is Not a Machine Gun" http://designobserver.com/article.php?id=10557, Fred Ritchin, 1998

“The neurotic always wishes people would let him alone - until they do.”

Mignon McLaughlin (1913–1983) American journalist

The Complete Neurotic's Notebook (1981), Neurotics and neurosis

David Lloyd George photo

“I sometimes wish that I were in the Labour Party. I would tear down all these institutions!”

David Lloyd George (1863–1945) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speaking of landlords, quoted in Frances Stevenson's diary entry (17 December 1919), A. J. P. Taylor (ed.), Lloyd George: A Diary (London: Hutchinson, 1971), p. 193
Prime Minister

“Evil cannot be conquered by wishing.”

Source: The Chronicles of Prydain (1964–1968), Book V : The High King (1968), Chapter 21

Claude Debussy photo

“Every sound perceived by the acute ear in the rhythm of the world about us can be represented musically. Some people wish above all to conform to the rules, I wish only to render what I can hear.”

Claude Debussy (1862–1918) French composer

Statement of 1910, as quoted in Debussy on Music (1977) edited and translated by Françoise Lesure and Richard Langham Smith, p. 243

Diana, Princess of Wales photo

“I was always told by my family that I was the thick one. That I was stupid and my brother was the clever one. And I was always so conscious of that. I used to go to the headmistress crying saying I wish I wasn't so stupid.”

Diana, Princess of Wales (1961–1997) First wife of Charles, Prince of Wales

Said to voice coach Peter Settelen in 1992, as quoted in [http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6619607/t/tapes-reveal-more-princess-diana/ "Tapes reveal more from Princess Diana: NBC News exclusive: Inside the life of the late icon", NBC News (30 November 2004)

John Cage photo
Edward Young photo

“What ardently we wish we soon believe.”

Source: Night-Thoughts (1742–1745), Night VII, Line 1311.

Carl Sagan photo
John F. Kennedy photo

“No man can fully grasp how far and how fast we have come, but condense, if you will, the 50 thousand years of man's recorded history in a time span of but a half-century. Stated in these terms, we know very little about the first 40 years, except at the end of them advanced man had learned to use the skins of animals to cover them. Then about 10 years ago, under this standard, man emerged from his caves to construct other kinds of shelter. Only five years ago man learned to write and use a cart with wheels. Christianity began less than two years ago. The printing press came this year, and then less than two months ago, during this whole 50-year span of human history, the steam engine provided a new source of power. Newton explored the meaning of gravity. Last month electric lights and telephones and automobiles and airplanes became available. Only last week did we develop penicillin and television and nuclear power, and now if America's new spacecraft succeeds in reaching Venus, we will have literally reached the stars before midnight tonight.
This is a breathtaking pace, and such a pace cannot help but create new ills as it dispels old, new ignorance, new problems, new dangers. Surely the opening vistas of space promise high costs and hardships, as well as high reward.
So it is not surprising that some would have us stay where we are a little longer to rest, to wait. But this city of Houston, this state of Texas, this country of the United States was not built by those who waited and rested and wished to look behind them. This country was conquered by those who moved forward — and so will space.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

Source: 1962, Rice University speech

Richard Bach photo
Carl R. Rogers photo
Paul A. Samuelson photo
George W. Bush photo
Abd al-Karim Qasim photo

“We do not wish to become subordinate to any power. We will be friends with the powers of the world. We will be sincere friends to the powers that are sincere in their intentions and their friendship to us.”

Abd al-Karim Qasim (1914–1963) Prime Minister of Iraq

Speech delivered at the officers' club (June 16, 1959).
Principles of the 14th July Revolution (1959)

Arthur Guirdham photo
Edsger W. Dijkstra photo

“My point today is that, if we wish to count lines of code, we should not regard them as "lines produced" but as "lines spent": the current conventional wisdom is so foolish as to book that count on the wrong side of the ledger.”

Edsger W. Dijkstra (1930–2002) Dutch computer scientist

Dijkstra (1988) " On the cruelty of really teaching computing science http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD10xx/EWD1036.html (EWD1036).
1980s

Jean Metzinger photo
Gerard Manley Hopkins photo

“Take breath and read it with the ears, as I always wish to be read, and my verse becomes all right.”

Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–1889) English poet

Letter to Robert Bridges (25 October 1879 )
Letters, etc

James Madison photo

“You will find an allusion to some mysterious cause for a phenomenon in Stocks. It is surmised that the deferred debt is to be taken up at the next session, and some anticipated provision made for it. This may either be an invention of those who wish to sell, or it may be a reality imparted in confidence to the purchasers or smelt out by their sagacity. I have had a hint that something is intended and has dropt from 1 which has led to this speculation. I am unwilling to credit the fact, untill I have further evidence, which I am in a train of getting if it exists. It is said that packet boats & expresses are again sent from this place to the Southern States, to buy up the paper of all sorts which has risen in the market here. These & other abuses make it a problem whether the system of the old paper under a bad Government, or of the new under a good one, be chargeable with the greater substantial injustice. The true difference seems to be that by the former the few were the victims to the many; by the latter the many to the few. It seems agreed on all hands now that the bank is a certain & gratuitous augmentation of the capitals subscribed, in a proportion of not less than 40 or 50 [per cent] and if the deferred debt should be immediately provided for in favor of the purchasers of it in the deferred shape, & since the unanimous vote that no change [should] be made in the funding system, my imagination will not attempt to set bounds to the daring depravity of the times. The stock-jobbers will become the pretorian band of the Government, at once its tool & its tyrant; bribed by its largesses, & overawing it by clamours & combinations. Nothing new from abroad. I shall not be in [Philadelphia] till the close of the Week.”

James Madison (1751–1836) 4th president of the United States (1809 to 1817)

Letter to Thomas Jefferson (8 August 1791)
1790s

Robert B. Reich photo
William Herschel photo
W. H. Auden photo
Alfred Horsley Hinton photo
John Hall photo
Philip Pullman photo
Sergey Lavrov photo
Roberto Clemente photo

“I do not care about home runs. The pitch is always away from me and it is foolish to try to pull this pitch for a home run. The pitcher does not wish it so, and I don't try. I am not foolish. Only in Philadelphia I think maybe I will try for the home run, but I do not think so even in L. A. I make the hits which the pitcher cannot stop, and that is better than striking out and will drive out the pitcher, too.”

Roberto Clemente (1934–1972) Puerto Rican baseball player

As quoted by Les Biederman—who, not coincidentally, notes both Clemente's successful suppression of "the home run urge" and his ability to "hit for distance with the best" (the former earning the "unqualified praise of George Sisler")—in The Sporting News (June 1, 1960), p. 7
Baseball-related, <big><big>1960s</big></big>, <big>1960</big>

George Carlin photo

“We are on a nice downward glide. I call it circling the drain … And the circles get smaller and smaller and faster and faster, if you watch the sink empty… Huish! And we'll be gone. And that's fine. I welcome it. I wish I could live 1000 years to watch it happen. From a distance — so I can see it all.”

George Carlin (1937–2008) American stand-up comedian

Archive of American Television http://www.emmytvlegends.org/interviews/people/george-carlin, from one of Carlin's final interviews (2008)
Interviews, Television Appearances

Sidonius Apollinaris photo

“For the man who considers himself the best critic generally studies sound and unsound composition with equal interest, being no more greedy for lofty utterances to praise than for contemptible ones to ridicule. In this way technique, grandeur, and propriety in the use of the Latin language are particularly underrated by the armchair critics, who, with an insensibility which goes hand in hand with scurrility, and wishing to read only what they may criticize, cannot, by their very abuse of literature, be making a proper use of it.”
Nam qui maxume doctus sibi videtur, dictionem sanam et insanam ferme appetitu pari revolvit, non amplius concupiscens erecta quae laudet quam despecta quae rideat. atque in hunc modum scientia pompa proprietas linguae Latinae iudiciis otiosorum maximo spretui est, quorum scurrilitati neglegentia comes hoc volens tantum legere, quod carpat, sic non utitur litteris, quod abutitur.

Sidonius Apollinaris (430–489) Gaulish poet, aristocrat and bishop

Lib. 3, Ep. 14, sect. 2; vol. 2, p. 59.
Epistularum

Albrecht Thaer photo

“After his death I did not attend any more lectures, although I paid for them. Schroeder was succeeded by Ernst Gottfried Baldinger, born in Gross Vargula, near Erfurt, 1738; and descended in a direct line, on his mother's side, from Doctor Martin Luther. He established a dispensary for poor patients, and gave medicine gratia, on condition of his being attended by about thirty pupils. Here it was that I first began to display the knowledge I had gained from my friend, the late Doctor Schroeder; and Baldinger, not seeing me attend his lectures, naturally supposing I was lazy and dull of comprehension, exclaimed, with astonishment, "What will become of this boy?" Whereupon, considering myself insulted by the Doctor, I wished to retire; when he embraced me, and said, good-humouredly, "No, no such a clever young fellow never came under my observation." From this time I became his best friend and daily visitor; I passed whole days and weeks in his valuable and extensive library, and almost in the constant society of his amiable, highly gifted, and accomplished wife; his confidence was so great, that he left the entire direction of his dispensary to me, and even entrusted me with the care of his own family when unwell. Having given up all connexion with my former friends, the students, I selected one Leisewitz, the author of "Julius de Tarent." We sympathised in each other's feelings, and became inseparable. His amiable qualities and inoffensive wit drew around us the best society; but, to our great regret, many of them belonged to a new school of freethinkers, whose principles we endeavoured, by the assistance of the pious Madame Baldinger, to eradicate from their minds; and thus it was thnt Providence brought me over again to the firm belief of the truth of our Divine religion.”

Albrecht Thaer (1752–1828) German agronomist and an avid supporter of the humus theory for plant nutrition

My Life and Confessions, for Philippine, 1786

Kellyanne Conway photo
Alicia Witt photo

“damn my intuition here it goes
wish i didn’t know the things I know
you're backing off from me
i saw it happening
the moment she came back to you”

Alicia Witt (1975) American actress

Fighting For Crumbs https://aliciawitt.bandcamp.com/track/fighting-for-crumbs
Lyrics, Live at Rockwood (2012)

Sigmund Freud photo

“The sexual wishes in regard to the mother become more intense and the father is perceived as an obstacle to the; this gives rise to the Oedipus complex.”

Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) Austrian neurologist known as the founding father of psychoanalysis

1920s, The Ego and the Id (1923)

Margaret Thatcher photo

“I wish I could say that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had done himself less than justice. Unfortunately, I can only say that I believe he has done himself justice. Some Chancellors are macro-economic. Other Chancellors are fiscal. This one is just plain cheap.”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

On Denis Healey, in a remark in the House of Commons (22 January 1975) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/speeches/displaydocument.asp?docid=102591
Shadow Secretary for Environment

Nycole Turmel photo

“I have to say, on behalf of the NDP, from coast to coast, I want to thank all Canadians for their wishes and really, their love for Jack.”

Nycole Turmel (1942) Canadian politician

Turmel vows to stay on until NDP chooses leader http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2011/08/23/pol-ndp-turmel.html August 23, 2011.

Adele (singer) photo
Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo

“She held the cup; and he the while
Sat gazing on her playful smile,
As all the wine he wished to sip
Was one kiss from her rosebud lip.”

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

(8th February 1823) Medallion Wafers: Hercules and Iole
22nd February 1823) Leander and Hero see The Vow of the Peacock (1835
1st March 1823) An Old Man over the Body of his Son see The Vow of the Peacock (1835
The London Literary Gazette, 1823

Franz Marc photo
Sam Cooke photo

“Another Saturday night and I ain't got nobody,
I have some money 'cause I just got paid.
How I wish I had someone to talk to,
I'm in an awful way.”

Sam Cooke (1931–1964) American singer-songwriter and entrepreneur

Another Saturday Night
Song lyrics, Ain't That Good News (1964)

“Personally I wish the police had truncheoned the English fans to death, but I can’t really say that on the record.”

Tony Banks (1942–2006) British politician

"Hopes fade for Tony Banks after holiday stroke" http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1975281,00.html, The Times Online, 8 January 2006.
comment on football hooliganism abroad after allegations of police brutality against rioting English fans.

Tom Petty photo
Vincent Van Gogh photo
Nathanael Greene photo
John Kenneth Galbraith photo
Clement Attlee photo

“We are told that we have to accept the Treaty of Rome. I have read the Treaty of Rome pretty carefully, and it expresses an outlook entirely different from our own. It may be that I am insular, but I value our Parliamentary outlook, an outlook which has extended throughout the Commonwealth. That is not the same position that holds on the Continent of Europe. No one of these principal countries in the Common Market has been very successful in running Parliamentary institutions: Germany, hardly any experience; Italy, very little; France, a swing between a dictatorship and more or less anarchic Parliament, and not very successfully. As I read the Treaty of Rome, the whole position means that we shall enter a federation which is composed in an entirely different way. I do not say it is the wrong way. But it is not our way. In this set-up it is the official who really puts up all the proposals; the whole of the planning is done by officials. It seems to me that the Ministers come in at a later stage—and if there is anything like a Federal Parliament, at a later stage still. I do not think that that is the way this country has developed, or wishes to develop. I am all for working in with our Continental friends. I was one of those who worked to build up NATO; I have worked for European integration. But that is a very different thing from bringing us into a close association which, I may say, is not one for defence, or even just for foreign policy. The fact is that if the designs behind the Common Market are carried out, we are bound to be affected in every phase of our national life. There would be no national planning, except under the guidance of Continental planning—we shall not be able to deal with our own problems; we shall not be able to build up the country in the way we want to do, so far as I can see. I think we shall be subject to overall control and planning by others. That is my objection.”

Clement Attlee (1883–1967) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/lords/1962/nov/08/britain-and-the-common-market in the House of Lords on the British application to join the Common Market (8 November 1962).
1960s

Lillian Hellman photo
Aron Ra photo
DJ Shadow photo
Ben Gibbard photo
Mike Oldfield photo

“(Take a wish!)
My wish is…
…To be free,
To be wild,
And to be just
Like a child!”

Mike Oldfield (1953) English musician, multi-instrumentalist

Song lyrics, Tr3s Lunas (2002)

Juana Inés de la Cruz photo

“O World, why do you wish to persecute me?
How do I offend you, when I intend
only to fix beauty in my intellect,
and never my intellect fix on beauty?”

Juana Inés de la Cruz (1651–1695) Nun, scholar and poet in New Spain

¿En perseguirme, mundo, qué interesas?
¿En qué te ofendo, cuando sólo intento
poner bellezas en mi entendimiento
y no mi entendimiento en las bellezas?
Sonnet 146, as translated by Edith Grossman in Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz: Selected Works (2014)

Charles-François Daubigny photo

“I have bought at Auverse thirty perches of land, all covered with beans, on which I shall plant some legs of mutton when you come to see me. They are building me a studio there, some eight by six meters, with several rooms around it, which will serve me, I hope, next Spring [of 1861]. Father Corot has found Auvers very fine, and has engaged me to fix myself there for a part of the year, wishing to make rustic landscapes with figures. I shall be truly well of there, in the midst of a good farming country, where the ploughs do not yet go by steam.”

Charles-François Daubigny (1817–1878) French painter

Quote in his letter to his friend Frédéric Henriet, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?search=Fr%C3%A9d%C3%A9ric+Henriet&title=Special:Search&go=Go&searchToken=dt4h140y68u3oxynlcr55rftr#/media/File:Eaux-fortes._(Frontispiece)_(NYPL_b12616975-1690388).jpg, 1860; as cited in 'Charles-francois Daubigny', by Robert J. Wichenden, in The Century Illustrated Montly Magazine, Vol. XLIV, July 1892, p. 335
Daubigny bought property in Auvers-sur-Oise in 1860; four years later Corot would decorate there his Villa des Vallées, with beautiful murals.
1840s - 1850s

“If we wish to have blessings, we must fulfil our filial duties. Those who fulfil their filial duties will surely have blessings in the living world.”

Jun Hong Lu (1959) Australian Buddhist leader

Melbourne, (07 December 2014)[citation needed].

Alastair Reynolds photo
Théodore Rousseau photo

“I heard the voices of the trees; the surprises of their movements. Their varieties of form and even their peculiarity of attraction toward the light had suddenly revealed to me the language of the forest. All that world of flora lived as mutes, whose signs I divined, whose passions I discovered. I wished to converse with them and to be able to say to myself, through that other language, painting, that I had put my finger upon the secret of their grandeur.”

Théodore Rousseau (1812–1867) French painter (1812-1867)

quote from a talk between Th. Rousseau and Alfred Sensier, 1850's; as cited in Barbizon days, Millet-Corot-Rousseau-Barye by Charles Sprague Smith, A. Wessels Company, New York, July 1902, p. 147
Alfred Sensier frequently visited the studio of Th. Rousseau (and Millet) and wrote later a book about both artists
1851 - 1867

Salvador Dalí photo

“Shykh Nuruddin Mubarak Ghaznavi was the most important disciple of Shykh Shihabuddin Suhrawardi, founder of the second most important sufi silsila after the Chishtiyya, who died in Baghdad in 1235 AD. Ghaznavi had come and settled down in India where he passed away in 1234-35 AD. He served as Shykh-ul-Islam in the reign of Shamsuddin Iltutmish (AD 1210-1236), and propounded the doctrine of Din Panahi. Barani quotes the first principle of this doctrine as follows in his Tarikh-i-Firuzshahi. “The kings should protect the religion of Islam with sincere faith… And kings will not be able to perform the duty of protecting the Faith unless, for the sake of God and the Prophet’s creed, they overthrow and uproot kufr and kafiri (infidelity), shirk (setting partners to God) and the worship of idols. But if the total uprooting of idolatry is not possible owing to the firm roots of kufr and the large number of kafirs and mushriks (infidels and idolaters), the kings should at least strive to insult, disgrace, dishonour and defame the mushrik and idol-worshipping Hindus, who are the worst enemies of God and the Prophet. The symptom of the kings being the protectors of religion is this:- When they see a Hindu, their eyes grow red and they wish to bury him alive; they also desire to completely uproot the Brahmans, who are the leaders of kufr and shirk and owning to whom kufr and shirk are spread and the commandments of kufr are enforced… Owing to the fear and terror of the kings of Islam, not a single enemy of God and the Prophet can drink water that is sweet or stretch his legs on his bed and go to sleep in peace.””

Ziauddin Barani (1285–1357) Indian Muslim historian and political thinker (1285–1357)

Quoted from Goel, Sita Ram (2001). The story of Islamic imperialism in India. ISBN 9788185990231
Tarikh-i-Firuz Shahi

John Calvin photo
Will Cuppy photo
Anthony Burgess photo
Douglas Coupland photo
Pierre-Auguste Renoir photo
James Dobson photo

“Joys, which we do not know, we do not wish.”

Aaron Hill (writer) (1685–1750) British writer

Zara, Act I, Sc. 1.
Zara (1735)

Calvin Coolidge photo
Rajiv Malhotra photo
Girard Desargues photo

“He who shall wish to disentangle this proposition will easily be able to compose a volume.”

Girard Desargues (1591–1661) French mathematician and engineer

ca. 1640) as quoted by William Thompson Sedgwick, Harry Walter Tyler, A Short History of Science https://books.google.com/books?id=Wl8AAAAAMAAJ (1917

Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo
John C. Calhoun photo

“I never know what South Carolina thinks of a measure. I never consult her. I act to the best of my judgment, and according to my conscience. If she approves, well and good. If she does not, or wishes any one to take my place, I am ready to vacate. We are even.”

John C. Calhoun (1782–1850) 7th Vice President of the United States

Reported in Walter J. Miller, "Calhoun as a Lawyer and Statesman"' part 2, The Green Bag (June 1899), p. 271. Miller states "I will cite his own words", but this quotation is reported as not verified in Calhoun's writings in Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations (1989).

Bob Beatty photo
Hillary Clinton photo

“I wish [my mother] could have seen the America we’re going to build together. An America, where if you do your part, you reap the rewards. Where we don’t leave anyone out, or anyone behind. An America where a father can tell his daughter: yes, you can be anything you want to be. Even President of the United States.”

Hillary Clinton (1947) American politician, senator, Secretary of State, First Lady

Campaign kickoff speech (June 13, 2015) https://www.hillaryclinton.com/feed/campaign-kickoff-speech/?utm_medium=social&utm_source=fb&utm_campaign=20150613genius_social#
Presidential campaign (April 12, 2015 – 2016)

Ann B. Davis photo

“All of us wish we had an Alice. I wish I had an Alice.”

Ann B. Davis (1926–2014) American actress

(Referring to her character on The Brady Bunch) in People magazine in 1992

Ilana Mercer photo

“Hidden or in plain sight, The State is geared toward increasing or maintaining its sphere of influence, never reducing it. Voters are paid lip service, provided their wishes coincide with the aims of this unelected, entrenched apparatus. But when the popular will defies Deep State, that monster breathes fire.”

Ilana Mercer South African writer

"Elon Musk, Et al.: The Corporate Arm Of The Deep State," https://townhall.com/columnists/ilanamercer/2017/06/03/elon-musk-et-al-the-corporate-arm-of-the-deepstate-n2335618 Townhall.com, June 3, 2017
2010s, 2017

Calvin Coolidge photo
Percy Bysshe Shelley photo
Robert Jordan photo

“"Wish" and "want" trip the feet, but "is" makes the path smoother.”

Robert Jordan (1948–2007) American writer

Lini
(15 October 1993)

Albert Jay Nock photo
Hariprasad Chaurasia photo

“Half-a-century ago, I came to Odisha to embark on my musical journey. This land has nourished my soul and nurtured my spirit. Through this Gurukul I wish to give back a small part of what I received from here.”

Hariprasad Chaurasia (1938) Indian bansuri player

During the launching of his “Vrindaban Gurukul”, an institution for training in Indian classical music in Orissa. Quoted in A step forward in promotion of classical music, 22 March 2010, 19 December 2013, The Hindu http://www.hindu.com/2010/03/22/stories/2010032258300200.htm,

Philip Melanchthon photo
Tanya Reinhart photo
Ford Madox Ford photo

“What the artist wishes to do — as far as you are concerned — is to take you out of yourself. As far as he is concerned, he wishes to express himself.”

Ford Madox Ford (1873–1939) English writer and publisher

"Literary Portraits. VIII - Mr. Joseph Conrad," in The Tribune (1907-09-14)

Jane Austen photo
Edward Heath photo
Max Beckmann photo

“What is important to me in my work is the identity that is hidden behind so-called reality. I search for a bridge from the given present tot the invisible, rather as a famous cabalist once said, 'If you wish to grasp the invisible, penetrate as deeply as possible into the visible.”

Max Beckmann (1884–1950) German painter, draftsman, printmaker, sculptor and writer

In his public speech 'On my painting', for the exhibition 'Twentieth-Century German Art', London, 21 July 1938; as quoted in Max Beckmann, Stephan Lackner, Bonfini Press Corporation, Naefels, Switzerland, 1983, p. 77
1930s