Quotes about wording (9378 quotes, page 31)

“To answer your first question - most significantly the [ Federal Art Project ] project was my training ground in the real sense of the word. I feel very strongly about this. We were all poor, or most of us, and to have the time and opportunity to continue working - I was then in my twenties which is the important period - the crucial period for the young painter. This was most important and figures significantly in my own development. Although I feel that my personal image as a painter did not come about until I began my easel painting with personal imagery which was about 1941. The project kept me alive and working - it was my education.”

Phillip Guston (1913–1980) American artist

n.p.
1961 - 1980, Oral history interview with Philip Guston, 1965 January 29

Education , Art , Feeling , Question

“Every few months Torrey’s parents flew from Mexico to Boston to harangue her. She was crazy, she had driven them crazy, she was malingering, they couldn’t afford it, and so forth. After they left Torrey would give a report in her tired drawl. “Then Mom said, ‘You made me into an alcoholic,’ and then Dad said, ‘I’m going to see you never get out of this place,’ and then they sort of switched and Mom said, ‘You’re nothing but a junkie,’ and Dad said, ‘I’m not going to pay for you to take it easy in here while we suffer.’ ” “Why do you see them?” Georgina asked. “Oh,” said Torrey. “It’s how they show their love,” said Lisa. Her parents never made contact with her. The nurses agreed with Lisa. They told Torrey she was mature for agreeing to see her parents when she knew they were going to confuse her. Confuse was the nurses’ word for abuse.”

Susanna Kaysen book Girl, Interrupted

Girl, Interrupted (1994)

Love , Alcohol , Moms , Parent

“I think it was when I got to the butterflies -- in that brief, beautiful image comprising life, death and technology -- that the hair on the back of my neck began to stand on end. All at once, the pleasure I took in reading was altered irrevocably. Before then I had never noticed, somehow, that stories were made not of ideas or exciting twists of plot but of language. And not merely of pretty words and neat turns of phrase, but of systems of imagery, strategies of metaphor.”

Michael Chabon (1963) Novelist, short story writer, essayist

Close Encounters http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A62470-2002Apr4, Washington Post (April 7, 2002)
On reading Rocket Man by Ray Bradbury

Life , Death , Pleasure , Beauty

“bulshytt … Technical and clinical term denoting speech (typically but not necessarily commercial or political) that employs euphemism, convenient vagueness, numbing repetition, and other such rhetorical subterfuges to create the impression that something has been said. …
It is inherent in the mentality of extramuros bulshytt-talkers that they are more prone than anyone else to taking offense (or pretending to) when their bulshytt is pointed out to them. … One is forced either to use this “offensive” word and be deemed a disagreeable person and as such excluded from polite discourse, or to say the same thing in a different way, which means becoming a purveyor of bulshytt oneself…. The latter quality probably explains the uncanny stability and resiliency of bulshytt.”

Neal Stephenson book Anathem

Definition of "bulshytt," The Dictionary, 4th edition, A.R. 3000
Anathem (2008)

Way , Personality

“The dull pulse-like beat started at eleven o’clock at night. It was a new kind of music called ‘rap’. It baffled Ananda even more than disco. He had puzzled and puzzled over why people would want to listen and even move their bodies to an angry, insistent onrush of words – words that rhymed, apparently, but had no echo or afterlife. It was as if they were an extension of the body: never had words sounded so alarmingly physical, and pure physicality lacks empathy, it’s machine-like.”

Amit Chaudhuri (1962) contemporary Indian-English novelist

Odysseus Abroad (2014)

People , Music , Night

“Nobody ever comes back from a "missing" ship to tell how hard was the death of the craft, and how sudden and overwhelming the last anguish of her men. Nobody can say with what thoughts, with what regrets, with what words on their lips they died. But there is something fine in the sudden passing away of these hearts from the extremity of struggle and stress and tremendous uproar—from the vast, unrestful rage of the surface to the profound peace of the depths, sleeping untroubled since the beginning of ages.”

Joseph Conrad book The Mirror of the Sea

Source: The Mirror of the Sea (1906), Ch. 17

Death , Men , Age , Peace

“Just Discourse: Do not bandy words with your father, nor treat him as a dotard, nor reproach the old man, who has cherished you, with his age.”

Aristophanés The Clouds

tr. Athen. 1912, vol. 1, p. 359 http://books.google.com/books?id=9vpxAAAAIAAJ&q=%22Do+not+bandy+words+with+your+father%2C+nor+treat+him+as+a+dotard%2C+nor+reproach+the+old+man%2C+who+has+cherished+you%2C+with+his+age%22
Clouds, line 998-999
Clouds (423 BC)

Age

“I've been a television writer for a dozen years, and I've been fortunate to put words in the mouths of some great female characters. They've been working women, mostly, and I like to think they've become role models for a generation of girls trying to figure out their futures.
But let's be honest: TV isn't going to change anyone's perceptions of working women in the real world just by promoting fictional females to ever-higher positions of authority. And I'm not doing my job if I put a woman's career before her character.”

Jane Espenson (1964) American television writer and producer

How to Succeed at Vampire Slaying and Keep Your Soul (2005)

Women , World , Girl , Thinking

“Immodest words admit of no defence,
For want of decency is want of sense.”

Wentworth Dillon, 4th Earl of Roscommon (1637–1685) Irish poet

Source: Essay on Translated Verse (1684), Line 113.

Sense

“The existing and long-standing use of the word 'evolution' in our state's textbooks has not adversely affected Georgians' belief in the omnipotence of God as creator of the universe, There can be no incompatibility between Christian faith and proven facts concerning geology, biology, and astronomy. There is no need to teach that stars can fall out of the sky and land on a flat Earth in order to defend our religious faith.”

Jimmy Carter (1924) American politician, 39th president of the United States (in office from 1977 to 1981)

Carter slams Georgia's 'evolution' proposal, 30 January, 2004 http://edition.cnn.com/2004/EDUCATION/01/30/georgia.evolution/
Post-Presidency

God , Faith , Star , Universe

“Be your strong and simple words
Keen to wound as sharpened swords,
And wide as targes let them be,
With their shade to cover ye.”

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) English Romantic poet

St. 74
(1819)

Strong

“How proud he would have felt […] to have seen those seeds germinate into a Muslim nation, a Land of the Pure. How it would have broken his heart to see that Land of the Pure become a medieval theocracy and then rip itself apart in tribal factionalism. The Word of God prophecies from the barrel of an AK47.”

Ian McDonald book River of Gods

Source: River of Gods (2006), Ch. 37 (p. 411).

God , Heart

“We know that he has, more than any other man, the gift of compressing the largest number of words into the smallest amount of thought.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

A jibe directed at Ramsay MacDonald, during a speech in the House of Commons, March 23, 1933 "European Situation" http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1933/mar/23/european-situation#column_544. This quote is similar to a remark (“He can compress the most words into the smallest ideas of any man I ever met”) made by Abraham Lincoln. [Frederick Trevor Hill credits Lincoln with this remark in Lincoln the Lawyer (1906), adding that ‘History has considerately sheltered the identity of the victim’.]
The 1930s

“Truth is a new word in Europe (and elsewhere).”

Alain Badiou (1937) French writer and philosopher

Original French: La vérité est un mot neuf en Europe (et ailleurs).
From L'être et l'événement. Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1988. .
The quote is a variation on Louis de Saint-Just, "Happiness is a new idea in Europe".

Truth

“The only thing as bad as bad comedy is bad action. Bad Boys II has plenty of both. In fact, those two things are all it has, unless you count the small helping of bad drama. When it comes to this movie, the word "bad" initially seems highly appropriate. But Bad Boys II isn't just bad — it's a catastrophic violation of every aspect of cinema that I as a film critic hold dear. It seems to have been constructed with terms like "unwatchable" and "godawful" as its slogans. There are motion picture failures every year — the resumes of Hollywood players are littered with them. But, when something this big — a would-be blockbuster with recognizable names in the cast and crew — collapses in such a spectacular fashion, it's worth taking note. Think of how many starving children could have been fed with the money that was poured into [director] Michael Bay's latest sinkhole.”

James Berardinelli (1967) American film critic

Review http://www.reelviews.net/php_review_template.php?identifier=293 of Bad Boys II (2002).
Half-star reviews

Money , Children , Boy , Fashion

“Listen to my last words anywhere. Listen to my last wrods any world. Listen all you board syndicates and governments of the earth. And you powers behind what filth deals consumated in what lavatory to take what is not yours. To sell the ground from unborn forever”

William S. Burroughs book Nova Express

Source: Nova Express (1968), Chapter One

World

“How does the rest of the world perceive America under Obama? We're the nation that stood by and didn't lift a finger when the Iranian public was protesting their government. We voiced no support and did not try to help in any significant way, and the protest was soon quelled. We're the nation that drew red lines in Syria and watched them being crossed without a whimper. We're the nation that only uttered a few lukewarm words as Putin invaded the Crimea and the Ukraine. We're the nation that traded five of the world's most dangerous terrorists for one American deserter. We're the nation that gave away the store to insure that Iran can finance its terrorist attacks and be assured of having a nuclear device in a few years.”

Charlie Daniels (1936) American singer and musician

2010s, 2016, Letter to America's Enemies (2016)

World , Way , Support , Help

“Before I start, like to make sure I'm smart. Gather my composure, rather my swagger
and my couture. Pivot my fitted, then begin to rivet, with a change of lyric. In other
words, I reposition how I sit it. Then make you feel it, like I mispronounced “filet.””

Lupe Fiasco (1982) rapper

"The Pen and the Needlez"
Mixtapes, Fahrenheit 1/15 Part I: The Truth Is Among Us (2006)

Feeling , Change

“The words synergy (syn-ergy) and energy (en-ergy) are companions. Energy studies are familiar. Energy relates to differentiating out subfunctions of nature, studying objects isolated out of the whole complex of Universe—for instance, studying soil minerals without consideration of hydraulics or of plant genetics. But synergy represents the integrated behaviors instead of all the differentiated behaviors of nature's galaxy systems and galaxy of galaxies.”

Buckminster Fuller (1895–1983) American architect, systems theorist, author, designer, inventor and futurist

105.00 http://www.rwgrayprojects.com/synergetics/s01/p0100.html
1970s, Synergetics: Explorations in the Geometry of Thinking (1975), "Synergy" onwards

Behavior , Nature , Study , Universe

“If this is nothing more than a stipulation about how we ought to use the term ‘ideological’, then perhaps it will do no harm. But if it is a proposal about how historians ought to set about the business of explaining beliefs, then it seems to me fatal for just the reasons I have sought to give. It refuses to recognise that one of the reasons why someone may hold a certain belief is that there is good evidence in favour of it, that it fits well with their other beliefs, and so on – in a word, that it is rational for them to hold it. If we refuse to speak in these terms, we deprive ourselves of an indispensable means of identifying the most appropriate lines of enquiry to follow in any given case.”

Quentin Skinner (1940) British historian

Visions of Politics (2002), "Interpretation, rationality and truth"

Business

“If I have one final word to say, I have to quote Singapore's Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew, when I met him after being appointed first prime minister. He told me this, 'You look like your father, you talk like your father, but please don't be like your father'. I think, what he said summed up my father. It is enough. With such an assessment, maybe it is not even necessary to write a book on Sihanouk and on me.”

Norodom Ranariddh (1944) Cambodian politician

, p. 136.

Books , Quotes , Thinking

“Science cannot tell us a word about why music delights us, of why and how an old song can move us to tears.”

Erwin Schrödinger (1887–1961) Austrian physicist

Nature and the Greeks (1954)

Music , Tear , Science

“Going back into the history of a word, very often into Latin, we come back pretty commonly to pictures or models of how things happen or are done. These models may be fairly sophisticated and recent, as is perhaps the case with 'motive' or 'impulse', but one of the commonest and most primitive types of model is one which is apt to baffle us through its very naturalness and simplicity.”

J. L. Austin (1911–1960) English philosopher

Austin (1956) " A Plea for Excuses http://www.ditext.com/austin/plea.html", in Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 1956-7.

History , Motivation , Nature

“God's Word reveals the fact that the nominal church, after its fall from his favor and from being his mouth-piece (Rev. 3:16), will gradually settle into a condition of unbelief, in which the Bible will eventually be entirely ignored in fact, though retained in name, and in which philosophic speculations of various shades will be the real creeds. From this fall the faithful sealed ones will escape; for they will be "accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand" - not fall, in the time of the Lord's presence. (Luke 21:36.) In fact, many are already thus settling, - retaining the forms of worship, and faith in a Creator and in a future life, but viewing these chiefly through their own or other men's philosophies and theories, and ignoring the Bible as an infallible teacher of the divine purposes. These, while retaining the Bible, disbelieve its narratives, especially that of Eden and the fall. Retaining the name of Jesus, and calling him the Christ and Savior, they regard him merely as an excellent though not infallible exemplar, and reject entirely his ransom-sacrifice - his cross. Claiming the Fatherhood of God to extend to sinners, they repudiate both the curse and the Mediator.”

Charles Taze Russell (1852–1916) Founder of the Bible Student Movement

Source: Milennial Dawn, Vol. III: Thy Kingdom Come (1891), p. 167.

Life , Men , God , Faith

“As Christ's ministry drew to its close, its severity and its gentleness both increased; its severity to the class from whom it never turned away. Side by side through all His manifestations of Himself, there were the two aspects: "He showed Himself froward " (if I may quote the word) to the self-righteous and the Pharisee; and He bent with more than a woman's tenderness of 'yearning love over the darkness and sinfulness, which in its great darkness dimly knew itself blind, and in its sinfulness stretched out a lame hand of faith, and groped after a Divine deliverer.”

Alexander Maclaren (1826–1910) British minister

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 68.

Love , Faith , Quotes , Christ

“Writing stories was not easy. When they were turned into words, projects withered on the paper and ideas and images failed. How to reanimate them? Fortunately, the masters were there, teachers to learn from and examples to follow. Flaubert taught me that talent is unyielding discipline and long patience. Faulkner, that form – writing and structure – elevates or impoverishes subjects. Martorell, Cervantes, Dickens, Balzac, Tolstoy, Conrad, Thomas Mann, that scope and ambition are as important in a novel as stylistic dexterity and narrative strategy. Sartre, that words are acts, that a novel, a play, or an essay, engaged with the present moment and better options, can change the course of history. Camus and Orwell, that a literature stripped of morality is inhuman, and Malraux that heroism and the epic are as possible in the present as is the time of the Argonauts, the Odyssey, and the Iliad.”

Mario Vargas Llosa (1936) Peruvian writer, politician, journalist, and essayist

Nobel Lecture (2010)

History , Literature , Idea , Learning

“I am quite serious when I say that I do not believe there are, on the whole earth besides, so many intensified bores as in these United States. No man can form an adequate idea of the real meaning of the word, without coming here.”

Charles Dickens (1812–1870) English writer and social critic and a Journalist

Comment while on an American tour (March 1842), as quoted in Dickens (1949) by Hesketh Pearson, Ch. 8

Idea

“Herc really slipped up. With the monostrous power he had he couldn't mix too well. He was playing little breaks but it would sound so sloppy. I noticed that the mixer he was using was a GLI 3800. It was a very popular mixer at that time. It's a scarcity today but it's still one of the best mixers GLI ever made. At the time he wasn't using no cueing. In other words, the hole was there for a headphone to go in but I remember he never had headphones over his ears. All of a sudden, Herc had headphones but I guess he was so used to dropping the needle down by eyesight and trying to mix it that from the audio part of it he couldn't get into it too well.”

Grandmaster Flash (1958) musician

Quoted in Rap Attack 2 (1991) by David Toop, p. 62

Time , Parting

“Lie down baby now don't say a word
There there baby your vision is blurred
Your head is so sore from all of that thinking
I don't want to hurt you now
But I think you're shrinking.”

Elvis Costello (1954) English singer-songwriter

Song lyrics, All This Useless Beauty (1996)
Source: The Other End (of the Telescope)

Lie , Thinking , Hurt , Baby

“This one guy, the worse guy in the music. The Yanni man. You know Yanni? First of all, anyone who looks like a magician and doesn't do magic, I don't like. I don't even like magic, I hate it. But I love the word, "Ta-da"! I love that word! I don't get to say it, right? I never do any magic. You just cant go around walking, "Ta-da!" "Ta-da!" "Ta-da!" The only time I can say it is when I do something really stupid or surprising. Like if I go out all night drinking and hitting strip clubs and I come home and I still got some money …. "Ta---da!"”

Dave Attell (1965) comedian

I thought I was broke. Why does my jaw hurt?
Comedy Central Presents: Dave Attell

Love , Money , Hate , Stupidity

“After a while the other students in class began to notice I had become Ms. Burnett's favorite, but no one resented me for it. I was the shy, quiet kid in the back who had arrived from México a few years before and who turned out to be an accomplished speller. I became the school Spelling Bee champion, beating out the eighth graders as well, with the word “lapidary.””

Rigoberto González (1970) American writer

Butterfly Boy: Memories of a Chicano Mariposa (2006)

School , Bee

“Many of the words and numbers bandied by Obama and his administration may reflect an honest belief that the world is whatever well-intentioned people like them say about it. So, Obama's critics should reconsider their assumption that he is cynical. It is his sincerity that is scary.”

George Will (1941) American newspaper columnist, journalist, and author

Column, February 7, 2014, "President Obama's Magic Words and Numbers" http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/george-will-president-obamas-magic-words-and-numbers/2014/02/07/220fbc04-8f76-11e3-84e1-27626c5ef5fb_story.html at washingtonpost.com.
2010s

People , World , Sincerity

“Art is not a substitute religion: it is a religion (in the true sense of the word: 'binding back', 'binding' to the unknowable, transcending reason, transcendent being). But the church is no longer adequate as a means of affording experience of the transcendental, and of making religion real – and so art has been transformed from a means into the sole provider of religion: which means religion itself.”

Gerhard Richter (1932) German visual artist, born 1932

Notes, 1964-65; as cited on collected quotes on the website of Gerhard Richter: 'on Art' https://www.gerhard-richter.com/en/quotes/art-1
1960's

Religion , Art , Sense

“I wish I had the talent to paint the way I feel about you, for my words always feel inadequate. I imagine using red for your passion and pale blue for your kindness; forest green to reflect the depth of your empathy and bright yellow for your unflagging optimism. And still I wonder: can even an artist's palette capture the full range of what you mean to me?”

Nicholas Sparks (1965) American writer and novelist

Ira Levinson, Chapter 28, p. 326-327
2009, The Longest Ride (2013)

Way , Feeling , Imagination , Optimism

“Rhythm and repetition of sounds, words and phrases make spoken poetry sound different to ordinary discourse.”

John Hollander (1929–2013) American poet

“Locked in a struggle for the right combination
Of words in a melody line,
I took a walk along the riverbank of my imagination.
Golden clouds were shuffling the sunshine.”

Paul Simon (1941) American musician, songwriter and producer

Everything About It Is a Love Song
Song lyrics, Surprise (2006)

Imagination

“An even more basic reason why we are commanded to love is expressed explicitly in Jesus' words, "love your enemies…. that ye may be children of your father which is in heaven." We are called to this difficult task in order to realize a unique relationship with God. We are potential sons of God. Through love that potentiality becomes actuality. We must love our enemies, because only loving them can we know God and experience the beauty of His holiness.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1950s, Loving Your Enemies (Christmas 1957)

Love , God , Children , Beauty

“Jason listened to Mr. Hobart going on about violence and the uselessness of revenge and he nodded, but all the time, he was happy. He had done something. He had taken action. He had socked Bobo Kelton. Given him a bloody nose. He didn't think he'd ever hit anybody again but he had proved himself capable of doing it. And at the same moment, in Mr. Hobart's office, letting the principal's words fil the air but not his ears, he had vowed never to cry again.”

Robert Cormier book The Rag and Bone Shop

Source: The Rag and Bone Shop (2000), p. 26

Revenge , Thinking , Time , Cry

“A word to the wise is enough.”
Dictum sapienti sat est.

Plautus Persa

Persa, Act IV, scene 7, line 19
Variant translation: A sentence is enough for a sensible man. (translator unknown)
More commonly found as Verbum sapienti (same meaning) and abbreviated to verb. sap. ; proverbially, “A word to the wise is sufficient”
Persa (The Persian)

“We simply must speak to each other honestly about all these hard truths. In the words of Dr. King, 'We must learn to live together as brothers or we will all perish together as fools.”

James Comey (1960) American lawyer and the seventh director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)

2010s, Hard Truths: Law Enforcement (2015)

Truth , Fools , Learning

“In the Islamic world, from the beginning, Islam was the primary basis of both identity and loyalty. We think of a nation subdivided into religions. They think, rather, of a religion subdivided into nations. It is the ultimate definition, the prime definition and the one that determines, as I said, not only identity, but also basic loyalty. And this is quite independent of religious belief. In Islam, there isn't or rather, there wasn't until recently any such thing as the church, in the Christian sense of that word. The mosque is a place of worship. It's a building, a place of worship and study. And in that sense, it is the equivalent of the church. But in the sense of an institution with a hierarchy and its own laws and usages, there was no such thing in Islam until very recently. And one of the achievements of the Islamic Revolution in Iran has been to endow an Islamic country for the first time with the equivalents of a pope, a college of cardinals, a bench of bishops and, above all, an inquisition. All these were previously unknown and nonexistent in the Islamic world.”

Bernard Lewis (1916–2018) British-American historian

Books, Islam and the West: A Conversation with Bernard Lewis (2006)

World , Religion , Law , Thinking

“Is there still a possibility of public truth?
The prime condition for that would be that you pose your own questions, not just answer them. The questions of others have a distorting influence, one adapts to them, accepts words and concepts that should be avoided at all costs.
Ideally, you should use only words which you have filled with new meaning.”

Elias Canetti (1905–1994) Bulgarian-born Swiss and British jewish modernist novelist, playwright, memoirist, and non-fiction writer

J. Agee, trans. (1989), p. 5
Das Geheimherz der Uhr [The Secret Heart of the Clock] (1987)

Truth , Question

“Fame is a four letter word and like tape, or zoom, or face, or pain, or life, or love, what ultimately matters is what we do with it.”

Fred Rogers (1928–2003) American television personality

When introduced to the TV Hall of Fame http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcNxY4TudXo

Love , Life , Pain

“I said "water" expecting the Word would satisfy my thirst,
Talking all about the second and third
When I haven't understood the first.”

Aaron Weiss

My Exit, Unfair.
Catch For Us The Foxes (2004)

Water

“I entirely agree with you, as to the ill tendency of the affected doubts of some philosophers, and fantastical conceit of others. I am even so far gone of late in this way of think, that I have quitted several of the sublime notions I had got in their schools for vulgar opinions. And I give it you on my word, since this revolt from metaphysical notions to the plain dictates of nature and common sense, I find my understanding strangely enlightened, so that I can now easily comprehend a great many thing which before were all mystery and riddle.”

George Berkeley book Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous

Said by Philonous (Berkeley) to Hylas in the opening of dialog 1 with reference to the recent surge philosophic endeavors (Locke, Newton, et al) that seemed to lead to skepticism about the existence of the world
Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous (1713)

School , Way , Understanding , Nature

“The Declaration was essentially an attempt to prove that rebellion was not the proper word for what they were doing.”

Carl L. Becker (1873–1945) American historian

The Declaration of Independence: A Study in the History of Political Ideas (1922)

“When the mind has grasped the matter, words come like flowers at the call of spring.”

John Lancaster Spalding (1840–1916) Catholic bishop

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 17

Spring , Flowers

“"Wal'r, my boy," replied the Captain, "in the Proverbs of Solomon you will find the following words, 'May we never want a friend in need, nor a bottle to give him!'”

Charles Dickens book Dombey and Son

When found, make a note of."
Source: Dombey and Son (1846-1848), Ch. 15

Boy

“I used to hate hip-hop, because the women degraded. But Too Short made me laugh,
like a hypocrite I played it; a hypocrite I stated, though I only recited half
omitting the word b*tch, cursing I wouldn't say it. Me and dog couldn't relate, until a b*tch I dated.”

Lupe Fiasco (1982) rapper

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

Women , Hate , Dogs

“It was, I saw, a flat to get out of rather than one to stay in. It was a machine for eating and sleeping in, a suitable dwelling place for a working woman, whose main interest is in her work. I disliked this version of myself, which seemed to negate my other activities, reduced them to after-hours amusements, whereas I had always thought them pretty central. These mute, white walls had been silent witnesses to many encounters; nevertheless, they withheld comment, and their very withholding struck me as unfriendly. Unheimlich was the word which came to mind when I stood on the threshold of my bedroom.”

Anita Brookner (1928–2016) British novelist and art historian.

A Friend From England (1987)

Sleep

“Prismatic is the only word for those frightful tweeds and, oddly enough, the spectacle of them had the effect of steadying my nerves. They gave me the feeling that nothing mattered.”

P.G. Wodehouse book The Code of the Woosters

The Code of the Woosters (1938)

Feeling

“Things which seem in poor taste: too many personal effects cluttering up the place where one is sitting; too many brushes in an ink-box; too many Buddhas in a family temple; too many stones and plants in a garden; too many children in a house; too many words on meeting someone; too many meritorious deeds recorded in a petition. Things which are not offensive, no matter how numerous: books in a book cart, rubbish in a rubbish heap.”

Yoshida Kenkō (1283–1350) japanese writer

72
Essays in Idleness (1967 Columbia University Press, Trns: Donald Keene)

Children , Books , Family , Housing

“Where do those golden rainbows end?
Why is this song so sad?
Dreaming the dreams I've dreamed my friend
Loving the love I love
To love is just a word I've heard when things are being said
Stories my poor head has told me cannot stand the cold
And in between what might have been and what has come to pass
A misbegotten guess alas and bits of broken glass…”

James Taylor (1948) American singer-songwriter and guitarist

"Long Ago and Far Away" · Early performance on Youtube (before he had given it a title) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuvO2Vw-M2Y
Song lyrics, Mud Slide Slim and the Blue Horizon (1971)

Love , Sadness , Dreams

“In the beginning was the Word.
In the end…past honor, past life, past caring…
In the end will be the Word.”

Dan Simmons book Hyperion

Source: Hyperion (1989), Chapter 3 (p. 233)

Life , Past

“This is the understanding of this word: — That it shall be done for me, meaneth that it shall be done for the general Man: that is to say, all that shall be saved. It shall be worshipful and marvellous and plenteous, and God Himself shall do it; and this shall be the highest joy that may be, to behold the deed that God Himself shall do, and man shall do right nought but sin. Then signifieth our Lord God thus, as if He said: Behold and see! Here hast thou matter of meekness, here hast thou matter of love, here hast thou matter to make nought of thyself, here hast thou matter to enjoy in me; — and, for my love, enjoy in me: for of all things, therewith mightest thou please me most.”

Julian of Norwich (1342–1416) English theologian and anchoress

The Thirteenth Revelation, Chapter 36

Love , God , Understanding , Joy

“More murders are committed at ninety-two degrees Fahrenheit than any other temperature. Over one hundred, it’s too hot to move. Under ninety, cool enough to survive. But right at ninety-two degrees lies the apex of irritability, everything is itches and hair and sweat and cooked pork. The brain becomes a rat rushing around a red-hot maze. The least thing, a word, a look, a sound, the drop of a hair and—irritable murder.”

Ray Bradbury book The October Country

Touched With Fire (1954)
The October Country (1955)

Cooking

“She tried to cry out: 'Will you, cruel man,
leave me alone here?' Pain choked off her cry,
and in her heart the plaintive words began
to echo in a yet more bitter sigh.”

Torquato Tasso (1544–1595) Italian poet

Volea gridar: dove, o crudel, me sola
Lasci? ma il varco al suon chiuse il dolore:
Sicchè tornò la flebile parola
Più amara indietro a rimbombar sul core.
Canto XVI, stanza 36 (tr. Wickert)
Gerusalemme Liberata (1581)

Pain , Heart , Cry

“Pages full of idle words
Penned with hot and bitter tears:
All men call the author fool;
None his secret message hears.”

Cao Xueqin book Dream of the Red Chamber

Source: Dream of the Red Chamber (c. 1760), Chapter 1

Men , Secret , Fools , Tear

“And the color, the overcast blue
Of the air, in which the blue guitar
Is a form, described but difficult,
And I am merely a shadow hunched
Above the arrowy, still string,
The maker of a thing yet to be made;
The color like a thought that grows
Out of a mood, the tragic robe
Of the actor, half his gesture, half
His speech, the dress of his meaning, silk
Sodden with his melancholy words,
The weather of his stage, himself.”

Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) American poet

The Man With the Blue Guitar (1937)

Color , Mood , Weather

“The Third Reich coined only a very small number of the words in its language, perhaps - indeed probably - none at all... But it changes the value of words and the frequency of their occurrence, it makes common property out of what was previously the preserve of an individual or a tiny group, it commandeers for the party that which was previously common property and in the process steeps words and groups of words and sentence structures with its poison.”

Victor Klemperer book LTI – Lingua Tertii Imperii

Source: LTI – Lingua Tertii Imperii (The Language of the Third Reich) (1947), p. 16.

Change

“We were equally tired, in mid-century, of cold sanity and hot blasphemy; of the over-cerebral and of the over-faecal; the way out lay somewhere else. Words had lost their power, either for good or for evil; still hung, like a mist, over the reality of action, distorting, misleading, castrating; but at least since Hitler and Hiroshima they were seen to be a mist, a flimsy superstructure.”

John Fowles book Daniel Martin

Daniel Martin (1977)

Way , Reality , Evil

“[I]f a politician won't trust you, why should you trust him? If he's a man — and you're not — what does his lack of trust tell you about his real attitude toward women? If "he" happens to be a woman, what makes her so perverse that she's eager to render her fellow women helpless on the mean and seedy streets her policies helped create? Should you believe her when she says she wants to help you by imposing some infantile group health care program on you at the point of the kind of gun she doesn't want you to have?
On the other hand — or the other party — should you believe anything politicians say who claim they stand for freedom, but drag their feet and make excuses about repealing limits on your right to own and carry weapons? What does this tell you about their real motives for ignoring voters and ramming through one infantile group trade agreement after another with other countries?
Makes voting simpler, doesn't it? You don't have to study every issue — health care, international trade — all you have to do is use this X-ray machine, this Vulcan mind-meld, to get beyond their empty words and find out how politicians really feel. About you. And that, of course, is why they hate it.”

L. Neil Smith (1946) American writer

"Why Did it Have to be ... Guns?" (3 August 1999).

Women , Hate , Health , Feeling

“When you have mastered the numbers, you will in fact no longer be reading numbers, any more than you read words when reading a book. You will be reading meanings.”

Harold Geneen (1910–1997) American businessman

Managing, Chapter Nine (The Numbers), p. 151.

Books , Reading

“Her words are trusty heralds to her mind.”

John Ford (dramatist) Love's Sacrifice

Love's Sacrifice, Act I, sc. i. (1632?)

“I do ask the right hon. Baronet what is the meaning of overproduction? It means that too much is produced; and what can be thought of a country which produces so much, and where the great mass of the inhabitants possess so little? Does it not show that there is some mal-distribution of production? It is because we have lost sight of that science which teaches the right distribution of wealth…Those who are so fond of laughing at political economy, forget that they have a political economy of their own; and what is it? That they will monopolise to themselves the fruits of the industry of the great body of the community—that they allow the productions of the spindle and the loom to go abroad to furnish them with luxuries from the farthest corners of the world, but refuse to permit to be brought back in exchange what would minister to the wants and comforts of the lower orders. This, in one word, is the true reason why the mass of the people is at this time so wretchedly clothed and so miserably fed.”

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

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1842/jul/08/distress-of-the-country in the House of Commons (8 July 1842) against the Corn Laws.
1840s

People , World , Communication , Science

“The people who believe most that our greatness and welfare are proved by our being very rich, and who most give their lives and thoughts to becoming rich, are just the very people whom we call the Philistines. Culture says: “Consider these people, then, their way of life, their habits, their manners, the very tones of their voice; look at them attentively; observe the literature they read, the things which give them pleasure, the words which come forth out of their mouths, the thoughts which make the furniture of their minds; would any amount of wealth be worth having with the condition that one was to become just like these people by having it?””

Matthew Arnold book Culture and Anarchy

Source: Culture and Anarchy (1869), Ch. I, Sweetness and Light

Life , People , Pleasure , Way

“Let us not fail to realise that pantheism means, not simply the all-pervasive interblending and interpenetration of God and other life, but the sole causality of God, and so the obliteration of freedom, of moral life, and of any immortality worth the having; in a word, of the true being of God himself.”

George Holmes Howison (1834–1916) American philosopher

Source: The Limits of Evolution, and Other Essays, Illustrating the Metaphysical Theory of Personal Ideaalism (1905), Modern Science and Pantheism, p.81

Life , God , Freedom

“It's ridiculous to talk about a revolution without a few words on guns. If you haven't been in the army or done some hunting, you probably have a built in fear against guns that can only be overcome by familiarizing yourself with them.”

Abbie Hoffman book Steal This Book

Steal This Book (1971)

Fear

“She just took off running to the old Perkins place. He couldn't help turning to watch. She ran as though it was her nature. It reminded him of the flight of wild ducks in the autumn. So smooth. The word "beautiful" came to his mind, but he shook it away and hurried up to his house.”

Katherine Paterson book Bridge to Terabithia

Jesse Aarons
Bridge to Terabithia (1977)

Beauty , Autumn , Nature , Help

“Once emotions are set in motion, and men pitted against men along these unspoken lines, you will have the kind of warfare that will split the nation from top to bottom and undo Malaysia. Everybody knows it. I don't have to say it. It is the unspoken word!”

Lee Kuan Yew (1923–2015) First Prime Minister of Singapore

Lee Kuan Yew in the Parliament of Malaysia, 1965 http://www.jeffooi.com/archives/2005/11/i_went_into_act.php
1960s

Men

“The beautiful is and remains beautiful though it arouse no emotion whatever, and though there be no one to look at it. In other words, although the beautiful exists for the gratification of an observer, it is independent of him. In this sense music, too, has no aim (object), and the mere fact that this particular art is so closely bound up with our feelings by no means justifies the assumption that its aesthetic principles depend on this union.”

Eduard Hanslick (1825–1904) austrian musician and musicologist

The Beautiful in Music (1854)

Beauty , Art , Music , Feeling

“We warned that WBC has had lots of experience with Ireland's militant sodomite citizenry, steeped for many decades in ignorant, blind idolatrous Catholicism, belching out their vile fagspeak, slander and blasphemy against God and His word.”

Fred Phelps (1929–2014) American pastor and activist

Sermon about Ireland, July 29, 2007. Letter from UK Border Agency: WBC has been banned from the UK http://www.godhatesfags.com/written/fliers/archive/20090224_uk-border-agency.pdf. GodHatesFags.com. February 19, 2009.
2000s, Ireland (2007)

God

“[as a Shakespearean narrator] Mind not my words — Let the play be the thing. I'll get back forth and touch myself anon.”

Robin Williams (1951–2014) American actor and stand-up comedian

Reality...What a Concept (1979)

“Exposing the children to multiple views (except those of Christians) and training them to supposedly be open-minded so that they can decide for themselves seem to be a common theme these days. As Christians, however, we are to “train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it” (Proverbs 22:6). We must give our children a strong biblical foundation of truth and equip them with answers. Yes, we can show them the other views out there in the world, but we also must show them why they are false and why God’s Word is true. We need to teach them clearly the difference between truth and error—between good and evil. We are not doing our duty as Christians if we are not striving to train them up in the fear of the Lord”

Ken Ham (1951) Australian young Earth creationist

Psalm 34:11
"Church-Sponsored Evolution Camp" http://blogs.answersingenesis.org/blogs/ken-ham/2014/07/13/church-sponsored-evolution-camp/, Around the World with Ken Ham (July 13, 2014)
Around the World with Ken Ham (May 2005 - Ongoing)

God , Children , Truth , World

“While working at Anna Freud's house, I found an unpublished letter in which he [Freud] told Fliess, less than two weeks after he gave the paper [The Aetiology of Hysteria], "I am as isolated as you could wish me to be: the word has been given out to abandon me, and a void is forming around me." Both the immediate response to the paper, and the subsequent response were ones that Freud had not anticipated: his colleagues thought he was crazy to believe his women patients. This was bound to have a disastrous impact on a young physician with a growing family, eager to open a neurological/psychiatric clinical practice. Where were his referrals to come from, if his colleagues thought he was completely daft? I made this point to Anna Freud.
"Do you believe", I said, "that this could have had anything to do with his later abandonment of the theory?"
"No." She was adamant.
"But tell me, Miss Freud, why did you omit this passage from your published edition of the letters?"”

Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson (1941) American writer and activist

"Because it makes my father sound so paranoid," was her response.
"But if it was the truth, then he was not paranoid, he was simply perceptive."
Source: Final Analysis (1990), pp. 175-176

Women , Truth , Family , Housing

“The Treatise is also one of the most important books of Western thought ever written. Spinoza was the first to argue that the Bible is not literally the word of God but rather a work of human literature; that “true religion” has nothing to do with theology, liturgical ceremonies, or sectarian dogma but consists only in a simple moral rule: love your neighbor; and that ecclesiastic authorities should have no role whatsoever in the governance of a modern state.”

Steven Nadler (1958) American philosopher

Preface
A Book Forged in Hell: Spinoza's Scandalous Treatise (2011)

Love , God , Books , Religion

“…but he distinctly remembered standing at the house door one summer morning in a passionate outburst of rebellion against going to school. Naturally his mother was the immediate victim of his rage; that is what mothers are for, and boys also; but in this case the boy had his mother at unfair disadvantage, for she was a guest, and had no means of enforcing obedience. Henry showed a certain tactical ability by refusing to start, and he met all efforts at compulsion by successful, though too vehement protest. He was in fair way to win, and was holding his own, with sufficient energy, at the bottom of the long staircase which led up to the door of the President's library, when the door opened, and the old man slowly came down. Putting on his hat, he took the boy's hand without a word, and walked with him, paralyzed by awe, up the road to the town. After the first moments of consternation at this interference in a domestic dispute, the boy reflected that an old gentleman close on eighty would never trouble himself to walk near a mile on a hot summer morning over a shadeless road to take a boy to school, and that it would be strange if a lad imbued with the passion of freedom could not find a corner to dodge around, somewhere before reaching the school door. Then and always, the boy insisted that this reasoning justified his apparent submission; but the old man did not stop, and the boy saw all his strategical points turned, one after another, until he found himself seated inside the school, and obviously the centre of curious if not malevolent criticism. Not till then did the President release his hand and depart.”

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

The Education of Henry Adams (1907)

School , Way , Boy , Nature

“In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God…”

William Tyndale (1494–1536) Bible translator and agitator from England

John 1:1; archaic spelling: In the beginnynge was the worde and the worde was with God: and the worde was God. The same was in the beginnynge with God. All thinges were made by it and with out it was made nothinge that was made. In it was lyfe and the lyfe was ye lyght of men and the lyght shyneth in the darcknes but the darcknes comprehended it not.
Tyndale's translations

God

“The I of the basic word I-Thou is different from that of the basic word I-It.”

Martin Buber book I and Thou

I and Thou (1923)

“It may be noted that some of the Christian correspondents objected to Ram Swarup’s article being published in The Times of India. The plea sounds strange, to say the least. The Christians in this country own and control a large-sized press which includes several daily newspapers and many periodicals. The language which is used in this media vis-a-vis Hinduism is not always decorous; quite often, it is intemperate. Besides, the Christians get ample space in the press which is supposed to be owned and controlled by the Hindus. It is only once in a while that an article critical, of Christian dogmas and/or missions, gets through. That, too, when the editor concerned finds that the facts cited and the conclusions drawn deserve the attention of his countrymen. The Christians who object to such articles being published at all have to think calmly and coolly whether their attitude reflects tolerance or otherwise. They have been telling us for many years now that they want and are prepared for a dialogue. We hope that the word “dialogue” in their current dictionary does not mean a monologue, as it did in past.”

Sita Ram Goel (1921–2003) Indian activist

History of Hindu-Christian Encounters (1996)

Hope , Thinking , Time , Past

“BE IT KNOWN unto all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people, unto whom this work shall come: That we, through the grace of God the Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, have seen the plates which contain this record, which is a record of the people of Nephi, and also of the Lamanites, their brethren, and also of the people of Jared, who came from the tower of which hath been spoken. And we also know that they have been translated by the gift and power of God, for his voice hath declared it unto us; wherefore we know of a surety that the work is true. And we also testify that we have seen the engravings which are upon the plates; and they have been shown unto us by the power of God, and not of man. And we declare with words of soberness, that an angel of God came down from heaven, and he brought and laid before our eyes, that we beheld and saw the plates, and the engravings thereon; and we know that it is by the grace of God the Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, that we beheld and bear record that these things are true. And it is marvelous in our eyes. Nevertheless, the voice of the Lord commanded us that we should bear record of it; wherefore, to be obedient unto the commandments of God, we bear testimony of these things. And we know that if we are faithful in Christ, we shall rid our garments of the blood of all men, and be found spotless before the judgment-seat of Christ, and shall dwell with him eternally in the heavens. And the honor be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost, which is one God. Amen. OLIVER COWDERY DAVID WHITMER MARTIN HARRIS”

Martin Harris (1783–1875) Book of Mormon witness

Book of Mormon, 1830 Edition, p. 585 (1830)

Men , God , People , Faith

“Although previously the monoamine systems were considered to be responsible for the development of major depressive disorder (MDD), the available evidence to date does not support a direct causal relationship with MDD. There is no simple direct correlation of serotonin or norepinephrine levels in the brain and mood. In other words, after a half-century of research, the chemical-imbalance hypothesis as promulgated by the drug companies that manufacture SSRIs and other antidepressants is not only without clear and consistent support, but has been disproved by experimental evidence.”

Irving Kirsch book The Emperor's New Drugs

The Emperor's New Drugs: Exploding the Antidepressant Myth. p. 92 http://books.google.com/books?id=wk-OxcTKyi4C&pg=PA92

Mood , Support

“Survival, with honor, that outmoded and all-important word, is as difficult as ever and as all-important to a writer. Those who do not last are always more beloved since no one has to see them in their long, dull, unrelenting, no-quarter-given-and-no-quarter-received, fights that they make to do something as they believe it should be done before they die. Those who die or quit early and easy and with every good reason are preferred because they are understandable and human. Failure and well-disguised cowardice are more human and more beloved.”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist

Paris Review interview (1958)

Failure , Understanding , Fight

“.. I would like to ask your advice as a friend, namely whether you believe I should submit my painting 'Ouden en Jongen' [Old and Young ones'] to Brussels [exhibition] or not. I thought it was a nice painting, but now I read in the Handelsblad that it is so bad. What is truth about that. Please do me the favor to sent me some words sans facon [straight forward], what is your opinion about this.”

Jozef Israëls (1824–1911) Dutch painter

translation from the original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek
version in original Dutch (citaat van Jozef Israëls' brief, in het Nederlands): .Ik wou echter als vriend van u nl:Johannes Bosboom een raad hebben dit namelijk of gij oordeelt dat ik mijne schilderij 'Ouden en Jongen' naar Brussel [tentoonstelling] zal zenden of niet. Ik dacht dat het een aardig schilderij was, maar nu las ik in het Handelsblad dat het zo slecht is. Wat is daarvan aan. Doe mij svp het genoegen mij hierop een woordje sans facon [zonder omwegen] te dienen, hoe gij het voor u zelf vindt.
Quote from his letter to J. Bosboom, from Bloemendaal, 27 June 1866 (HGA, input no. OV2, schildersbrieven (painter-letters)
Quotes of Jozef Israels, 1840 - 1870

Truth , Reading , Painting

“I always begin at the left with the opening word of the sentence and read toward the right and I recommend this method.”

James Thurber (1894–1961) American cartoonist, author, journalist, playwright

Memo to The New Yorker (1959); reprinted in New York Times Book Review (4 December 1988)
Letters and interviews

Reading

“I feel it is our duty to sustain the federated action of Europe. I think it has suffered by the somewhat absurd name which has been given to it—the Concert of Europe—and the intense importance of the fact has been buried under the bad jokes to which the word has given rise. But the federated action of Europe—if we can maintain it, if we can maintain this Legislature—is our sole hope of escaping from the constant terror and the calamity of war, the constant pressure of the burdens of an armed peace which weigh down the spirits and darken the prospects of every nation in this part of the world. ["Hear, hear!"] The federation of Europe is the only hope we have; but that federation is only to be maintained by observing the conditions on which every Legislature must depend, on which every judicial system must be based—the engagements into which it enters must be respected.”

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) British politician

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/lords/1897/mar/19/speech-by-lord-kimberley-at-norwich in the House of Lords (19 March 1897)
1890s

War , World , Peace , Hope

“"Do you not quarrel, brother Heber?" says one. No, I do not. But; when a woman begins to dispute me, about nine times out of ten I get up and say, "Go it," and then go off about my business; and if ever I am so foolish as to quarrel with a woman, I ought to be whipped; for you may always calculate that they will have the last word.”

Heber C. Kimball (1801–1868) American Mormon leader

Journal of Discourses 5:277 (Sept. 27, 1857)

Business , Time

“Katniss," Gale says softly. I recognize that voice. It's the same one he uses to approach wounded animals before he delivers a deathblow. I instinctively raise my hand to block his words but he catches it and holds on tightly. "Don't," I whisper. But Gale is not one to keep secrets from me. "Katniss, there is no District Twelve.”

Suzanne Collins (1962) American television writer and novelist

Gale to Katniss, p. 391 (closing words)
The Hunger Games trilogy, Catching Fire (2009)

Secret , Animals

“Being God, I must choose My words carefully. People, I’ve noticed, tend to hang on to My every remark. It gets annoying, this servile and sycophantic streak in Homo sapiens sapiens. There’s a difference, after all, between tasteful adulation and arrant toadyism, but they just don’t get it.”

James K. Morrow (1947) (1947-) science fiction author

"Bible Stories for Adults, No. 20: The Tower" p. 61 (originally published in Author’s Choice Monthly #8: Swatting at the Cosmos)
Short fiction, Bible Stories for Adults (1996)

God , People

“The greatest blow for freedom that was ever struck in the world's history, perhaps, was when Abraham Lincoln decided that the slaves of the South were to be free and he freed them. The South collapsed. The gentlemen who could spend their time fighting, sure of supplies from slave-tended lands, began to starve and go ragged. Their homes began to fall into ruin and their families to be hungry. Their morale was broken. The war was really won by the pen upon the paper which wrote these words, "are and henceforward shall be free."”

Pearl S. Buck (1892–1973) American writer

Source: What America Means to Me (1943), p. 193

War , World , Family , Home

“One of the characters of the Senate, and one of the upheavals of the Populist movement was Senator Jeff. Davis, of Arkansas. Davis was loudly, vociferously, and clamorously a friend of the people. Precisely what he did to benefit the people was never very clear, but if we must take his word for it, he was the only friend the people had. Among his efforts to help the people was to denounce big business of all kinds and anything which gave large employment or had great capital. I think that in his own mind the ideal state would have been made of small landowners and an occasional lawyer. He himself was a lawyer.”

Chauncey Depew (1834–1928) American politician

My Memories of Eighty Years (1922), p. 184

People , Business , Thinking , Effort

“So long as the figures 'now superseded' and the academic projections based upon them held sway, it was possible for politicians to shrug their shoulders. With so much of immediate and indisputable importance on their hands, why should they attend to what was forecast for the end of the century, when most of them would be not only out of office but dead and gone? … It was not for them to heed the cries of anguish from those of their own people who already saw their towns being changed, their native places turned into foreign lands, and themselves displaced as if by a systematic colonisation. For these the much vaunted compassion of the parties and politicians was not available: the parties and the politicians preferred to be busy making speeches on race relations; and if any of their number dared to tell them the truth, even less than the whole truth, about what was happening and what would happen here in England, they denounced them as racialist and turned them out of doors. They could feel safe; for they said in their hearts: 'If trouble comes, it will not be in our time; let the next generation see to it!' … The explosive which will blow us asunder is there and the fuse is burning, but the fuse is shorter than had been supposed. The transformation which I referred to earlier as being without even a remote parallel in our history, the occupation of the hearts of this metropolis and of towns and cities across England by a coloured population amounting to millions, this before long will be past denying. It is possible that the people of this country will, with good or ill grace, accept what they did not ask for, did not want and were not told of. My own judgment— it is a judgment which the politician has a duty to form to the best of his ability— I have not feared to give: it is— to use words I used two years and a half ago— that 'the people of England will not endure it'.”

Enoch Powell (1912–1998) British politician

Speech to the Carshalton and Banstead Young Conservatives at Carshalton Hall (15 February 1971), from Still to Decide (Eliot Right Way Books, 1972), pp. 202-203.
1970s

People , Truth , Fear , Feeling

“God promised He would preserve His Words (Psalms 12:6–7). After many years of study on that topic, I have become convinced He did preserve it, for the English-speaking world, in the King James Bible.”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

Source: What On Earth Is About To Happen… For Heaven’s Sake? (2013), p. 11

God , World , Study

“…It was important that the songs do not contain too many words with "P" since it gave a popping sound. "K" was not so poppy either. On the other hand, "U" was a good letter and had so many vowels in the texts…”

Kenneth Gärdestad (1948–2018) Swedish song lyricist, architect and lecturer

On constructing the lyrics for Ted Gärdestad's songs, to avoid plosives, such as "Himlen är oskyldigt blå”, as quoted on Kenneth Gärdestad: “Jag vill inte att minnet av Ted förknippas för mycket med hans sjukdom”, Lahti, Gabriella, News55.SE, published on 20 February 2016 (web)

“On 11 October 1908, having worked for six years at my international magazine Poesia, in an attempt to free the Italian lyrical genius that was under sentence of death from its traditional and commercial fetters, I suddenly felt that articles, poetry and controversies were no longer enough. It was absolutely crucial to switch methods, get out into the streets, lay siege to theaters, and introduce the fisticuffs into the artistic struggle... My Italian blood raced faster when my lips coined out loud the word FUTURISM.
It was the new formula of Action-Art and a code of mental health. It was a youthful and innovative banner, anti-traditional, optimistic, heroic and dynamic, that had to be hoisted over the ruins of all attachment to the past.”

Filippo Tommaso Marinetti (1876–1944) Italian poet and editor, founder of the Futurist movement

quote from 'Guerra sola igiene del mundo', in Edizione Futuriste di Poesia', Milan 1915; as quoted in Futurism, ed. Didier Ottinger; Centre Pompidou / 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008, p. 21
1910's

Death , Health , Youth , Art

“We should not allow the word "democracy" to be utilized apologetically to represent the dictatorship of the exploiting classes.”

Ernesto Che Guevara (1928–1967) Argentine Marxist revolutionary

Method of Guerrilla Warfare (1963)

Democracy

“A verse translation should be faithful to the original, less in form than in sense. Or in other words, a poetic translation should be as beautiful as the original in sense, in sound and, if possible, in form.”

Xu Yuanchong (1921) Translator of Chinese poetry

Source: 300 Tang Poems: A New Translation (1987), p. xxii

Faith , Beauty , Sense

“Tax revenues are up 59 percent since 1980. Because of our economic growth? No. During Carter's four years, we had growth of 37.2 percent; Reagan's five years have given us 30.7 percent. The new revenues are due to four giant Republican tax increases since 1981. All republicans rightly chastised Carter for his $38 billion deficit. But they ignore or even defend deficits of $220 billion, as government spending has grown 10.4 percent per year since Reagan took office, while the federal payroll has zoomed by a quarter of a million bureaucrats… big government has been legitimized in a way the Democrats never could have accomplished. It was tragic to listen to Ronald Reagan on the 1986 campaign trail bragging about his high spending on farm subsidies, welfare, warfare, etc… the IRS has grown bigger, richer, more powerful, and more arrogant. In the words of the founders of our country, our government has "sent hither swarms" of tax gatherers "to harass our people and eat out their substance." His officers jailed the innocent George Hansen, with the President refusing to pardon a great American whose only crime was to defend the Constitution. Reagan's new tax "reform" gives even more power to the IRS. Far from making taxes fairer or simpler, it deceitfully raises more revenue for the government to waste… I want to totally disassociate myself from the policies that have given us unprecedented deficits, massive monetary inflation, indiscriminate military spending, an irrational and unconstitutional foreign policy, zooming foreign aid, the exaltation of international banking, and the attack on our personal liberties and privacy.”

Ron Paul (1935) American politician and physician

Letter to chairman of the RNC http://www.textfiles.com/politics/ron_paul.txt Frank Fahrenkopf (March 1987).
1980s

People , Way , Personality , Country

“Just as a telegram is composed of symbols called words, so the personagram is made of Aspect-prints that together combine to form the message. Only this message is written "on" a psychological structure by psychologically animate symbols. A telegram is inert itself; the information appears upon it, but it can't send a message or interpret its own. A personagram can.”

Jane Roberts (1929–1984) American Writer

Source: Adventures In Consciousness: An Introduction to Aspect Psychology (1975), p. 127

Appearance , Animals

“(Referring to the Kuomintang) There are many stubborn elements, graduates in the speciality schools of stubbornness. They are stubborn today, they will be stubborn tomorrow, and they will be stubborn the day after tomorrow. What is stubbornness (wan gu)? "Gu" is to be stiff. "Wan" is to not progress: not today, nor tomorrow, nor the day after tomorrow. People like that are called the "stubborn elements". It is not an easy thing to make the stubborn elements listen to our words.”

Mao Zedong (1893–1976) Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China

Mao, 1967, as quoted by Jing Huang in The Role of Government Propaganda in the Educational System during the Cultural Revolution in China http://www.pem.cam.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Cultural-Revolution-in-China-paper.pdf.

People , School

Quotes about wording page 31

Quotes about wording
page 31