Hands quotes
11.6K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
Explore further
Browse quotes that often appear alongside hands — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
Quote collection
Follow a thought to its author, or read the full quote page.
"The people who are unemployed want to do the work, but the system is such a catastrophic failure that it cannot bring together idle hands and work. This is all hailed as a great success, and it is a great success - for a very small sector of the population."
"What feeling in all the world is so nice as that of a child's hand in yours? It is soft. It is small and warm. It is as innocent and guileless as a rabbit or a puppy or a kitten huddling in the shelter of your clasp."
"When Fortune comes, seize her in front with a sure hand, because behind she is bald."
"Can't bring back time. Like holding water in your hand."
"A thick stick in one's hand makes people respectful."
"The need to make music, and to listen to it, is universally expressed by human beings. I cannot imagine, even in our most primitive times, the emergence of talented painters to make cave paintings without there having been, near at hand, equally creative people making song. It is, like speech, a dominant aspect of human biology."
"To God all things are beautiful, good, and right; human beings, on the other hand, deem some things right and others wrong. It would not be better if things happened to people just as they wish."
"All that philosophers have handled for millennia has been conceptual mummies; nothing actual has ever escaped from their hands alive."
"Every habit makes our hand more witty and our wit less handy."
"I tell Thee that man is tormented by no greater anxiety than to find someone quickly to whom he can hand over that gift of freedom with which the ill-fated creatures is born. But only one who can appease their conscience can take over their freedom […] Instead of taking men's freedom from them, Thou didst make it greater than ever! Didst Thou forget that man prefers peace, and even death, to freedom of choice in the knowledge of good and evil?"
"Am I a harp that the hand of the mighty may touch me, or a flute that his breath may pass through me? A seeker of silences am I, and what treasure have I found in silences that I may dispense with confidence?"
"Out stretched hands and one night stands, still I can't find love."
"Absurd, irreducible; nothing — not even a profound and secret delirium of nature — could explain it. Obviously I did not know everything, I had not seen the seeds sprout, or the tree grow. But faced with this great wrinkled paw, neither ignorance nor knowledge was important: the world of explanations and reasons is not the world of existence. A circle is not absurd, it is clearly explained by the rotation of a straight segment around one of its extremities. But neither does a circle exist. This root, on the other hand, existed in such a way that I could not explain it."
"I stretched out my hands as if to ward him off. “Not yet. I want to know what your end game is first.” Another flash of teeth, this time showing his fangs. “To have you screaming my name within the hour."
"I threw my hands up. Men. They were impossible to reason with."
"President Roosevelt and President Truman and President Eisenhower had the same experience, they all made the effort to get along with the Russians. But every time, finally it failed. And the reason it failed was because the Communists are determined to destroy us, and regardless of what hand of friendship we may hold out or what arguments we may put up, the only thing that will make that decisive difference is the strength of the United States."
"Just spend a few more months playing video games. That hand-eye coordination will come in handy when you get to third base."
"There is not one thing that's Beatle music. How can they talk about it like that? What is Beatle music? Walrus or Penny Lane? Which? It's too diverse: I Want to Hold Your Hand or Revolution Number Nine?"
"Jesus Christ! I would crawl over the mountains of Beverly Hills on my hands and knees if I could do a movie with Doris Day!"
"You cannot put it all in God's hands. God is busy."
