Hands quotes
11.6K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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"I keep telling everyone that I want to start a revolution but no one is taking me seriously. If I had black skin and an afro, would you take me seriously? If I was an Arab waving a hand grenade, would you take me seriously?"
"If hand-spinning is an effective method of making India self-supporting, it must be made part of the franchise."
"Hand-spinning is designed to put millions of rupees in the hands of the poor villagers."
"The burned hand teaches best. After that, advice about fire goes to the heart."
"I think chemistry and great acting go hand-in-hand."
"We cannot tell by looking at the diamond that it is a commodity. When it serves as a use-value, asthetic or mechanical, on the breast of a harlot, or in the hand of a glasscutter, it is a diamond and not a commodity."
"Wars between states and people seem to have existed under all historical systems for as long as we have some recorded evidence. War is quite clearly not a phenomenon particular to the modern world-system. On the other hand, once again the technological achievements of capitalist civilization serve as much ill as good. One bomb in Hiroshima killed more people than whole wars in pre-modern times. Alexander the Great in his whole sweep of the Middle East could not compare in destructiveness to the impact of the Gulf War on Iraq and Kuwait."
"My father was prime minister, and to take care of his home, to be his hostess, automatically meant to have my hands in politics - to meet people, to know their games, their secrets."
"It will startle you to see what slaves we are to by-gone times-to Death, if we give the matter the right word! ... We read in Dead Men's books! We laugh at Dead Men's jokes, and cry at Dead Men's pathos! . . . Whatever we seek to do, of our own free motion, a Dead Man's icy hand obstructs us!"
"Marriage, in my culture, has nothing to do with romance. It's a matter of logic. If Mr. and Mrs. Ahmadi like Mr. and Mrs. Nejari, then their children should get married. On the other hand, if the parents don't like each other, but the children do, well, this is where sad poetry comes from."
"They know you can't get people to stop smoking, so they develop a system of informants. That's the whole idea of second-hand smoke, you know. Make second-hand smoke dangerous and turn everybody against smokers. Then they say you can't even smoke in a bar - a bar! - because bartenders have a right to a smoke-free "workspace." Ah, bartenders, those health nuts."
"There was a hand in the darkness, and it held a knife."
"The thirst for something other than what we have…to bring something new, even if it is worse, some emotion, some sorrow; when our sensibility, which happiness has silenced like an idle harp, wants to resonate under some hand, even a rough one, and even if it might be broken by it."
"You are as the yellow leaf. The messengers of death are at hand. You are to travel far away. What will you take with you? You are the lamp To lighten the way. Then hurry, hurry. When your light shines."
"Following the Noble Path is like entering a dark room with a light in the hand; the darkness will all be cleared away, and the room will be filled with light."
"It's normal to feel pain in your hands and feet, if you're using your feet as feet and your hands as hands. And for a human being to feel stress is normal - if he's living a normal life. And if it's normal, how can it be bad?"
"...while science gives us implements to use, science alone does not determine for what ends they will be employed. Radio is an amazing invention. Yet now that it is here, one suspects that Hitler never could have consolidated his totalitarian control over Germany without its use. One never can tell what hands will reach out to lay hold on scientific gifts, or to what employment they will be put. Ever the old barbarian emerges, destructively using the new civilization."
"I put out my hand to shake hands with Zero Mostel, and he took my hand [and] he pulled me up to his face, and he gave me a kiss on the lips. And all my nervousness went out the window."
"Some say that I was once uncommonly beautiful, but I wouldn't wish beauty on any woman who has not her own freedom, and who chooses not the hands that claim her."
"Like most novelists, I like to do exactly the opposite of what I'm told. It's in my nature as a novelist. Novelists can't trust anything they haven't seen with their own eyes or touched with their own hands."
