Quotes about wound

A collection of quotes on the topic of wound, time, timing, people.

Quotes about wound

Osamu Dazai photo
Thomas Moore photo

“Here bring your wounded hearts, here tell your anguish;
Earth has no sorrow that Heaven cannot heal.”

Come, ye Disconsolate.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Anaïs Nin photo
Babur photo
Fernando Pessoa photo

“I bear the wounds of all the battles I avoided.”

Fernando Pessoa (1888–1935) Portuguese poet, writer, literary critic, translator, publisher and philosopher
Cassandra Clare photo
Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy photo

“It has been said that time heals all wounds, I don't agree. The wounds remain. In time, the mind, protecting its sanity, covers them with scar tissue, and the pain lessens, but is never gone.”

Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy (1890–1995) American philanthropist and mother of John F. Kennedy

Variant: It has been said, 'time heals all wounds.' I do not agree. The wounds remain. In time, the mind, protecting its sanity, covers them with scar tissue and the pain lessens. But it is never gone.

Rumi photo

“The wound is the place where the Light enters you.”

Rumi (1207–1273) Iranian poet

https://twitter.com/wise_chimp/status/1488946174321205253?s=21

José Baroja photo
Ernest Hemingway photo
Cassandra Clare photo
Osamu Dazai photo
Henry Rollins photo
Dietrich Bonhoeffer photo
Francis of Assisi photo
Hazrat Inayat Khan photo
Isabel Allende photo
Henri Nouwen photo
Juan Donoso Cortés photo

“There is no man, let him be aware of it or not, who is not a combatant in this hot contest; no one who does not take an active part in the responsibility of the defeat or victory. The prisoner in his chains and the king on his throne, the poor and the rich, the healthy and the infirm, the wise and the ignorant, the captive and the free, the old man and the child, the civilized and the savage, share equally in the combat. Every word that is pronounced, is either inspired by God or by the world, and necessarily proclaims, implicitly or explicitly, but always clearly, the glory of the one or the triumph of the other. In this singular warfare we all fight through forced enlistment; here the system of substitutes or volunteers finds no place. In it is unknown the exception of sex or age; here no attention is paid to him who says, I am the son of a poor widow; nor to the mother of the paralytic, nor to the wife of the cripple. In this warfare all men born of woman are soldiers.
And don’t tell me you don’t wish to fight; for the moment you tell me that, you are already fighting; nor that you don’t know which side to join, for while you are saying that, you have already joined a side; nor that you wish to remain neutral; for while you are thinking to be so, you are so no longer; nor that you want to be indifferent; for I will laugh at you, because on pronouncing that word you have chosen your party. Don’t tire yourself in seeking a place of security against the chances of war, for you tire yourself in vain; that war is extended as far as space, and prolonged through all time. In eternity alone, the country of the just, can you find rest, because there alone there is no combat. But do not imagine, however, that the gates of eternity shall be opened for you, unless you first show the wounds you bear; those gates are only opened for those who gloriously fought here the battles of the Lord, and were, like the Lord, crucified.”

Juan Donoso Cortés (1809–1853) Spanish author, political theorist and diplomat

Essays on Catholicism, Liberalism, and Socialism (1879)

Edgar Allan Poe photo
Mark Satin photo
Archilochus photo

“I have a high art: I hurt with cruelty those who wound me.”

Archilochus (-680–-645 BC) Ancient Greek lyric poet

As quoted in Studies in Latin American Popular Culture, Vol. 20 (2001), p. 184
As quoted in Quotations for Martial Artists : Hundreds of Inspirational Quotes to Motivate and Enlighten the Modern Warrior (2003) edited by John D. Moore
Fragments
Variant: I have a high art; I hurt with cruelty those who would damage me.

George Orwell photo
George S. Patton photo

“There is only one tactical principle which is not subject to change. It is to use the means at hand to inflict the maximum amount of wound, death, and destruction on the enemy in the minimum amount of time.”

George S. Patton (1885–1945) United States Army general

As quoted in Liberalism is a Mental Disorder : Savage Solutions‎ (2005) by Michael Savage, Ch. 1 : More Patton, Less Patent Leather, p. 4

Randy Blythe photo
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn photo
Hippocrates photo

“Related to this is the surgery of wounds arising in military service, which concerns the extraction of missiles.”

Hippocrates (-460–-370 BC) ancient Greek physician

Hippocrates - The Physician 14, as translated by Paul Potter, Loeb Classical Library, Hippocrates Volume VIII.
Context: Related to this is the surgery of wounds arising in military service, which concerns the extraction of missiles. In city practice experience of these is but little, for very rarely even in a whole lifetime are there civil or military combats. In fact such things occur most frequently and continuously in armies abroad. Thus, the person intending to practice this kind of surgery must serve in the army, and accompany it on expeditions abroad; for in this way he would become experienced in this practice.

Pope Francis photo
Haruki Murakami photo
William Shakespeare photo

“He jests at scars that never felt a wound.”

Source: Romeo and Juliet

Carlos Ruiz Zafón photo
Walt Whitman photo
Cassandra Clare photo
John Lennon photo

“Time wounds all heels.”

John Lennon (1940–1980) English singer and songwriter
Oprah Winfrey photo

“Turn your wounds into wisdom.”

Oprah Winfrey (1954) American businesswoman, talk show host, actress, producer, and philanthropist
Milan Kundera photo
Scott Heim photo
Oscar Wilde photo

“Hearts Live By Being Wounded”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet
Fulton J. Sheen photo
Nora Roberts photo

“The wounded recognized the wounded.”

Nora Roberts (1950) American romance writer

Source: Rising Tides

Cassandra Clare photo
Oscar Wilde photo
Euripidés photo
Barack Obama photo
Laurell K. Hamilton photo
Erik H. Erikson photo
Rabindranath Tagore photo
Groucho Marx photo

“Time wounds all heels.”

Groucho Marx (1890–1977) American comedian
Stephen King photo
Novalis photo

“Poetry heals the wounds inflicted by reason.”

Novalis (1772–1801) German poet and writer

As quoted in Quote, Unquote‎ (1989) by Jonathan Williams, p. 136

Oscar Wilde photo
Klaus Kinski photo

“I've solved the mystery: You have to submit silently. Open up, let go. Let anything penetrate you, even the most painful things. Endure. Bear up. That's the magic key! The text comes by itself, and its meaning shakes the soul… You mustn't let scar tissue form on your wounds; you have to keep ripping them open in order to turn your insides into a marvelous instrument that is capable of anything. All this has its price.”

Klaus Kinski (1926–1991) German actor

Source: Kinski Uncut : The Autobiography of Klaus Kinski (1996), p. 72-73
Context: At a performance everything works out on its own. I've solved the mystery: You have to submit silently. Open up, let go. Let anything penetrate you, even the most painful things. Endure. Bear up. That's the magic key! The text comes by itself, and its meaning shakes the soul. Everything else is taken care of by the life one has to live without sparing oneself. You mustn't let scar tissue form on your wounds; you have to keep ripping them open in order to turn your insides into a marvelous instrument that is capable of anything. All this has its price. I become so sensitive that I can't live under normal conditions. That's why the hours between performances are worst.

Haruki Murakami photo
Haruki Murakami photo
William Shakespeare photo
Barack Obama photo
Louis Antoine de Saint-Just photo
Barack Obama photo
Barack Obama photo
John Chrysostom photo
Alice A. Bailey photo
Thomas Edison photo
Henri Barbusse photo
Bruce Springsteen photo
José Saramago photo

“Intoxicated mentally by the messianic dream of a Greater Israel which will finally achieve the expansionist dreams of the most radical Zionism; contaminated by the monstrous and rooted 'certitude' that in this catastrophic and absurd world there exists a people chosen by God and that, consequently, all the actions of an obsessive, psychological and pathologically exclusivist racism are justified; educated and trained in the idea that any suffering that has been inflicted, or is being inflicted, or will be inflicted on everyone else, especially the Palestinians, will always be inferior to that which they themselves suffered in the Holocaust, the Jews endlessly scratch their own wound to keep it bleeding, to make it incurable, and they show it to the world as if it were a banner.”

José Saramago (1922–2010) Portuguese writer and recipient of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Literature

Intoxicados mentalmente pela idéia messiânica de um Grande Israel que torne por fim realidade os sonhos expansionistas do sionismo mais radical, contaminados pela monstruosa e arraigada "certeza" de que neste mundo catastrófico e absurdo existe um povo eleito por Deus e, portanto, estão automaticamente justificadas e autorizadas, em nome dos horrores do passado e dos medos de hoje, todas as ações nascidas de um racismo obsessivo, psicológica e patologicamente exclusivista, educados e formados na idéia de que qualquer sofrimento que tenham infligido, inflijam ou venham a infligir aos demais, em especial aos palestinos, sempre será inferior ao que eles padeceram no Holocausto, os judeus arranham sem cessar sua própria ferida para que não deixe de sangrar, para torná-la incurável, e mostram-na ao mundo como se fosse uma bandeira.
Interview with El País (2002); cited in Princípios (Editora Anita Garibaldi, 2002), p. 88; English translation taken from Phillips The World Turned Upside Down (2010), p. 207.

Stefan Zweig photo

“He who is himself crossed in love is able from time to time to master his passion, for he is not the creature but the creator of his own misery; and if a lover is unable to control his passion, he at least knows that he is himself to blame for his sufferings. But he who is loved without reciprocating that love is lost beyond redemption, for it is not in his power to set a limit to that other's passion, to keep it within bounds, and the strongest will is reduced to impotence in the face of another's desire. Perhaps only a man can realize to the full the tragedy of such an undesired relationships; for him alone the necessity to resist t is at once martyrdom and guilt. For when a woman resists an unwelcome passion, she is obeying to the full the law of her sex; the initial gesture of refusal is, so to speak, a primordial instinct in every female, and even if she rejects the most ardent passion she cannot be called inhuman. But how disastrous it is when fate upsets the balance, when a woman so far overcomes her natural modesty as to disclose her passion to a man, when, without the certainty of its being reciprocated, she offers her love, and he, the wooed, remains cold and on the defensive! An insoluble tangle this, always; for not to return a woman's love is to shatter her pride, to violate her modesty. The man who rejects a woman's advances is bound to wound her in her noblest feelings. In vain, then, all the tenderness with which he extricates himself, useless all his polite, evasive phrases, insulting all his offers of mere friendship, once she has revealed her weakness! His resistance inevitably becomes cruelty, and in rejecting a woman's love he takes a load of guild upon his conscience, guiltless though he may be. Abominable fetters that can never be cast off! Only a moment ago you felt free, you belonged to yourself and were in debt to no one, and now suddenly you find yourself pursued, hemmed in, prey and object of the unwelcome desires of another. Shaken to the depths of your soul, you know that day and night someone is waiting for you, thinking of you, longing and sighing for you - a woman, a stranger. She wants, she demands, she desires you with every fibre of her being, with her body, with her blood. She wants your hands, your hair, your lips, your manhood, your night and your day, your emotions, your senses, and all your thought and dreams. She wants to share everything with you, to take everything from you, and to draw it in with her breath. Henceforth, day and night, whether you are awake or asleep, there is somewhere in the world a being who is feverish and wakeful and who waits for you, and you are the centre of her waking and her dreaming. It is in vain that you try not to think of her, of her who thinks always of you, in vain that you seek to escape, for you no longer dwell in yourself, but in her. Of a sudden a stranger bears your image within her as though she were a moving mirror - no, not a mirror, for that merely drinks in your image when you offer yourself willingly to it, whereas she, the woman, this stranger who loves you, she has absorbed you into her very blood. She carries you always within her, carries you about with her, no mater whither you may flee. Always you are imprisoned, held prisoner, somewhere else, in some other person, no longer yourself, no longer free and lighthearted and guiltless, but always hunted, always under an obligation, always conscious of this "thinking-of-you" as if it were a steady devouring flame. Full of hate, full of fear, you have to endure this yearning on the part of another, who suffers on your account; and I now know that it is the most senseless, the most inescapable, affliction that can befall a man to be loved against his will - torment of torments, and a burden of guilt where there is no guilt.”

Beware of Pity (1939)

Aurelius Augustinus photo

“By faithfulness we are collected and wound up into unity within ourselves, whereas we had been scattered abroad in multiplicity.”

Aurelius Augustinus (354–430) early Christian theologian and philosopher

As quoted in Footprints in Time : Fulfilling God's Destiny for Your Life (2007) by Jeff O'Leary, p. 223
Disputed

Sueton photo

“The method of execution he preferred was to inflict numerous small wounds; and his familiar order: "Make him feel that he is dying!" soon became proverbial.”
Non temere in quemquam nisi crebris et minutis ictibus animadverti passus est, perpetuo notoque iam praecepto: "Ita feri ut se mori sentiat."

Source: The Twelve Caesars, Gaius Caligula, Ch. 30

Abraham Lincoln photo

“I mean the powerful influence which the interesting scenes of the Revolution had upon the passions of the people as distinguished from their judgment. By this influence, the jealousy, envy, and avarice incident to our nature and so common to a state of peace, prosperity, and conscious strength, were for the time in a great measure smothered and rendered inactive, while the deep-rooted principles of hate, and the powerful motive of revenge, instead of being turned against each other, were directed exclusively against the British nation. And thus, from the force of circumstances, the basest principles of our nature, were either made to lie dormant, or to become the active agents in the advancement of the noblest cause — that of establishing and maintaining civil and religious liberty. But this state of feeling must fade, is fading, has faded, with the circumstances that produced it. I do not mean to say that the scenes of the Revolution are now or ever will be entirely forgotten, but that, like everything else, they must fade upon the memory of the world, and grow more and more dim by the lapse of time. In history, we hope, they will be read of, and recounted, so long as the Bible shall be read; but even granting that they will, their influence cannot be what it heretofore has been. Even then they cannot be so universally known nor so vividly felt as they were by the generation just gone to rest. At the close of that struggle, nearly every adult male had been a participator in some of its scenes. The consequence was that of those scenes, in the form of a husband, a father, a son, or a brother, a living history was to be found in every family — a history bearing the indubitable testimonies of its own authenticity, in the limbs mangled, in the scars of wounds received, in the midst of the very scenes related — a history, too, that could be read and understood alike by all, the wise and the ignorant, the learned and the unlearned. But those histories are gone. They can be read no more forever. They were a fortress of strength; but what invading foeman could never do, the silent artillery of time has done — the leveling of its walls. They are gone. They were a forest of giant oaks; but the all-restless hurricane has swept over them, and left only here and there a lonely trunk, despoiled of its verdure, shorn of its foliage, unshading and unshaded, to murmur in a few more gentle breezes, and to combat with its mutilated limbs a few more ruder storms, then to sink and be no more. They were pillars of the temple of liberty; and now that they have crumbled away that temple must fall unless we, their descendants, supply their places with other pillars, hewn from the solid quarry of sober reason.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

1830s, The Lyceum Address (1838)

Al-Mutanabbi photo
Barack Obama photo
William Wilberforce photo

“If then we would indeed be “filled with wisdom and spiritual understanding;” if we would “walk worthy of the Lord unto all well pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God;” here let us fix our eyes! “Laying aside every weight, and the sin that does so easily beset us; let us run with patience the race that is set before us, Looking unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.
Here best we may learn the infinite importance of Christianity. How little it can deserve to be treated in that slight and superficial way, in which it is in these days regarded by the bulk of nominal Christians, who are apt to think it may be enough, and almost equally pleasing to God, to be religious in any way, and upon any system. What exquisite folly it must be to risk the soul on such a venture, in direct contradiction to the dictates of reason, and the express declaration of the word of God! “How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation?”
LOOKING UNTO JESUS!
Here we shall best learn the duty and reasonableness of an absolute and unconditional surrender of soul and body to the will and service of God.—“We are not our own; for we are bought with a price,” and must “therefore” make it our grand concern to “glorify God with our bodies and our spirits, which are God’s.” Should we be base enough, even if we could do it with safety, to make any reserves in our returns of service to that gracious Saviour, who “gave up himself for us?” If we have formerly talked of compounding by the performance of some commands for the breach of others; can we now bear the mention of a composition of duties, or of retaining to ourselves the right of practising little sins! The very suggestion of such an idea fills us with indignation and shame, if our hearts be not dead to every sense of gratitude.
LOOKING UNTO JESUS!
Here we find displayed, in the most lively colours, the guilt of sin, and how hateful it must be to the perfect holiness of that Being, “who is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity.” When we see that, rather than sin should go unpunished, “God spared not his own Son,” but “was pleased[99], to bruise him and put him to grief” for our sakes; how vainly must impenitent sinners flatter themselves with the hope of escaping the vengeance of Heaven, and buoy themselves up with I know not what desperate dreams of the Divine benignity!
Here too we may anticipate the dreadful sufferings of that state, “where shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth;” when rather than that we should undergo them, “the Son of God” himself, who “thought it no robbery to be equal with God,” consented to take upon him our degraded nature with all its weaknesses and infirmities; to be “a man of sorrows,” “to hide not his face from shame and spitting,” “to be wounded for our transgressions, and bruised for our iniquities,” and at length to endure the sharpness of death, “even the death of the Cross,” that he might “deliver us from the wrath to come,” and open the kingdom of Heaven to all believers.
LOOKING UNTO JESUS!
Here best we may learn to grow in the love of God! The certainty of his pity and love towards repenting sinners, thus irrefragably demonstrated, chases away the sense of tormenting fear, and best lays the ground in us of a reciprocal affection. And while we steadily contemplate this wonderful transaction, and consider in its several relations the amazing truth, that “God spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all;” if our minds be not utterly dead to every impulse of sensibility, the emotions of admiration, of preference, of hope, and trust, and joy, cannot but spring up within us, chastened with reverential fear, and softened and quickened by overflowing gratitude. Here we shall become animated by an abiding disposition to endeavour to please our great Benefactor; and by a humble persuasion, that the weakest endeavours of this nature will not be despised by a Being, who has already proved himself so kindly affected towards us. Here we cannot fail to imbibe an earnest desire of possessing his favour, and a conviction, founded on his own declarations thus unquestionably confirmed, that the desire shall not be disappointed. Whenever we are conscious that we have offended this gracious Being, a single thought of the great work of Redemption will be enough to fill us with compunction. We shall feel a deep concern, grief mingled with indignant shame, for having conducted ourselves so unworthily towards one who to us has been infinite in kindness: we shall not rest till we have reason to hope that he is reconciled to us; and we shall watch over our hearts and conduct in future with a renewed jealousy, [Pg 243] lest we should again offend him. To those who are ever so little acquainted with the nature of the human mind, it were superfluous to remark, that the affections and tempers which have been enumerated, are the infallible marks and the constituent properties of Love. Let him then who would abound and grow in this Christian principle, be much conversant with the great doctrines of the Gospel.
It is obvious, that the attentive and frequent consideration of these great doctrines, must have a still more direct tendency to produce and cherish in our minds the principle of the love of Christ.”

William Wilberforce (1759–1833) English politician

Source: Real Christianity (1797), p. 240-243.

Clive Staples Lewis photo
Livy photo

“I approach these questions unwillingly, as it wounds, but no cure can be effected without touching upon and handling them.”

Livy (-59–17 BC) Roman historian

Book XXVIII, sec. 27
History of Rome

Leonardo Da Vinci photo

“Envy wounds with false accusations, that is with detraction, a thing which scares virtue.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), XIX Philosophical Maxims. Morals. Polemics and Speculations.

Barack Obama photo

“Now, those who were killed and injured here were gunned down by a single killer with a powerful assault weapon. The motives of this killer may have been different than the mass shooters in Aurora or Newtown. But the instruments of death were so similar. And now another 49 innocent people are dead; another 53 are injured; some are still fighting for their lives; some will have wounds that will last a lifetime. We can’t anticipate or catch every single deranged person that may wish to do harm to his neighbors or his friends or his coworkers or strangers. But we can do something about the amount of damage that they do. Unfortunately, our politics have conspired to make it as easy as possible for a terrorist or just a disturbed individual like those in Aurora and Newtown to buy extraordinarily powerful weapons, and they can do so legally.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

In Orlando after the Orlando nightclub shooting ([President Obama: Orlando Families' Grief Is 'Beyond Description', Time, Maya, Rhodan, June 16, 2016, September 2, 2018, http://time.com/4372190/orlando-shooting-barack-obama-joe-biden-grief/]; [‘Our hearts are broken, too’: Obama visits survivors of Orlando rampage, Katie, Zezima, Ellen, Nakashima, Mark, Berman, June 16, 2016, September 2, 2018, The Washington Post, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/06/16/obama-looks-toward-grieving-orlando-in-visit-as-political-showdowns-expand-after-massacre/]; [After meeting with Orlando victims, Obama renews call for gun control, Gregory, Korte, USA Today, June 16, 2016, September 6, 2018, https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2016/06/16/obama-biden-visit-orlando-emotional-visit-after-shooting/85973066/]).
2016, After the Orlando nightclub shooting (June 2016)

“I believe that the artist is a wounded healer, that they are healing wounds of their own, and when they do that truthfully, they heal the audience.”

Sandra Seacat (1936) American acting teacher and actress

As quoted in "The Role of Their Dreams" http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/07/fashion/07dreams.html?pagewanted=2 by Sarah Kershaw, in The New York Times (May 6, 2009)

Barack Obama photo

“And at some point, I know that one of my daughters will ask, perhaps my youngest, will ask, "Daddy, why is this monument here? What did this man do?" How might I answer them? Unlike the others commemorated in this place, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was not a president of the United States — at no time in his life did he hold public office. He was not a hero of foreign wars. He never had much money, and while he lived he was reviled at least as much as he was celebrated. By his own accounts, he was a man frequently racked with doubt, a man not without flaws, a man who, like Moses before him, more than once questioned why he had been chosen for so arduous a task — the task of leading a people to freedom, the task of healing the festering wounds of a nation's original sin. And yet lead a nation he did. Through words he gave voice to the voiceless. Through deeds he gave courage to the faint of heart. By dint of vision, and determination, and most of all faith in the redeeming power of love, he endured the humiliation of arrest, the loneliness of a prison cell, the constant threats to his life, until he finally inspired a nation to transform itself, and begin to live up to the meaning of its creed.
Like Moses before him, he would never live to see the Promised Land. But from the mountain top, he pointed the way for us — a land no longer torn asunder with racial hatred and ethnic strife, a land that measured itself by how it treats the least of these, a land in which strength is defined not simply by the capacity to wage war but by the determination to forge peace — a land in which all of God's children might come together in a spirit of brotherhood.
We have not yet arrived at this longed for place. For all the progress we have made, there are times when the land of our dreams recedes from us — when we are lost, wandering spirits, content with our suspicions and our angers, our long-held grudges and petty disputes, our frantic diversions and tribal allegiances. And yet, by erecting this monument, we are reminded that this different, better place beckons us, and that we will find it not across distant hills or within some hidden valley, but rather we will find it somewhere in our hearts.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial Groundbreaking Ceremony (13 November 2006)
2006

Gabriel Iglesias photo

“I accidentally wound up at this "dance…place", gentleman clubby place. I wasn't driving, it was an accident; we pulled up to the place, ya know (car engine, brakes), ah! I knew where I was, you can be drunk and know where you are, so long as you hear (drum beats), AAAH! I walked in there and I got recognized by one of the dancers. You gotta call them "dancers" or "entertainers" or they'll get mad at you, "(feminine voice) I am not a stripper, ok?! I'm an entertainer." And I said, "No, I'm an entertainer, you're nasty!" Some girl recognized me, and she said, "Omigawd I know who you are, you're faamous!" And I'm like, "Oh no, oh no!" And some other dancer who was spinning around on a pole overheard famous and she stopped [eek! Looks over]. She walks over, "(feminine voice) Oh my gawd, you're famous? Can I have your autograph?" I was like, "You don't even know who I am." "I don't care; SIGN IT!" "Ok, relax; what's your name?" "Diamond." "What's your last name?" "Rodriguez." "(writing)To Diamond, with all my love and affection…" "HURRY UP!" I got so mad, so I wrote, "George Lopez." I was so drunk, I didn't care; and she freaked out, she was like, "Oh my gawd! OH MY GAWD! You're George Lopez!" I can't help it guys, I was so drunk, I did this; I said, "[George Lopez voice] I know, huh? Ay, ay, cabrona! Why you cry!? Why you crying'!?"”

Gabriel Iglesias (1976) American actor

I'm not gonna lie to you guys, George knows that I do it; I don't think he likes it!
Hot & Fluffy (2007)

José Saramago photo

“Authoritarian, paralyzing, circular, occasionally elliptical, stock phrases, also jocularly referred to as nuggets of wisdom, are malignant plague, one of the very worst ever to ravage the earth. We say to the confused, Know thyself, as if knowing yourself was not the fifth and most difficult of human arithmetical operations, we say to the apathetic, Where there’s a will, there’s a way, as if the brute realities of the world did not amuse themselves each day by turning that phrase on its head, we say to the indecisive, Begin at the beginning, as if that beginning were the clearly visible point of a loosely wound thread and that all we had to do was to keep pulling until we reached the other end, and as if, between the former and the latter, we had held in our hands a smooth, continuous thread with no knots to untie, no snarled to untangle, a complete impossibility in the life of a skien, or indeed, if we may be permitted on more stock phrase, in the skien of life. … These are the delusions of the pure and unprepared, the beginning is never the clear, precise end of a thread, the beginning is a long, painfully slow process that requires time and patience in order to find out in which direction it is heading, a process that feels its way along the path ahead like a blind man the beginning is just the beginning, what came before is nigh on worthless.”

Source: The Cave (2000), p. 54 (Vintage 2003)

Cassandra Clare photo
Matka Tereza photo

“I see God in every human being. When I wash the leper's wounds, I feel I am nursing the Lord himself. Is it not a beautiful experience?”

Matka Tereza (1910–1997) Roman Catholic saint of Albanian origin

Statement of 1977, as quoted in Concise Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (2011) by Susan Ratcliffe, p. 373
1970s

Pope Francis photo

“Only the wound speaks its own word.”

Antonio Porchia (1885–1968) Italian Argentinian poet

Habla con su propia palabra sólo la herida.
Voces (1943)

Abraham Lincoln photo
Barack Obama photo
William Wilberforce photo

“Christianity is not satisfied with producing merely the specious guise of virtue. She requires the substantial reality, which may stand the scrutinizing eye of that Being “who searches the heart.” Meaning therefore that the Christian should live and breathe; in an atmosphere, as it were, of benevolence, she forbids whatever can tend to obstruct its diffusion or vitiate its purity. It is on this principle that Emulation is forbidden: for, besides that this passion almost insensibly degenerates into envy, and that it derives its origin chiefly from pride and a desire of self-exaltation; how can we easily love our neighbour as ourselves, if we consider him at the same time our rival, and are intent upon surpassing him in the pursuit of whatever is the subject of our competition?
Christianity, again, teaches us not to set our hearts on earthly possessions and earthly honours; and thereby provides for our really loving, or even cordially forgiving, those who have been more successful than ourselves in the attainment of them, or who have even designedly thwarted us in the pursuit. “Let the rich,” says the Apostle, “rejoice in that he is brought low.” How can he who means to attempt, in any degree, to obey this precept, be irreconcilably hostile towards any one who may have been instrumental in his depression?
Christianity also teaches us not to prize human estimation at a very high rate; and thereby provides for the practice of her injunction, to love from the heart those who, justly or unjustly, may have attacked our reputation, and wounded our character. She commands not the shew, but the reality of meekness and gentleness; and by thus taking away the aliment of anger and the fomenters of discord, she provides for the maintenance of peace, and the restoration of good temper among men, when it may have sustained a temporary interruption.
It is another capital excellence of Christianity, that she values moral attainments at a far higher rate than intellectual acquisitions, and proposes to conduct her followers to the heights of virtue rather than of knowledge. On the contrary, most of the false religious systems which have prevailed in the world, have proposed to reward the labour of their votary, by drawing aside the veil which concealed from the vulgar eye their hidden mysteries, and by introducing him to the knowledge of their deeper and more sacred doctrines.”

William Wilberforce (1759–1833) English politician

Source: Real Christianity (1797), p. 257.

Henri Barbusse photo
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Jeanne Marie Bouvier de la Motte Guyon photo
Cristoforo Colombo photo

“As I saw that they were very friendly to us, and perceived that they could be much more easily converted to our holy faith by gentle means than by force, I presented them with some red caps, and strings of beads to wear upon the neck, and many other trifles of small value, wherewith they were much delighted, and became wonderfully attached to us. Afterwards they came swimming to the boats, bringing parrots, balls of cotton thread, javelins, and many other things which they exchanged for articles we gave them, such as glass beads, and hawk's bells; which trade was carried on with the utmost good will. But they seemed on the whole to me, to be a very poor people. They all go completely naked, even the women, though I saw but one girl. All whom I saw were young, not above thirty years of age, well made, with fine shapes and faces; their hair short, and coarse like that of a horse's tail, combed toward the forehead, except a small portion which they suffer to hang down behind, and never cut. Some paint themselves with black, which makes them appear like those of the Canaries, neither black nor white; others with white, others with red, and others with such colors as they can find. Some paint the face, and some the whole body; others only the eyes, and others the nose. Weapons they have none, nor are acquainted with them, for I showed them swords which they grasped by the blades, and cut themselves through ignorance. They have no iron, their javelins being without it, and nothing more than sticks, though some have fish-bones or other things at the ends. They are all of a good size and stature, and handsomely formed. I saw some with scars of wounds upon their bodies, and demanded by signs the of them; they answered me in the same way, that there came people from the other islands in the neighborhood who endeavored to make prisoners of them, and they defended themselves. I thought then, and still believe, that these were from the continent. It appears to me, that the people are ingenious, and would be good servants and I am of opinion that they would very readily become Christians, as they appear to have no religion. They very quickly learn such words as are spoken to them. If it please our Lord, I intend at my return to carry home six of them to your Highnesses, that they may learn our language. I saw no beasts in the island, nor any sort of animals except parrots.”

Cristoforo Colombo (1451–1506) Explorer, navigator, and colonizer

12 October 1492; This entire passage is directly quoted from Columbus in the summary by Bartolomé de Las Casas
Journal of the First Voyage

Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius photo

“If you expect a physician to help you, you must lay bare your wound.”
Si operam medicantis exspectas, oportet vulnus detegas.

Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius (480) philosopher of the early 6th century

Prose IV, line 1; translation by W.V. Cooper
The Consolation of Philosophy · De Consolatione Philosophiae, Book I

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