Long Quotes - Page 40

• When we play the fool, how wideThe theatre expands! beside,How long the audience sits before us!How many prompters! what a chorus!

  Walter Savage Landor

  Play, Theatre, Fool

  Walter Savage Landor (1853). “The works of Walter Savage Landor [ed. by J. Forster].”, p.665

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• No academy could have given me all I discovered by getting my teeth into the exhibitions, the shop windows, and the museums of Paris . Beginning with the market - where, for lack of money, I bought only a piece of a long cucumber - the workman in his blue overall, the most ardent followers of Cubism , everything showed a definite feeling for proportion, clarity, an accurate sense of form, of a more painterly kind of painting, even in the canvases of second-rate artists.

  Marc Chagall

  Artist, Blue, Paris

  "Marc Chagall - the Russian years 1906 - 1922". Book by Christoph Vitali, p. 29, 1991.

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• But my knowledge of Marxism was limited to knowing that Marx was a Jew, and that he had a long white beard. I said to Lunatcharsky (the political communist commissar for Education, 1918, fh) 'Whatever you do, don't ask me why I painted in blue or green, and why you can see a calf inside the cow's belly, etc. On the other hand you're welcome: if Marx is so wise, let him come back to life and explain it himself'. I showed him my canvases.

  Marc Chagall

  Wise, Hands, White

  "Marc Chagall - the Russian years 1906 - 1922". Book by Christoph Vitali, p. 34, 1991.

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• So long as we see the stones and joints, and are not deceived as to the points of support in any piece of architecture, we may rather praise than regret the dexterous artifices which compel us to feel as if there were fibre in its shafts and life in its branches.

  John Ruskin

  Regret, Support, Pieces

  John Ruskin (1849). “The Seven Lamps of Architecture”, p.34

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• And with respect to the mode in which these general principles affect the secure possession of property, so far am I from invalidating such security, that the whole gist of these papers will be found ultimately to aim at an extension in its range; and whereas it has long been known and declared that the poor have no right to the property of the rich, I wish it also to be known and declared that the rich have no right to the property of the poor.

  John Ruskin

  Wish, Principles, Gist

  Unto This Last Essay 3 (1862)

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• If the house is to be demolished tomorrow anyhow, people seem to feel, we may as well burn the furniture today. None of our problems are insoluble... But it seems clear that to prevail we humans will have to act with a smartness and selflessness that has so far eluded us during our long and tangled history.

  Arthur C. Clarke

  People, Tangled, House

  "The Light of Other Days". Book by Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter, April 16, 2000.

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• Logic is a very beautiful thing. As long as it is not abused.

  Eugene Ionesco

  Beautiful, Logic, Beautiful Things

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• Decade after decade, artists came to paint the light of Provincetown, and comparisons were made to the lagoons of Venice and the marshes of Holland, but then the summer ended and most of the painters left, and the long dingy undergarment of the gray New England winter, gray as the spirit of my mood, came down to visit.

  Norman Mailer

  Summer, Winter, Artist

  Norman Mailer (2013). “Tough Guys Don't Dance: A Novel”, p.11, Random House

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• We are close to dead. There are faces and bodies like gorged maggots on the dance floor, on the highway, in the city, in the stadium; they are a host of chemical machines who swallow the product of chemical factories, aspirin, preservatives, stimulant, relaxant, and breathe out their chemical wastes into a polluted air. The sense of a long last night over civilization is back again.

  Norman Mailer

  Night, Civilization, Cities

  Norman Mailer (1966). “Cannibals and Christians”, Dell, 1967

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• People have always told tales. Long before humanity learned to write and gradually became literate, everybody told tales to everybody else and everybody listened to everybody else's tales. Before long it became clear that some of the still illiterate storytellers told more and better tales than others, that is, they could make more people believe their lies.

  Gunter Grass

  Lying, Believe, Writing

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• What does a river like the Vistula carry away with it? Everything that goes to pieces: wood, glass, pencils, pacts ... chairs, bones, and sunsets too. What had long been forgotten rose to memory, floating on its back or stomach, with the help of the Vistula.

  Gunter Grass

  Memories, Sunset, Glasses

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• There is a mental fear, which provokes others of us to see the images of witches in a neighbor's yard and stampedes us to burn down this house. And there is a creeping fear of doubt, doubt of what we have been taught, of the validity of so many things we had long since taken for granted to be durable and unchanging. It has become more difficult than ever to distinguish black from white, good from evil, right from wrong.

  Edward R. Murrow

  Fear, Taken, White

  "This I Believe" radio program, thisibelieve.org. 1951.

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• Outcasts of war, misfits, rebellious souls, Seekers of some vague kingdom in the stars - They hide out in the hills and stir up trouble, Call themselves prophets, too, and prophesy, That something new is coming to the world, The Lord knows what! Well, it's a long time coming, And, meanwhile, we're the wheat between the stones.

  Stephen Vincent Benet

  Stars, War, Soul

  "A Child Is Born". Poetic Christmas drama in one act by Stephen Vincent Benet (first presented on radio as part of the anthology program "Cavalcade of America"), December 21, 1942.

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• My heart has become as hard as a city street, the horses trample upon it, it sings like iron, all day long and all night long they beat, they ring like the hooves of time.

  Conrad Aiken

  Horse, Heart, Night

  Conrad Aiken (1970). “Collected poems”, Oxford Univ Pr

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• I complain to one of my fellow servers that I don't understand how she can go so long without food. "Well, I don't understand how you can go so long without a cigarette," she responds in a tone of reproach. Because work is what you do for others; smoking is what you do for yourself.

  Barbara Ehrenreich

  Smoking, Complaining, Tone

  Barbara Ehrenreich (2010). “Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America”, p.31, Macmillan

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• A great deal of what passes by the name of patriotism in these days consists of the merest bigotry and narrow-mindedness; exhibiting itself in national prejudice, national conceit, and national hatred. It does not show itself in deeds, but in boastings--in howlings, gesticulations, and shrieking helplessly for help--in flying flags and singing songs--and in perpetual grinding at the hurdy-gurdy of long-dead grievances and long-remedied wrongs. To be infested by such a patriotism as this is perhaps among the greatest curses that can befall any country.

  Samuel Smiles

  Country, Song, Names

  Samuel Smiles (1872). “Character”, p.27

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• The sea of faith Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled. But now I only hear Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar, Retreating, to the breath Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear And naked shingles of the world.

  Matthew Arnold

  Faith, Night, Wind

  "Dover Beach" l. 21 (1867)

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• Dreams dawn and fly: friends smile and die, Like spring flowers. Our vaunted life is one long funeral. Men dig graves, with bitter tears, For their dead hopes; and all, Mazed with doubts, and sick with fears, Count the hours.

  Matthew Arnold

  Life, Dream, Spring

  Matthew Arnold, Miriam Farris Allott, Robert Henry Super (1986). “Matthew Arnold”, Oxford University Press, USA

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• And long we try in vain to speak and act Our hidden self, and what we say and do Is eloquent, is well -- but 'tis not true!

  Matthew Arnold

  Self, Trying, Speak

  Matthew Arnold (2013). “Delphi Complete Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold (Illustrated)”, p.168, Delphi Classics

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• Goethe in Weimar sleeps, and Greece, Long since, saw Byron 's struggle cease.

  Matthew Arnold

  Struggle, Sleep, Saws

  Matthew Arnold (2013). “Delphi Complete Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold (Illustrated)”, p.160, Delphi Classics

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• What goes too long unchanged destroys itself.

  Ursula K. Le Guin

  Ursula K. Le Guin (2001). “Tales from Earthsea”, p.310, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Looking back on the long-stretched-out body of one's work, it is interesting to mark the endless duel fought within a man between the emotional and critical sides of his nature, first one, then the other, getting the upper hand, and too seldom fusing till the result has the mellowness of full achievement. One can even tell the nature of one's readers, by their preference for the work which reveals more of this side than of that.

  John Galsworthy

  Men, Emotional, Hands

  Preface to "Villa Rubein and Other Stories". Book by John Galsworthy, 1923.

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• A secret is powerful when it is empty. People often mention the "Masonic secret." What on earth is the Masonic secret? No one can tell. As long as it remains empty it can be filled up with every possible notion, and it has power.

  Umberto Eco

  Powerful, Filled Up, People

  "Umberto Eco, The Art of Fiction No. 197". Interviewed with Lila Azam Zanganeh, www.theparisreview.org. February 20, 2016.

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• Not long ago, if you wanted to seize political power in a country you had merely to control the army and the police. Today it is only in the most backward countries that fascist generals, in carrying out a coup d'état, still use tanks. If a country has reached a high degree of industrialization the whole scene changes.... Today a country belongs to the person who controls communications.

  Umberto Eco

  Country, Communication, Army

  "Il costume di casa" (1973); as translated in "Travels in Hyperreality" (1986),

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• Justice? Who asks for justice? We make our own justice ... Let us not rail about justice as long as we have arms and the freedom to use them.

  Frank Herbert

  Justice, Use, Arms

  Frank Herbert (1987). “Heretics of Dune”, p.421, Penguin

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