Quotes about wording (9378 quotes, page 79)

“We must constantly encourage Western journalists to write precisely the opposite of our real intentions and anyone who writes or speaks about our real intentions accurately or impartially in the Western sense of these words must quickly be dismissed and ridiculed as someone of the Right or a fascist, someone who wants to bring back McCarthyism.”

Ivan Agayants (1911–1968) KGB officer

Explaining the benefits of disinformation. Quoted in "KGB" - Page 142 - by Brian Freemantle - Social Science - 1982.

Sense

“Employees cannot become more productive in every sense of the word unless they are provided with continuous on-the-job training.”

Gregory Balestrero (1947) American industrial engineer

NACE International (1990). Materials Performance. p. 104.
1990s

Sense , Training

“Silence in love bewrays more woe
Than words, though ne’er so witty:
A beggar that is dumb, you know,
May challenge double pity.”

Walter Raleigh (1554–1618) English aristocrat, writer, poet, soldier, courtier, spy, and explorer

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

Love , Silence

“[S]hould we attempt to use sensible words to deal with these problems, they will be caught up immediately in the structures of the official arguments which accompany the official modern ideologies — arguments as sterile as the ideologies are irrelevant. Our society contains no method of serious self-criticism for the simple reason that it is now a self-justifying system which generates its own logic.”

John Ralston Saul (1947) Canadian author and essayist

Voltaire's Bastards (1992)

Problem

“I had once a beautiful fatherland.
The oak tree
Grew so high there, violets nodded softly.
It was a dream.It kissed me in German and spoke in German
(You would hardly believe
How good it sounded) the words: "I love you!"
It was a dream.”

Heinrich Heine (1797–1856) German poet, journalist, essayist, and literary critic

<p>Ich hatte einst ein schönes Vaterland.
Der Eichenbaum
Wuchs dort so hoch, die Veilchen nickten sanft.
Es war ein Traum.</p><p>Das küßte mich auf deutsch und sprach auf deutsch
(Man glaubt es kaum
Wie gut es klang) das Wort: "Ich liebe dich!"
Es war ein Traum.</p>
In Der Fremde (In a Foreign Land)

Love , Beauty , Dreams , Kiss

“A man’s word must be as good as an oath sworn beneath the Light or it was no good at all.”

Robert Jordan (1948–2007) American writer

Source: (January 2004), Chapter 1: The Hook. p. 6

Light

“The idea of a personal God is quite alien to me and seems even naive. However, I am also not a "Freethinker" in the usual sense of the word because I find that this is in the main an attitude nourished exclusively by an opposition against naive superstition. My feeling is insofar religious as I am imbued with the consciousness of the insufficiency of the human mind to understand deeply the harmony of the Universe which we try to formulate as "laws of nature."”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

It is this consciousness and humility I miss in the Free-thinker mentality.
Letter to Beatrice F. in response to a question about whether he was a "free thinker" (17 December 1952), p. 121
Attributed in posthumous publications, Einstein and Religion (1999)

God , Law , Feeling , Idea

“De Bellaigue is at pains to portray Mossadegh as — in the words of the jacket copy — “one of the first liberals of the Middle East, a man whose conception of liberty was as sophisticated as any in Europe or America.” But the trouble is, there is nothing in Mossadegh’s career — spanning half a century, as provincial governor, cabinet minister, and finally prime minister — to portray him as even remotely a lover of liberty. De Bellaigue quotes Mossadegh as saying that a trusted leader is “that person whose every word is accepted and followed by the people.” To which de Bellaigue adds: “His understanding of democracy would always be coloured by traditional ideas of Muslim leadership, whereby the community chooses a man of outstanding virtue and follows him wherever he takes them.” Word for word, that could have been the late Ayatollah Khomeini’s definition of a true leader. Mossadegh also made a habit of appearing in his street meetings with a copy of the Koran in hand. According to de Bellaigue, Mossadegh liked to say that “anyone forgetting Islam is base and dishonourable, and should be killed.” During his premiership, Mossadegh demonstrated his dictatorial tendency to the full: Not once did he hold a full meeting of the council of ministers, ignoring the constitutional rule of collective responsibility. He dissolved the senate, the second chamber of the Iranian parliament, and shut down the Majlis, the lower house. He suspended a general election before all the seats had been decided and chose to rule with absolute power. He disbanded the high council of national currency and dismissed the supreme court. During much of his tenure, Tehran lived under a curfew while hundreds of his opponents were imprisoned. Toward the end of his premiership, almost all of his friends and allies had broken with him. Some even wrote to the secretary general of the United Nations to intervene to end Mossadegh’s dictatorship. But was Mossadegh a man of the people, as de Bellaigue portrays him? Again, the author’s own account provides a different picture. A landowning prince and the great-great-grandson of a Qajar king, Mossadegh belonged to the so-called thousand families who owned Iran. He and all his children were able to undertake expensive studies in Switzerland and France. The children had French nannies and, when they fell sick, were sent to Paris or Geneva for treatment. (De Bellaigue even insinuates that Mossadegh might have had a French sweetheart, although that is improbable.) On the one occasion when Mossadegh was sent to internal exile, he took with him a whole retinue, including his cook… As a model of patriotism, too, Mossadegh is unconvincing. According to his own memoirs, at the end of his law studies in Switzerland, he had decided to stay there and acquire Swiss citizenship. He changed his mind when he was told that he would have to wait ten years for that privilege. At the same time, Farmanfarma secured a “good post” for him in Iran, tempting him back home.”

Amir Taheri (1942) Iranian journalist

"Myths of Mossadegh" https://www.nationalreview.com/nrd/articles/302213/myths-mossadegh/page/0/1, National Review (June 25, 2012).

Pain , Children , People , Family

“Modern liberalism suffers unresolved contradictions. It exalts individualism and freedom and, on its radical wing, condemns social orders as oppressive. On the other hand, it expects governments to provide materially for all, a feat manageable only by an expansion of authority and a swollen bureaucracy. In other words, liberalism defines government as tyrant father but demands it behave as nurturant mother. Feminism has inherited these contradictions.”

Camille Paglia (1947) American writer

Source: Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson (1990), p. 3

Freedom , Suffering

“The word "God," so "capitalised" (as we Americans say), is the definable proper name, signifying Ens necessarium; in my belief Really creator of all three Universes of Experience.”

Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914) American philosopher, logician, mathematician, and scientist

I, Ens necessarium is a latin expression which signifies "Necessary being, necessary entity"
A Neglected Argument for the Reality of God (1908)

God , Universe

“The word 'cybernetics' is still new to many people, even though it has now been an accepted word of our language for some ten or fifteen years. Speaking generally, cybernetics is the scientific study of control and communication. It is an attempt to give an integrated account of both physical and biological systems in terms of their capacity to communicate between different points of the system, and in terms of their control.
There has been considerable research into general methods of communication in recent years, and this has been primarily the work of communication engineers, who are trying to discover in general terms what they themselves are doing.”

Frank Honywill George (1921–1997) British psychologist

George (1958) "Cybernetics and biology" in: M.L. Johnson Ed. New biology. Ns 26-31. p.106

People , Communication , Study

“Held in the custody of childhood is a locked chest; the adolescent, by one means or another, tries to open it. The chest is opened: inside, there is nothing. So he reaches a conclusion: the treasure chest is always like this, empty. From this point on, he gives priority to this assumption of his rather than to reality. In other words, he is now a "grown-up."”

Yukio Mishima (1925–1970) Japanese author

"Cigarette" ("Ta- bako") story, quoted in 三島由紀夫短編集: Seven Stories, translated by John Bester (2002), p. 110.

Reality , Childhood

“For myself I know that, as long as I can summarize my experience in words, I would certainly not make any music about it.”

Gustav Mahler (1860–1911) late-Romantic Austrian composer

Ich weiß für mich, daß ich, solang ich mein Erlebnis in Worten zusammenfassen kann, gewiß keine Musik hierüber machen würde.
Letter to Max Marschalk (26 March 1896). Original German text cited from: Blaukopf, Herta (ed.). Gustav Mahler. Briefe. 2nd edition. Zsolnay, Vienna 1996, ISBN 3-552-04810-3, p. 171.
Variant: If a composer could say what he had to say in words he would not bother trying to say it in music.

Music

“He looked at me and said, ‘The difference between your agent and me is that your agent can’t get you out of here at five o’clock on Friday and I can. And all it’ll cost you is twenty percent ”
“‘Gene, I can’t do that to this agent,’ I said. ‘He got me the job.'”
“And then he said, and I will never forget his exact words, ‘Well, you’re just going to have to learn how to bow down and say master.'”

Gene Roddenberry (1921–1991) American television screenwriter and producer

As quoted by Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner in Up Till Now " Shatner: Roddenberry Was A Chiseler http://trekmovie.com/2008/06/02/shatner-roddenberry-was-a-chiseler/" TrekMovie.com, June 2, 2008
About

Learning , Forgetting

“["DONALDSON: But on Friday, you were very pessimistic. You said, "No good," when someone asked you how things were going."] No, I'm saying even now, if I have to summarize the situation - in one word it's good, in two words, not good.”

Ehud Barak (1942) Israeli politician and prime minister

Interview with Prime Minister Ehud Barak on ABC News http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Government/Speeches%20by%20Israeli%20leaders/2000/Interview%20with%20PM%20Barak%20on%20ABC%20News-%20This%20Week%20-%20S, September 10, 2000

“But wow! This goofy child president we have on our hands now. He is demonstrably a fool and a failure, and this is only the summer of '03. The American nation is in the worst condition I can remember in my lifetime, and our prospects for the immediate future are even worse... The Bush family must be very proud of themselves today, but I am not. Big Darkness, soon come. Take my word for it.”

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

"Big Darkness" (22 July 2003)
2000s

Family , Fools , Failure , Future

“For the development of nationhood from one or more ethnicities, by far the most important and widely present factor is that of an extensively used vernacular literature. A long struggle against an external threat may also have a significant effect as, in some circumstances, does state formation, though the latter may well have no national effect whatever elsewhere. A nation may precede or follow a state of its own but it is certainly assisted by it to a greater self-consciousness. Most such developments are stimulated by the ideal of a nation-state and of the world as a society of nations originally 'imagined', if you like the word, through the mirror of the Bible, Europe's primary textbook, but turned into a formal political philosophy no earlier than the nineteenth century and then next to canonised by President Woodrow Wilson and the Versailles peace settlement of 1920.”

Adrian Hastings (1929–2001) Roman Catholic priest, historian and author

Source: The construction of nationhood: ethnicity, religion, and nationalism (1997), p. 2; As cited in: nationalismproject.org http://www.nationalismproject.org/what/hastings.htm by Eric G.E. Zuelow, 1999-2007.

World , Peace , Imagination , Literature

“Even the modern word "concept" means "a grasping together," implying that the mind itself, in its act of knowing, functions like the intervening hand (in contrast to its ancient counterpart, “idea,” “that which can be beheld,” which implies that the mind functions like the receiving eye). And modern science rejects, as meaningless or useless, questions that cannot be answered by the application of method. Science becomes not the representation and demonstration of truth, but an art: the art of finding the truth—or, rather, that portion of truth that lends itself to be artfully found.”

Leon R. Kass (1939) American academic

Source: The Problem of Technology (1993), p. 8

Truth , Art , Idea , Question

“Having traveled, having conceived, having hoped, having enlarged my love, having widened my sympathies, having come into contact with different races, different communities, different religions, different civilizations, friends, my vision is clear. I have no prejudice of race, creed, caste, or colour…. Until you students have acquired and mastered the spirit of brotherhood, do not believe it possible that you will ever cease to be sectarian… if I may use such word…. you will ever be national.”

Sarojini Naidu (1879–1949) Indian politician, governor of the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh from 1947 to 1949

In a lecture she gave at age 24 to the young students, quoted in "Selected Letters, Gandhi -Sarojini Naidu Correspondence, Preface".
Poetry

Love , Religion , Hope , Travel

“Try this: say the words "global, global, global" aloud several times, as fast as you can. You'll find yourself sounding like a turkey ("gobble, gobble, gobble").”

Jim Stanford (1961) Canadian economist

Part 4, Chapter 21, Globalization, p. 254
Economics For Everyone (2008)

Time

“In one word, this ideal is that you are divine.”

Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) Indian Hindu monk and phylosopher

Pearls of Wisdom

“The word virgin, both in Hebrew (almah) and Greek (parthenos), simply means a mature young woman, not a “virgo intacta,” and more may have been deduced from the word than is warranted by its use.”

Leslie Weatherhead (1893–1976) English theologian

Source: The Christian Agnostic (1965), p.100-101

“The central assertion of this view, I repeat, is that each new stage of words literally created new perceptions and attentions, and such new perceptions and attentions resulted in important cultural changes which are reflected in the archaeological record.”

Julian Jaynes book The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind

Book I, Chapter 6, p. 132 (Italics as per text...)
The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind (1976)

Change

“This that I say is so great bliss to Jesus that He setteth at nought all His travail, and His hard Passion, and His cruel and shameful death.
And in these words: If that I might suffer more, I would suffer more, — I saw in truth that as often as He might die, so often He would, and love should never let Him have rest till He had done it. And I beheld with great diligence for to learn how often He would die if He might. And verily the number passed mine understanding and my wits so far that my reason might not, nor could, comprehend it. And when He had thus oft died, or should, yet He would set it at nought, for love: for all seemeth Him but little in regard of His love.”

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

The Ninth Revelation, Chapter 22

Love , Death , Truth , Understanding

“Book-to-screen adaptations must always strive for two things: First, you must find a way to tell the broad story of the original plot; second, you must somehow reflect the spirit and texture of the novel—that is, you must transform a lot of words into a few pictures. All those digressions, inner monologues, thought processes, turns of phrase, all those word pictures, and especially all that un-photographable stuff that made the novel so delicious, must somehow be represented onscreen by use of the filmmaker's tools: moving pictures, dialogue and performance, sets, costumes, music and all the other tricks of the trade. That's the process a writer must go through to create a successful blueprint for a film.”

Tommy Lee Wallace (1949) American film director

Tommy Lee Wallace on Crafting His Miniseries Masterpiece, IT https://dailydead.com/stephen-king-week-tommy-lee-wallace-on-crafting-his-miniseries-masterpiece-it/ (October 27, 2015)

Books , Music , Way , Success

“Magister Adler was deeply moved by something higher, but now when he wants to express his thoughts in words, wants to communicate, he confuses the subjective with the objective, his altered subjective state with an external event, the dawning of a light upon him with the coming into existence of something new outside him, the falling of the veil from his eyes with his having had a revelation. Subjectively his emotion is carried to the extreme; he wants to select the most powerful expression to describe it and by means of a mental deception grasps the objective qualification: having had a revelation.”

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

The Book of Adler, by Søren Kierkegaard, Hong 1998 p. 117
1840s, The Book on Adler (1846-1847)

Communication , Light

“We have brought three words—freedom, choice, opportunity—into the centre of the political debate. And we have exposed the language of Socialism, the gloss they put on words to conceal their true meaning. For instance, Socialists say “publicly owned”. What they mean is “State controlled”. Socialists say “Government aid”. What they mean is “taxpayers' aid”. Socialists say “social justice”. What they mean is “selective justice”. Socialists say “equality.” What they mean is “levelling down”. Why do they twist the truth like this? Because they dare not spell out the Socialist reality. One way to destroy capitalism, said Lenin, was to devalue its currency. Another way is to debase its language. Whenever we can, let us, like Luther, nail the truth to the door—and let us do it in unambiguous English. These are the opening rounds in the battle of ideas. It is a battle that we are winning.”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

Speech to Conservative Central Council ("The Historic Choice") (20 March 1976) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/102990
Leader of the Opposition

Truth , Justice , Way , Idea

“We must never say, even in fun, that we are disheartened, because someone might take us at our word.”

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

This Business of Living (1935-1950)

“To keep the air fresh among words is the secret of verbal cleanliness.”

Dejan Stojanovic (1959) poet, writer, and businessman

Simplicity http://www.poetrysoup.com/famous/poem/21390/Simplicity
From the poems written in English

Secret

“Words are men’s daughters, but God’s sons are things.”

Samuel Madden (1686–1765) Irish writer

Boulter's Monument (1745). At Madden's request, the poem was revised for publication by Samuel Johnson, some authorities hold that and that this line was an insertion by Johnson; however Johnson's own account was that he had merely "blotted out" unnecessary lines of the poem. See James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: Comprehending an Account of His Studies (1791) p. 175. Compare: "Words are women, deeds are men", George Herbert, Jacula Prudentum.

Men , God , Daughters

“I do not need your loving words
or hurried kiss
as night comes down
in the place where we once lived
innocent as children,
and happier.”

Anna Akhmatova (1889–1966) Russian modernist poet

Red Winged Birds (1917)

Love , Children , Kiss , Night

“Voltaire once said: "Not to be occupied and not to exist are one and the same thing for a man." With those few words he captured the essence of a purpose in life: to work, to create, to excel, and to be concerned about the world and its affairs.”

Hyman George Rickover (1900–1986) United States admiral

Thoughts on Man's Purpose in Life (1974)

Life , World

“Students, when you want to say something, think about it three times before you say it. Speak only if your words will benefit yourselves and others. Do not speak if it brings no benefit.”

Dogen (1200–1253) Japanese Zen buddhist teacher

VI, 2
Shobogenzo Zuimonki (1238)

Thinking , Time

“The writer of these lines has nothing whatsoever to teach anyone; his words are just his contribution to our common discussion of what must inevitably be for us the most important subject which could be discussed by sentient beings.”

Wei Wu Wei (1895–1986) writer

Introduction to Open Secret (1965)

“The edifice of my educational thought is almost entirely beholden to the views of Kerschensteiner. At later stages, however, Gandhiji’s influence and his elaboration of some of the finest points on the subject provided the much needed depth and expansion. Words turned into projects and a mere conceptual and transient framework became an insuperable part of my life.”

Zakir Hussain (politician) (1897–1969) 3rd President of India

Source: Quest for Truth (1999), p. 145.

Life , Education , Parting

“For Poetry is the wisdom of the blood,
That scarlet tree within, which has the power
To make dull words bud forth and burst in flower.”

Osbert Sitwell (1892–1969) British baronet

"When First the Poets Sung", line 47.
These lines were repeatedly drawn on by Sitwell in his later works.

Wisdom , Flowers , Tree

“I do not support pedophilia. Period. It is a vile and disgusting crime, perhaps the very worst. I did say that there are relationships between younger men and older men that can help a young gay man escape from a lack of support or understanding at home. That's perfectly true and every gay man knows it. But I was not talking about anything illegal and I was not referring to pre-pubescent boys. I said in the same "Drunken Peasants" podcast from which the footage is taken that I agree with the current age of consent. I shouldn't have used the word "boy" when I talked about those relationships between older men and younger gay men. (I was talking about my own relationship when I was 17 with a man who was 29. The age of consent in the UK is 16.) That was a mistake. Gay men often use the word "boy" when they refer to consenting adults. I understand that heterosexual people might not know that, so it was a sloppy choice of words that I regret.”

Milo Yiannopoulos (1984) British journalist

19 February 2017 on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/myiannopoulos/posts/851263248344905
2017

Men , People , Age , Home

“Words like "freedom," "justice," "democracy" are not common concepts; on the contrary, they are rare. People are not born knowing what these are. It takes enormous and, above all, individual effort to arrive at the respect for other people that these words imply.”

James Baldwin (1924–1987) (1924-1987) writer from the United States

"The Crusade of Indignation," The Nation (New York, 7 July 1956), published in book form in The Price of the Ticket (1985)

People , Justice , Democracy , Effort

“I have an object, a task, let me say the word, a passion. The profession of writing is a violent and almost indestructible one.”

George Sand (1804–1876) French novelist and memoirist; pseudonym of Lucile Aurore Dupin

J'ai un but, une tâche, disons le mot, une passion. Le métier d'écrire en est une violente et presque indestructible.
Letter to Jules Boucoiran, (4 March 1831), published in Georges Lubin (ed.) Correspondance (Paris: Garnier Freres, 1964-95) vol. 1, pp. 817-18; Frederick Niecks Frederick Chopin: As a Man and Musician (London: Novello, 1890) vol. 1, p. 334

Passion

“Every one knows that the fine phrase "God geometrizes" is attributed to Plato, but few know where this famous passage is found, or the exact words in which it was first expressed. Those who, like the author, have spent hours and even days in the search of the exact statements, or the exact references, of similar famous passages, will not question the timeliness and usefulness of a book whose distinct purpose it is to bring together into a single volume exact quotations, with their exact references, bearing on one of the most time-honored, and even today the most active and most fruitful of all the sciences, the queen-mother of all the sciences, that is, mathematics.”

Robert Edouard Moritz (1868–1940) German mathematician

Robert Edouard Moritz. On Mathematics and Mathematicians https://archive.org/details/onmathematicsmat00mori, 1914, 1942, 1958; p. v; Preface, lead sentence

God , Books , Search , Mathematics

“The self is not so much linked to its ancestors, it is not so much the product, and merely the product, of all that, but rather, in the strictest sense of the word, the same thing as all that: the strict, direct continuation of it, just as the self aged fifty is the continuation of the self aged forty.”

Erwin Schrödinger (1887–1961) Austrian physicist

Source: My View of the World (1951), p. 28

Age , Sense

“Some of the greatest lessons you learn in life are the ones communicated without a single word spoken.”

Steve Maraboli (1975)

Source: Life, the Truth, and Being Free (2010), p. 123

Life , Communication , Learning

“We use the word divine because the word human is not big enough. He is so much more like God than any other. But the word “divine” is really only an expression of Christian agnosticism. I am quite ready to say that I believe in the divinity of Christ, but I do not know what it means, nor can I find anyone who can explain what it means, least of all some of the theologians from Paul onwards. I sincerely believe that he is the Savior of the World, and if I am immediately challenged about what he saves men from, my answer is that he saves men from the utter despair which would fall upon a thoughtful man, who, conscious of high aims and immense possibilities within himself, was condemned to try to achieve them without any aid save his own, and purely human help of his fellows.”

Leslie Weatherhead (1893–1976) English theologian

Source: The Christian Agnostic (1965), p.94

Men , God , World , Help

“O love's a simple word to say
With nature aiding and abetting;”

Jan Struther (1901–1953) British writer

LONDON LOVERS, BETSINDA DANCES AND OTHER POEMS

Love , Nature

“Once man was tossed about helplessly and incessantly by the wind that blew through him—now the toughest of all plants is more sensitive, more easily moved than he. In other words, death is better than life, nothing is better than anything. Nor is this a silly adolescent pessimism peculiar to Housman, as so many critics assure you. It is better to be dead than alive, best of all never to have been born—said a poet approvingly advertised as seeing life steadily and seeing it whole; and if I began an anthology of such quotations there it would take me a long time to finish. The attitude is obviously inadequate and just as obviously important.”

Randall Jarrell (1914–1965) poet, critic, novelist, essayist

“Texts from Housman”, p. 27
Kipling, Auden & Co: Essays and Reviews 1935-1964 (1980)

Life , Death , Time , Dead

“Good writers are visible just behind their words.”

William Zinsser (1922–2015) writer, editor, journalist, literary critic, professor

Source: On Writing Well (Fifth Edition, orig. pub. 1976), Chapter 4, Style, p. 23.

“His words … like so many nimble and airy servitors trip about him at command.”

John Milton (1608–1674) English epic poet

Apology for Smectymnuus (1642)

“My belief in how plant-based nutrition could boost athletic performance while also reducing the strain on the environment was, at the time, considered fringe at best. … Ten years later, it's now common for people to speak of their “plant-based diet.” Even “vegan” is a familiar word, seen on the most conventional restaurants' menus. The importance of avoiding animal products in our diet, whether for heath, physical and mental performance, environmental, ethical, or a combination of these reasons, is now well understood and widely accepted.”

Brendan Brazier (1975) Canadian triathlete, publisher, writer, editor

Preface to the 10th Anniversary Edition
The Thrive Diet

People , Time , Animals

“.. as I met with Mr. (Dunning there. There is something exclusive of the clear and deep understanding of that gentleman most exceedingly pleasing to me. He seems the only man who talks as Giardini plays, if you know what I mean; he puts no more motion than what goes to the real performance, which constitutes that ease and gentility peculiar to damned clever fellows... He is an amazing compact man in every respect.... and besides this neatness in outward appearance, his storeroom seems cleared of all French ornaments and gingerbread work, everything is simplicity and elegance and in its proper place, no disorder or confusion in the furniture.... Sober sense and great acuteness are marked very strong in his face.... but there is genius (in our sense of the word). (It) shines in all he says. In short, Mr. Jackson of Exeter [his friend], I begin to think there is something in the air of Devonshire that grows clever fellows. I could name four or five of you, superior to the product of any other county in England.”

Thomas Gainsborough (1727–1788) English portrait and landscape painter

Quote from Gainsborough's letter to his friend William Jackson of Exeter, from Bath, 2 Sept. 1768; as cited in Thomas Gainsborough, by William T, Whitley https://ia800204.us.archive.org/6/items/thomasgainsborou00whitrich/thomasgainsborou00whitrich.pdf; New York, Charles Scribner's Sons – London, Smith, Elder & Co, Sept. 1915, p. 384 (Appendix A - Letter VII)
1755 - 1769

Understanding , Thinking , Sense , Strong

“From a young age, my parents impressed on me the values that you work hard for what you want in life: that your word is your bond and you do what you say and keep your promise; that you treat people with respect. They taught and showed me values and morals in their daily life. That is a lesson that I continue to pass along to our son, and we need to pass those lessons on to the many generation to follow because we want our children in this nation to know that the only limit to your achievements is the strength of your dreams and your willingness to work for them.”

Melania Trump (1970) Slovenian model, wife of Donald Trump and First Lady of the United States

Speech at 2016 Republican National Convention http://time.com/4412175/republican-convention-melania-trump-michelle-obama/ (July 18, 2016)

Life , Children , People , Age

“We are called to honor our own words of reverent prayer with resolution in the deeds we must perform to preserve peace and the hope of freedom. We keep a vigil of peace around the world. Until the world knows no aggressors, until the arms of tyranny have been laid down, until freedom has risen up in every land, we shall maintain our vigil to make sure our sons who died on foreign fields shall not have died in vain.”

Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–1973) American politician, 36th president of the United States (in office from 1963 to 1969)

1960s, Memorial Day speech (1963)

World , Peace , Hope , Freedom

“Give me enough words, enough attendant gravity, and I might fall into myself forever, crushed infinitely flat by my own hubris. It'd be a neat trick, I admit. I'd pay to see it — but from a safe distance, of course.”

Caitlín R. Kiernan (1964) writer

To Charles Fort, With Love (2005)

“All the plagues and evils of “the European mind” are products of the fallen man and the relics of barbarian cultures, not of Christ and His word. All that is good in “the European mind” is a result of Christian culture, not of race.”

Rousas John Rushdoony (1916–2001) American theologian

Writings, The New Racism (1980)

Evil , Christ

“We may observe, that, notwithstanding the dogmatical, imperious style of all superstition, the conviction of the religionists, in all ages, is more affected than real, and scarcely ever approaches, in any degree, to that solid belief and persuasion, which governs us in the common affairs of life. Men dare not avow, even to their own hearts, the doubts which they entertain on such subjects: They make a merit of implicit faith; and disguise to themselves their real infidelity, by the strongest asseverations and most positive bigotry. But nature is too hard for all their endeavours, and suffers not the obscure, glimmering light, afforded in those shadowy regions, to equal the strong impressions, made by common sense and by experience. The usual course of men's conduct belies their words, and shows, that their assent in these matters is some unaccountable operation of the mind between disbelief and conviction, but approaching much nearer to the former than to the latter.”

David Hume The Natural History of Religion

Part XII - With regard to doubt or conviction
The Natural History of Religion (1757)

Life , Men , Age , Faith

“Some parents just work at…I don't know…Microscoft (She mispronounced the word. She meant Microsoft) and just sit there at a desk and their kids have to sit at a desk, too and…I don't know!”

Rachel Trachtenburg (1993) American musician

Rachel on how different her and her parents' lifestyle is compared to other parents and their children.
Off & On Broadway documentary (2006)

Parent

“If I had to define life in a word, it would be: Life is creation.”

Claude Bernard (1813–1878) French physiologist

Bulletin of New York Academy of Medicine, Vol. IV (1928)

Life

“So they had language, and they had fire, and they had society. And about then she found an adjustment being made in her mind, as the word creatures became the word people. These beings weren’t human, but they were people, she told herself; it’s not them, they’re us.”

Philip Pullman His Dark Materials trilogy

Source: His Dark Materials, The Amber Spyglass (2000), Ch. 10 : Wheels

People

“he took a few, the tribe of Abraham. He established a perfect despotism—with no schools, with no philosophy, with no art, with no music—nothing but the sacrifices of dumb beasts—nothing but the abject worship of a slave. Not a word upon geology, upon astronomy; nothing, even, upon the science of medicine. Thus God spent hours and hours with Moses upon the top of Sinai, giving directions for ascertaining the presence of leprosy and for preventing its spread, but it never occurred to Jehovah to tell Moses how it could be cured. He told them a few things about what they might eat—prohibiting among other things four-footed birds, and one thing upon the subject of cooking. From the thunders and lightnings of Sinai he proclaimed this vast and wonderful fact: “Thou shalt not seethe a kid in its mother’s milk.””

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

Some Reasons Why (1881)

God , School , Art , Music

“"The Earth is billions of years old. The geologic column is the way to interpret it, and Charles Darwin's evolution is right." That is what they teach in order to be a good communist. Did you know that Russian teachers come to America to study education because the American educational system is considered the best in the world for teaching students these three principals. This prepares them to be good communists and to doubt the word of God.”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

Unmasking the False Religion of Evolution (1996)

God , World , Education , Way

“The real issue is not whether two and two make four or whether two and two make five, but whether life advances by men who love words or men who love living.”

Colin Wilson book The Outsider

Source: The Outsider (1956), Chapter Nine, Breaking the Circuit

Love , Life , Men

“For me it is not dubious that our thinking goes on for the most part without use of signs (words) and beyond that to a considerable degree unconsciously. For how, otherwise, should it happen that sometimes we "wonder" quite spontaneously about some experience? This "wondering" seems to occur when an experience comes into conflict with a world of concepts which is already sufficiently fixed in us. Whenever such a conflict is experienced hard and intensively it reacts back upon our thought world in a decisive way. The development of this thought world is in a certain sense a continuous flight from "wonder."”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

1940s, "Autobiographical Notes" (1949)

World , Way , Thinking , Decision

“The renunciation of marriage and family is thus to be understood in terms of this vision: I renounce what, humanly speaking, is not only the most normal but also the most important thing. I forgo bringing forth further life on the tree of life, and I live in the faith that my land is really God - and so I make it easier for others, also, to believe that there is a kingdom of heaven. I bear witness to Jesus Christ, to the Gospel, not only with words, but also with this specific mode of existence, and I place my life in this form at his disposal.”

Pope Benedict XVI (1927) 265th Pope of the Catholic Church

from "Salt of the Earth: Christianity and the Catholic Church at the end of the Millennium: An interview with Peter Seewald," by Ratzinger, San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1997
1990s

Life , God , Marriage , Family

“We cannot have another world war. War is the wrong word. We should ban the term ‘World War III’ and say instead apocalypse or holocaust.”

Golo Mann (1909–1994) German historian

Hamburg’s Die Zeit, August 30, 1985. cited in: The Watchtower, 2/15 1986.

War , World

“When we examine the moments, acts, and statements of all kinds of people- not only the grief and ecstasy of the greatest poets, but also the huge unhappiness of the average soul, as evidenced by the innumerable strident words of abuse, hatred, contempt, mistrust, and scorn that forever grate upon our ears as the manswarm passes us in the streets -- we find, I think, that they are all suffering from the same thing. The final cause of their complaint is loneliness.”

Thomas Wolfe (1900–1938) American writer

The Anatomy of Loneliness (1941)

People , Soul , Thinking , Suffering

“What the world wants is character. The world is in need of those whose life is one burning love, selfless. That love will make every word tell like a thunderbolt.”

Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) Indian Hindu monk and phylosopher

Pearls of Wisdom

Love , Life , World

“I want, if I may, to address a few words to the Opposition [Labour Party]… Whatever may be said of this Parliament in years to come and whatever may be said of the right hon. Gentleman's party, I believe that full tribute will be given to him and to his friends. As I and those on these benches who take part in the daily work of the House so well know, the Labour party as a whole have helped to keep the flag of Parliamentary government flying in the world through the difficult periods through which we have passed. They were nearly wiped out at the polls. Coming back with 50 Members, with hardly a man among them with experience of government, many would have thrown their hands in. But from the first day the right hon. Gentleman led his party in this House, they have taken their part as His Majesty's Opposition—and none but those who have been through the mill in opposition know what the day-to-day work is—with no Civil Service behind them, they have equipped themselves for debate after debate and held their own and put their case. I want to say that partly because I think it is due, and partly because I know that they, as I do, stand in their heart of hearts for our Constitution and for our free Parliament, and that has been preserved in the world against all difficulties and against all dangers.”

Stanley Baldwin (1867–1947) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1935/may/22/defence-policy in the House of Commons (22 May 1935). This speech reduced the Labour leader George Lansbury to tears (Thomas Jones, A Diary with Letters. 1931-1950 (London: Oxford University Press, 1954), p. 149.)
1935

World , Thinking , Help , Heart

“Poetry is an effort of a dissatisfied man to find satisfaction through words.”

Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) American poet

As quoted in Wallace Stevens and the Limits of Reading and Writing (2002) by by Bart Eeckhout Ch. 12 "Poeticizing Epistemology", p. 268

Effort

“Igor:: Sed-a…
Inga:: Sed-a…
Igor:: Dirty word! He said a dirty word!”

Mel Brooks (1926) American director, writer, actor, and producer

Young Frankenstein

“Jesus! How does the very word overflow with sweetness, and light, and love, and life; filling the air with odors, like precious ointment poured forth; irradiating the mind with a glory of truths on which no fear can live, soothing the wounds of the heart with a balm that turns the sharpest anguish into delicious peace, shedding through the soul a cordial of immortal strength. Jesus! the answer to all our. doubts, the spring of all our courage, the earnest of all our hopes, the charm omnipotent against all our foes, the remedy for all weakness, the supply of all our wants, the fullness of all our desires. Jesus! at the mention of whose name every knee shall bow and every tongue confess. Jesus! our power; Jesus! our righteousness, our sanctification, our redemption — Jesus! our elder brother, our blessed Lord and Redeemer. Thy name is the most transporting theme of the church, as they sing going up from the valley of tears, to their home on the mount of God; Thy name shall ever be the richest chord in the harmony of heaven, while the angels and the redeemed unite their exulting, adoring songs around the throne of God.”

George Washington Bethune (1805–1862) American hymnwriter

Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 54.

Love , Life , God , Truth

“A final word of advice: don't gloat about how well you have done.”

Howard Raiffa (1924–2016) American academic

Part II, Chapter 9, Advice for Negotiators, p. 130.
The Art and Science of Negotiation (1982)

“He did not make the rule against the Christians, for Trajan did that; and if we admit that he would have been willing to let the Christians alone, we cannot affirm that it was in his power, for it would be a great mistake to suppose that Antoninus had the unlimited authority, which some modern sovereigns have had. His power was limited by certain constitutional forms, by the senate, and by the precedents of his predecessors. We cannot admit that such a man was an active prosecutor, for there is no evidence that he was, though it is certain that he had no good opinion of the Christians, as appears from his own words. But he knew nothing of them except their hostility to the Roman religion, and probably thought they were dangerous to the state.”

George Long (1800–1879) English classical scholar

M. Aurelius Antoninus

Hostility , Religion , Appearance

“If you torture words enough, they'll confess to anything.”

Anu Garg (1967) Indian author

On Finding Great Anagrams http://wordsmith.org/anagram/tips.html

“It is my belief that there are "absolutes" in our Bill of Rights, and that they were put there on purpose by men who knew what the words meant and meant their prohibitions to be "absolutes."”

Hugo Black (1886–1971) U.S. Supreme Court justice

James Madison Lecture at the New York University School of Law (February 17, 1960).

Men

“I want to discuss why a company exists in the first place. In other words, why are we here? I think many people assume, wrongly, that a company exists simply to make money. While this is an important result of a company’s existence, we have to go deeper and find the real reasons for our being.... Purpose (which should last at least 100 years) should not be confused with specific goals or business strategies (which should change many times in 100 years). Whereas you might achieve a goal or complete a strategy, you cannot fulfill a purpose; it’s like a guiding star on the horizon—forever pursued but never reached. Yet although purpose itself does not change, it does inspire change. The very fact that purpose can never be fully realized means that an organization can never stop stimulating change and progress.”

David Packard (1912–1996) American electrical engineer, co-founder of Hewlett-Packard, businessman, U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense,…

David Packard (1960) cited in: Bruce Jones. "The Difference Between Purpose and Mission." in Harvard Business Review, Feb. 02, 2016.

Money , People , Star , Business

“Here she drew forth a small pocket-book, took from it a card and a pencil and, after meditating a moment, wrote a few words. It is our privilege to look over her shoulder, and if we exercise it we may read the brief query: […].”

Henry James book The Portrait of a Lady

XLIV
The Portrait of a Lady (1881)

Books , Exercises , Reading

“The greatest American industry—why has no one ever said so?—is the industry of using words. We pay tens of millions of people to spend their lives lying to us, or telling us the truth, or supplying us with a nourishing medicinal compound of the two. All of us are living in the middle of a dark wood—a bright Technicolored forest—of words, words, words. It is a forest in which the wind is never still: there isn’t a tree in the forest that is not, for every moment of its life and our lives, persuading or ordering or seducing or overawing us into buying this, believing that, voting for the other.”

Randall Jarrell (1914–1965) poet, critic, novelist, essayist

“The Taste of the Age”, pp. 27–28
A Sad Heart at the Supermarket: Essays & Fables (1962)

Life , People , Truth , Lying

“The Accusing Spirit which flew up to heaven's chancery with the oath, blush'd as he gave it in; and the Recording Angel as he wrote it down, dropp'd a tear upon the word, and blotted it out forever.”

Laurence Sterne book The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

Book VI (1761-1762), Ch. 8. Compare: "But sad as angels for the good man’s sin, Weep to record, and blush to give it in", Thomas Campbell, Pleasures of Hope, part ii, line 357.
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (1760-1767)

Angels , Tear

“Rhyme, the rack of finest wits,
That expresseth but by fits,
True conceit,
Spoiling senses of their treasure,
Cozening judgement with a measure,
But false weight.
Wresting words from their true calling;
Propping verse, for fear of falling
To the ground.
Jointing syllables, drowning letters,
Fastening vowels, as with fetters
They were bound!”

Ben Jonson (1572–1637) English writer

XXIX, A Fit of Rhyme Against Rhyme, lines 1-12
The Works of Ben Jonson, Second Folio (1640), Underwoods

Fear , Sense , Falseness

“Mr. Grey said, that he was prepared to defend the country, not only against an invasion of a foreign enemy, wishing to inculcate their own dangerous principles, which were clearly most subversive of civil society, but he would defend it, at the risk of his life, against the subjects of any government, if it was the best that human wisdom could devise; he did not however think it was candid, or by any means conciliatory, in the right hon. gentleman, on every occasion that presented itself to introduce the words "just and necessary" war. He declared he was much obliged to an hon. gentleman who had done him the honour to remember his words. He had declared, and he would declare again, that he would rather live under the most despotic monarchy, nay, even under that of the king of Prussia, or the empress of Russia, than under the present government of France. He wished the chancellor of the exchequer had descended a little from his high and haughty tone of prerogative, and had informed the House, in plain, simple, intelligible language his real opinion of the legality of the measure which ministers had thought to pursue with respect to voluntary subscriptions. As for himself, he would insist, that to raise money without the authority of parliament, for any public purpose whatsoever, was illegal; and if right hon. gentleman should insist on contrary, it would give a deeper wound the constitution than any that it had received even from that right hon. gentleman.”

Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey (1764–1845) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland

Speech in the House of Commons (26 March 1794), reported in The Parliamentary History of England, from the Earliest Period to the Year 1803. Vol. XXXI (London: 1818), pp. 94-95.
1790s

Life , Wisdom , Money , War

“Since I see all the birds are flown, I do expect from you that you will send them unto me as soon as they return hither. But, I assure you on the word of a king, I never did intend any force, but shall proceed against them in a legal and fair way, for I never meant any other.”

Charles I of England (1600–1649) monarch of the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland

Statement in the House of Commons after failing to arrest five members (4 January 1642), from the journal of Sir Simonds d'Ewes

Way , Bird

“In societies with fewer opportunities for amusement, it was also easier to tell a mere wish from a real desire. If, in order to hear some music, a man has to wait for six months and then walk twenty miles, it is easy to tell whether the words, "I should like to hear some music," mean what they appear to mean, or merely, "At this moment I should like to forget myself." When all he has to do is press a switch, it is more difficult. He may easily come to believe that wishes can come true.”

W. H. Auden book The Dyer's Hand

Interlude: West's Disease", p. 245
The Dyer's Hand, and Other Essays (1962)

Music , Appearance , Waiting , Forgetting

“All this was shewed by three: that is to say, by bodily sight, and by word formed in mine understanding, and by spiritual sight. But the spiritual sight I cannot nor may not shew it as openly nor as fully as I would. But I trust in our Lord God Almighty that He shall of His goodness, and for your love, make you to take it more spiritually and more sweetly than I can or may tell it.”

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

The First Revelation, Chapter 9

Love , God , Understanding

“The soul contains few secrets and longings which cannot be sensibly discussed, analyzed, and polled. Solitude, the very condition which sustained the individual against and beyond his society, has become technically impossible. Logical and linguistic analysis demonstrate that the old metaphysical problems are illusory problems; the quest for the “meaning” of things can be reformulated as the quest for the meaning of words, and the established universe of discourse and behavior can provide perfectly adequate criteria for the answer.”

Herbert Marcuse book One-Dimensional Man

Source: One-Dimensional Man (1964), p. 71

Secret , Behavior , Soul , Problem

“My father warned me about men and booze, but he never mentioned a word about women and cocaine.”

Tallulah Bankhead (1902–1968) American actress

Source: Tallulah, Darling: A Biography of Tallulah Bankhead (1980), p. 2

Women , Men

“We at Answers in Genesis have been saddened by recent news of a devastating earthquake that rocked Nepal on April 25. This earthquake and its aftershocks have killed thousands, levelled buildings, and left countless thousands homeless and hungry. It even triggered an avalanche on Mount Everest that resulted in fatalities. Now, the headline of an article in the New York Times declares, “Ancient Collision Made Nepal Earthquake Inevitable.” The author writes, “More than 25 million years ago, India, once a separate island on a quickly sliding piece of the Earth’s crust, crashed into Asia. The two land masses are still colliding, pushed together at a speed of 1.5 to 2 inches a year. The forces have pushed up the highest mountains in the world, in the Himalayas, and have set off devastating earthquakes.” But starting from the history recorded in God’s Word we know that this earthquake is not the result of a crash 25 million years ago and slow and gradual processes ever since. Instead, when we start with the history recorded in God’s Word, we know that this earthquake is one of the tragic consequences of the Fall and the global Flood of Noah’s day… Please be in prayer for Nepal and especially for our brothers and sisters in that country who are reaching out to victims with the love of Christ. Also, as they watch the news, many people will be asking how God could allow such a tragedy. I encourage you to equip yourself with the biblical answer to why there is death and suffering—because of Adam and Eve’s rebellion—so that you can answer their questions and point them toward the hope that we can have even in the midst of tragedy because of the sacrifice of Jesus and the salvation that He offers. It’s important to know that such tragedy is not God’s fault—it’s our fault because of our sin in Adam. God stepped into history in the person of His Son to rescue us from the problem we caused and the resulting separation from our God.”

Ken Ham (1951) Australian young Earth creationist

"Nepal Suffering After Major Earthquake" https://answersingenesis.org/blogs/ken-ham/2015/04/30/nepal-suffering-after-major-earthquake/, Around the World with Ken Ham (April 30, 2015)
Around the World with Ken Ham (May 2005 - Ongoing)

Love , Death , God , People

“The words of the world want to make sentences.”

Gaston Bachelard (1884–1962) French writer and philosopher

Source: La poétique de la rêverie (The Poetics of Reverie) (1960), Ch. 5, sect. 4

World

“Now, at this very minute, another thing is happening which we cannot hear because most paintings do not have a sound-track. Peter is inventing the word "simony" to explain ecclesiastical purchase-power, for which, since his Church later exercised it so expertly, Simon Magus ought to be revered as a patron not a rogue.”

Peter Greenaway (1942) British film director

Flying Out of This World

Exercises , Painting

“In other words, all of my books are lies. They are simply maps of a territory, shadows of a reality, gray symbols dragging their bellies across the dead page, suffocated signs full of muffled sound and faded glory, signifying absolutely nothing. And it is the nothing, the Mystery, the Emptiness alone that needs to be realized: not known but felt, not thought but breathed, not an object but an atmosphere, not a lesson but a life.”

Ken Wilber (1949) American writer and public speaker

"Foreword" to Ken Wilber: Thought as Passion (2000) by Frank Visser

Life , Books , Reality , Dead

“T was Slander filled her mouth with lying words,
Slander, the foulest whelp of Sin.”

Robert Pollok book The Course of Time

Book iv, line 725.
The Course of Time (published 1827)

Lying

“When a movie is this bad, it's hard to adequately describe its awfulness in words. The temptation exists to write something along the lines of: "Something this horrible has to be seen to be believed." Of course, that kind of advice would lead to e-mail death threats and other assorted nasty comments from those who spend money on The Devil's Rejects. … Aside from its poor production values, horrendous acting, and ignoble morality, The Devil's Rejects isn't engaging cinema. Even if the simple act of sitting in a movie theater watching people get hacked up for 90 minutes doesn't bother you, the dullness and repetition is likely to.”

James Berardinelli (1967) American film critic

Review http://www.reelviews.net/php_review_template.php?identifier=934 of The Devil's Rejects (2005).
Half-star reviews

Death , Money , People

“Religion! what treasure untold
Resides in that heavenly word!”

William Cowper (1731–1800) (1731–1800) English poet and hymnodist

Source: Verses supposed to be written by Alexander Selkirk (1782), Line 25.

Religion

“Hui Shih was a man of many devices and his writings would fill five carriages. But his doctrines were jumbled and perverse and his words wide of the mark. His way of dealing with things may be seen from these sayings:
"The largest thing has nothing beyond it; it is called the One of largeness. The smallest thing has nothing within it; it is called the One of smallness."
"That which has no thickness cannot be piled up; yet it is a thousand li in dimension."
"Heaven is as low as earth; mountains and marshes are on the same level."
"The sun at noon is the sun setting. The thing born is the thing dying."
"Great similarities are different from little similarities; these are called the little similarities and differences. The ten thousand things are all similar and are all different; these are called the great similarities and differences."
"The southern region has no limit and yet has a limit."
"I set off for Yueh today and came there yesterday."
"Linked rings can be separated."
"I know the center of the world: it is north of Yen and south of Yueh."”

Hui Shi

"Let love embrace the ten thousand things; Heaven and earth are a single body."
'With sayings such as these, Hui Shih tried to introduce a more magnanimous view of the world and to enlighten the rhetoricians.'
Zhuangzi, Ch. 33, as translated by Burton Watson (1968), p. 374; this contains the core of what has survived of Hui Shi's philosophy, most of the records of it having been eradicated in the vast "burning of books and burying of scholars" during the Legalism of the Qin dynasty.

Love , World , Way , Mountain

“It's a fitting irony that under Richard Nixon "launder" became a dirty word.”

William Zinsser (1922–2015) writer, editor, journalist, literary critic, professor

Source: On Writing Well (Fifth Edition, orig. pub. 1976), Chapter 7, Usage, p. 47.

“That’s the words: "So I’m back to the velvet underground"—which is a clothing store in downtown San Francisco, where Janis Joplin got her clothes, and Grace Slick from Jefferson Airplane, it was this little hole in the wall, amazing, beautiful stuff—”back to the floor that I love, to a room with some lace and paper flowers, back to the gypsy that I was."”

Stevie Nicks (1948) American singer and songwriter, member of Fleetwood Mac

(on the inspiration for "Gypsy") Leah Greenblatt, "Stevie Nicks On Her Favorite Songs: A Music Mix Exclusive", http://music-mix.ew.com/2009/03/31/stevie-nicks-in/ Entertainment Weekly, 31 March 2009

Love , Beauty , Flowers , Clothes