"The Chinese people have only family and clan solidarity; they do not have national spirit...they are just a heap of loose sand...Other men are the carving knife and serving dish; we are the fish and the meat."
Knives quotes
601 quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
Explore further
Browse quotes that often appear alongside knives — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
Quote collection
Follow a thought to its author, or read the full quote page.
"Your daughter is doing well here. I've been overseeing her training." Since when does "overseeing" include throwing knives at me and scolding me at every opportunity?"
"The multiplication of public offices, increase of expense beyond income, growth and entailment of a public debt are indications soliciting the employment of the pruning knife."
"Fill your bowl to the brim and it will spill. Keep sharpening your knife and it will blunt."
"Give your kids a bloody knife and fork and let me put some fresh food in front of them they can eat."
"Got tight last night on absinthe and did knife tricks. Great success shooting the knife underhand into the piano. The woodworms are so bad and eat hell out of all the furniture that you can always claim the woodworms did it."
"Playing without the fundamentals is like eating without a knife and fork. You make a mess."
"Editing might be a bloody trade. But knives aren't the exclusive property of butchers. Surgeons use them too."
"USURY is the cancer of the world, which only the surgeon’s knife of Fascism can cut out of the life of the nations."
"Got tight on absinthe last night. Did knife tricks."
"I often compare my method of working to that of a well-meaning freed woman in a Northern state who is attempting to delineate the horrors of Southern slavery but with next to no resources, other than some paper and a pen knife and some people she'd like to kill"
"Fill your bowl to the brim and it will spill. Keep sharpening your knife and it will blunt. Chase after money and security and your heart will never unclench. Care about people's approval and you will be their prisoner. Do your work, then step back. The only path to serenity."
"A mind all logic is like a knife all blade. It makes the hand bleed that uses it."
"It's a great time to be doing political satire when the world is on a knife edge."
"I do not weep at the world I am too busy sharpening my oyster knife."
"A weathered skeleton in windy fields of memory, piercing like a knife."
"Women are like pumpkins; you search and search for the perfect one, bring it home, and the next thing you know, you're looking for a knife."
"There never was a good knife made of bad steel."
"When someone sticks a knife six inches into your back, and then pulls it out two inches and claims he's doing you a favor, don't believe him."
"Hadst thou no poison mixed, no sharp-ground knife, No sudden mean of death, though ne'er so mean, But 'banished' to kill me--'banished'? O friar, the damned use that word in hell; Howling attends it! How hast thou the heart, Being a divine, a ghostly confessor, A sin-absolver, and my friend professed, To mangle me with that word 'banished'?"
"I'm just me. If I am sexy, it's just something I do naturally, like picking up a knife and fork to eat. I think people who try to be sexy are the most unsexy people in the world."