Quotes about Names

Finally, we entered Chetaube County, my imaginary birthplace, where the names of the little winding roads and minuscule mountain communities never failed to inspire me: Yardscrabble, Big Log, Upper, Middle and Lower Pigsty, Chicken Scratch, Cooterville, Felchville, Dust Rag, Dough Bag, Uranus Ridge, Big Bottom, Hooter Holler, Quickskillet, Buck Wallow, Possum Strut … We always say a picture speaks a thousand words, but isn’t the opposite equally true?

Names are distractions, seek to know essence.

We are sick with fascination for the useful tools of names and numbers, of symbols, signs, conceptions and ideas. Meditation is therefore the art of suspending verbal and symbolic thinking for a time, somewhat as a courteous audience will stop talking when a concert is about to begin.

The name is not important anymore - it's the tone that counts.  I feel like an old dog I know.  He will come to any name you call him, just so long as your demeanor carries with it the promise of affection and food

All of these are names given me by other people, but not names I would have given myself.  My name is not mine, it's theirs.  It's a series of costumes put on my life by other people.

The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their rightful names.

The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their rightful names.

I kept six honest serving men. They taught me all I knew. Their names are What and Why and When and How and Where and Who.

No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature. Good and bad are but names very readily transferable to that or this. The only right is what is after my constitution; the only wrong what is against it.

Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names.

The ideal has many names, and beauty is but one of them.

1. A big black bug bit a big brown bear. 2. Bring a bit of buttered brown bran bread. 3. Just which one he wants I don't know. 4. His daughter was going to New York to study law. 5. That's the question that really troubles him. 6. Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind. 7. Thou wouldst not play false yet wouldst wrongly win. 8. Amidst the mists and coldest frosts, With stoutest wrists and loudest boasts, He hits his fists against the posts, And still insists he sees the ghosts. 9. An Austrian army awfully arrayed, Boldly by battery besiege Belgrade; Cossack commanders cannonading come, Deal devastation's dire destructive doom; Ev'ry endeavor engineers essay, For fame, for freedom, fight, fierce, furious fray. Gen'rals 'gainst gen'rals grapple,-gracious God! How honors Heav'n heroic hardihood! Infuriate, indiscriminate in ill, Just Jesus, instant innocence instill! Kinsmen kill kinsmen, kindred kindred kill. Labor low levels longest, loftiest lines; Men march 'midst mounds, motes, mountains, murd'rous mines. Now noisy, noxious numbers notice nought, Of outward obstacle o'ercoming ought; Poor patriots perish, persecution's pest! Quite quiet Quakers "Quarter, quarter" quest; Reason returns, religion, religion, right, redounds, Suwarrow stop such sanguinary sounds! Truce to thee, Turkey, terror to thy train! Unwise, unjust, unmerciful Ukraine! Vanish vile vengeance, vanish victory vain! Why wish we warfare, wherefore welcome won Xerxes, Xantippus, Xavier, Xenophon? Yield, ye young Yaghier yeomen, yield your yell! Zimmerman's, Zoroaster's zeal Again attract; art against arms appeal. All, all ambitious aims, avaunt, away! Et caetera, et caetera, et caeterä.1 10. I am the very model of a model major-general, I've information vegetable, animal, and mineral, I know the kings of England, and I quote the fights historical, From Marathon to Waterloo, in order categorical; I'm very well acquainted too with matters mathematical; I understand equations, both the simple and quadratical; About binomial theorem I'm teeming with a lot of news- With many cheerful facts about the square of the hypotenuse; . . . I'm very good at integral and differential calculus; I know the scientific names of beings animalculous; In short, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral I'm the very model of a modern major-general.2 1 Anonymous, "Alliteration, or the Siege of Belgrade" Bartlett's Familiar Quotations 2 The Pirates of Penzance

"In Western languages the names of the four seasons became complete only a few centuries ago. Words for winter and summer appear quite early but in English "spring" came to be used as the name of the season as late as the sixteenth century, and in German 'fruhjahr', "spring" appeared about the same time. Similarly, in India "hemanta(winter) and vasanta(spring)" appear in Sanskrit literature very early, while other seasonal terms come much later."

From our ancestors come our names, but from our virtues our honor.

Writing is a legitimate way, an important way, to participate in the empowerment of the community that names me.

Had the white settlers in North America called the natives 'Americans' instead of 'Indians', the early Americans could not have said that the 'only good Indian is a dead Indian' and could not have deprived them so easily of their lands and lands and lives. Robbing people of their proper names is often the first step in robbing them of their property, liberty, and life.

Fools' names, like fools' faces, Are often seen in public places.

The Pyramids themselves, doting with age, have forgotten the names of their founders.

Thus Raleigh, thus immortal Sidney shone (Illustrious names!) in great Eliza's days.

I think of those who were truly great. The names of those who in their lives fought for life, Who wore at their hearts the fire's center.

I have fallen in love with American names The sharp names that never get fat, The snakeskin titles of mining claims, The plumed war bonnet of Medicine Hat, Tucson and Deadwood and Lost Mule Flat.

I'm very good at integral and differential calculus, I know the scientific names of beings animalculous; In short, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral, I am the very model of a modern Major-General.

I keep six honest serving men (They taught me all I knew); Their names are What and Why and When And How and Where and Who.

Call things by their right names . . . Glass of brandy and water! That is the current but not the appropriate name: ask for a glass of liquid fire and distilled damnation.

The best feeling I have ever had about dogs came in a primitive Akah village in the mountains of northern Thailand. The Akah keep dogs like we keep chickens and pigs. They treat their cattle as useful working companions, give them names and would never, ever think of eating one. But they eat dogs. They are not pets - dogs are simply food. There are other ways to look at dogs. I am embarrassed by how people talk to dogs. I wonder what dogs must think. You know what I mean. You have heard it. Even dogs think it is weird. Watch a dog when a human does this. The dog can not believe what his is hearing, either. "Does Poochie wantum drinky? No. Poochie wantum go outside."

Though they [philosophers] write contemptu gloriæ, yet as Hieron observes, they will put their names to their books.

We do what we must, and call it by the best names we can, and would fain have the praise of having intended the result which ensues.

No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature. Good and bad are but names very readily transferable to that or this; the only right is what is after my own constitution; the only wrong what is against it.

Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members. . . . The virtue in most request is conformity. Self-reliance is its aversion. It loves not realities and creators, but names and customs.

Good and bad are but names very readily transferable to that or this; the only right is what is after my constitution, the only wrong is against it.