John Adams
Founding Father, Politician
"If worthless men are sometimes at the head of affairs, it is, I believe, because worthless men are at the tail and the middle"
Tails quotes
Tails
212 quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Philosopher, Writer
"Many a peacock hides his peacock tail from all eyes--and calls it his pride."
Rabindranath Tagore
Poet, Playwright, Novelist
"The sparrow is sorry for the peacock at the burden of its tail."
Toni Morrison
Novelist, Essayist
"How come it can’t fly no better than a chicken?’ Milkman asked. Too much tail. All that jewelry weighs it down. Like vanity. Can’t nobody fly with all that [stuff]. Wanna fly, you got to give up the [stuff] that weighs you down.’ The peacock jumped onto the hood of the Buick and once more spread its tail, sending the flashy Buick into oblivion."
Virginia Graham
Poet
"Say something idiotic and nobody but a dog politely wags his tail."
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside tails — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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Tails quotes (page 1 of 11)
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"To have news value is to have a tin can tied to one's tail."
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"Every dog has it's day, unless he loses his tail, then he has a weakend."
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"I had a rat-tail when I was younger. I had this nice Bobby Brown fade, with a rat-tail that was long enough to wrap around my face. I used to chew on the end and bite it."
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"Alcibiades had a very handsome dog, that cost him seven thousand drachmas; and he cut off his tail, "that," said he, "the Athenians may have this story to tell of me, and may concern themselves no further with me."
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"Above the forest of the parakeets, A parakeet of parakeets prevails, A pip of life amid a mort of tails."
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""All right", said the Cat; and this time it vanished quite slowly, beginning with the end of the tail, and ending with the grin, which remained some time after the rest of it had gone."
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"Talked my head off Worked my tail off Cried my eyes out Walked my feet off Sang my heat out So you see, There's really not much left of me."
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"How doth the little crocodile Improve his shining tail, And pour the waters of the Nile On every golden scale! How cheerfully he seems to grin, How neatly he spreads his claws, And welcomes little fishes in, With gently smiling jaws!"
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"Be thou comforted, little dog, Thou too in Resurrection shall have a little golden tail."
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"The wit knows that his place is at the tail of a procession."
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"My family called me a wiggle tail because I was a little skinny, wiry kid full of energy."
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"Melancholy and utopia are heads and tails of the same coin."
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"I would rather be the head of a fly than the tail of a lion."
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"I shall speak of how melancholy and utopia preclude one another. How they fertilize one another... of the revulsion that follows one insight and precedes the next... of superabundance and surfeit. Of stasis in progress. And of myself, for whom melancholy and utopia are heads and tails of the same coin."
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"For God’s sake, let us be men not monkeys minding machines or sitting with our tails curled while the machine amuses us, the radio or film or gramophone. Monkeys with a bland grin on our faces."
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"We thus learn that man is descended from a hairy quadruped, furnished with a tail and pointed ears, probably arboreal in its habits, and an inhabitant of the Old World."
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"It's an awful stretcher to believe that a peacock's tail was thus formed but ... most people just don't get it - I must be a very bad explainer"
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"A person that started in to carry a cat home by the tail was gitting knowledge that was always going to be useful to him, and warn't ever going to grow dim or doubtful."
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"It seems that it had been destined before that I should occupy myself so thoroughly with the vulture, for it comes to my mind as a very early memory, when I was still in the cradle, a vulture came down to me, he opened my mouth with his tail and struck me a few times with his tail against my lips."
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"Sometimes the serpent is represented as a circle eating its own tail. That’s an image of life. Life sheds one generation after another, to be born again. The serpent represents immortal energy and consciousness engaged in the field of time, constantly throwing off death and being born again. There is something tremendously terrifying about life when you look at it that way. And so the serpent carries in itself the sense of both the fascination and the terror of life."
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