Humors Quotes

Humor's a weapon if you want to make it one. ~ Bob Newhart

When I was young and full of grace
And spirited - a rattlesnake
When I was young and fever fell
My spirit, I will not tell
You're on your honor not to tell

I believe in coyotes and time as an abstract
Explain the change, the difference between
What you want and what you need, there's the key,
Your adventure for today, what do you do
Between the horns of the day?

(chorus)
I believe my shirt is wearing thin
And change is what I believe in

When I was young and give and take
And foolish said my fool awake
When I was young and fever fell
My spirit, I will not tell
You're on your honor, on your honor
Trust in your calling, make sure your calling's true
Think of others, the others think of you
Silly rule golden words make, practice, practice makes perfect,
Perfect is a fault, and fault lines change

I believe my humor's wearing thin
And change is what I believe in
I believe my shirt is wearing thin
And change is what I believe in

(repeat chorus)

When I was young and full of grace
As spirited a rattlesnake
When I was young and fever fell
My spirit, I will not tell
You're on your honor, on your honor
I believe in example
I believe my throat hurts
Example is the checker to the key

I believe my humor's wearing thin
And I believe the poles are shifting ~ Michael Stipe

People try to get out of themselves and to escape from the man. This is folly; instead of transforming themselves into angels, they turn into beast; instead of lifting, they degrade themselves. These transcendental humors frighten me, like lofty and inaccessible heights. ~ Michel De Montaigne

The way humor's usually used in horror, it's as a pressure-release valve; without it, the drama would escalate out of all control almost immediately. ~ Stephen Graham Jones

It is humor's job to laugh at the futility oft engendered by the improbable; but it is poetry's job to dream of the potentiality of that which is not impossible. ~ D.E. Navarro

Hence it is not enough to deal with the Temper. We must go to the source, and change the inmost nature, and the angry humors will die away of themselves. Souls are made sweet not by taking the acid fluids out, but by putting something in - a great Love, a new Spirit, the Spirit of Christ. Christ, the Spirit of Christ, interpenetrating ours, sweetens, purifies, transforms all. This only can eradicate what is wrong, work a chemical change, renovate and regenerate, and rehabilitate the inner man. Will-power does not change men. Time does not change men. CHRIST DOES. Therefore, "Let that mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus. ~ Henry Drummond

Fasting cures diseases, dries up bodily humors, puts demons to flight, gets rid of impure thoughts, makes the mind clearer and the heart purer, the body sanctified, and raises man to the throne of God. ~ Athenaeus

Remember that every guilty compliance with the humors of the world , every sinful indulgence of our own passions , is laying up cares and fears for the hour of darkness , and that the remembrance of ill-spent time will strew our sick bed with thorns and rack our sinking spirits with despair . ~ Reginald Heber

In Physic, things of melancholic hue and quality are used against melancholy, sour against sour, salt to remove salt humors. ~ John Milton

In the United States ... politics is purged of all menace, all sinister quality, all genuine significance, and stuffed with such gorgeous humors, such inordinate farce that one comes to the end of a campaign with one's ribs loose, and ready for King Lear, or a hanging, or a course of medical journals. ~ H.L. Mencken

It is impossible to rise to freedom, from the midst of corruptions, without strong convulsions. They are the salutary crises of a serious disease. We are in want of a terrible political fever, to carry off our foul humors. ~ Madame Roland

A tree is made to live in peace in the color of day and in friendship with the sun, the wind and the rain. Its roots plunge in thefat fermentation of the soil, sucking in its elemental humors, its fortifying juices. Trees always seem lost in a great tranquil dream. The dark rising sap makes them groan in the warm afternoons. A tree is a living being that knows the course of the clouds and presses the storms because it is full of birds' nests. ~ Jacques Roumain

Because one must produce,
one must by all possible means of activity replace nature wherever it can be replaced,
one must find a major field of action for human inertia,
the worker must have something to keep him busy,
new fields of activity must be created,
in which we shall see at last the reign
of all the fake manufactured products,
of all the vile synthetic substitutes
in which beautiful real nature has no part,
and must give way finally and shamefully
before all the victorious
substitute products
in which the sperm
of all the artificial insemination factories
will make a miracle
in order to produce armies and battleships.

No more fruit, no more trees, no more vegetables, no more plants pharmaceutical or otherwise
and consequently no more food,
but synthetic products to satiety,
amid the fumes,
amid the special humors of the atmosphere,
on the particular axes of atmospheres wrenched violently and synthetically from the resistances of a nature which has known nothing of war except fear.

And war is wonderful, isn't it?
For it's war, isn't it, that the Americans have been preparing for
and are preparing for this way step by step.
In order to defend this senseless manufacture from all competition
that could not fail to arise on all sides,
one must have soldiers, armies, airplanes, battleships,
hence this sperm
w ~ Antonin Artaud

We are, on earth, two distinct races. Those who have need of others, whom others amuse, engage soothe, whom solitude harasses, pains, stupefies, like the movement of a terrible glacier or the traversing of the desert; and those, on the contrary, whom others weary, tire, bore, silently torture, whom isolation calms and bathes in the repose of independency, and plunges into the humors of their own thoughts. In fine, there is here a normal, physical phenomenon. Some are constituted to live a life outside of themselves, others, to live a life within themselves. As for me, my exterior associations are abruptly and painfully short-lived, and, as they reach their limits, I experience in my whole body and in my whole intelligence an intolerable uneasiness. ~ Guy De Maupassant

I do not correct my first imaginings by my second
well, yes, perhaps a word or so, but only to vary, not to delete. I want to represent the course of my humors and I want people to see each part at its birth. ~ Michel De Montaigne

Manners with fortunes, humors turn with climes, tenets with books, and principles with times. ~ Alexander Pope

Our age is not only Jewish, but also the most 'feminine'; an age in which art represents only a sudarium of its humors; the age of the most gullible anarchism, without any understanding of the State and of justice; the age of the collectivist ethics of the species; the age in which history is viewed with the most astonishing lack of seriousness [historical materialism]; the age of capitalism and of Marxism; the age in which history, life, and science no longer mean anything, apart from economics and technology; the age when genius could be declared a form of madness, while it no longer possesses even one great artist or philosopher; the age of the least originality and its greatest pursuit; the age which can boast of being the first to have exalted eroticism, but not in order to forget oneself, the way the Romans or the Greeks did in their Bacchanalia, but in order to have the illusion of rediscovering oneself and giving substance to one's vanity. ~ Otto Weininger

Furthermore, there's marshland on the other side of these hills. No one can even live near it, because the mist produces ill humors."
"Ill humors?"
"Yes.The entire place is encircled in thick forest, too." She lowered her voice. "They say there are wolves there,the size of humans."
"I like wolves," Dougal said mildly. "The larger, the better."
She blinked.
"They're great sport for hunting. And I am an avid hunter." He glanced across her, lingering at certain areas. "As you may have guessed. ~ Karen Hawkins

Humor's the hardest thing to translate. ~ Bharati Mukherjee

A girl of eighteen imagines the feelings behind the face that has moved her with its sympathetic youth as easily as primitive people imagined the humors of the gods in fair weather. What is she to believe in if not in this vision woven from within? ~ George Eliot

Those who sit at their work and are therefore called 'chair workers,' such as cobblers and tailors, suffer from their own particular diseases ... [T]hese workers ... suffer from general ill-health and an excessive accumulation of unwholesome humors caused by their sedentary life ... so to some extent counteract the harm done by many days of sedentary life. On the association between chronic inactivity and poor health. Ramazzini urged that workers should at least exercise on holidays ~ Bernardino Ramazzini

Nothing like a few restful weeks contemplating the decline of civilization to restore the humors. What I did on my summer vacation was listen to a lot of people talk about the decline of practically everything - you could call it the leisure of the theory class. ~ Molly Ivins

In the field of medicine, Galen, the Alexandrian scientist, propounded a view that is still around, nowadays called 'alternative medicine.'It was taught in many medical schools until the mid-nineteenth century and now is becoming popular again. Human health is the result of the balance of humors, or temperaments. Physical exercise, bathing, and herbal remedies keep the four temperaments in balance, or restore balance, in case one, such as melancholia (depression), comes to dominate. Today's transactional psychiatry teaches much the same medical doctrine as Galen did. ~ Norman F. Cantor

If a sound body and a sound mind, which is as much as to say health and virtue, are to be preferred before all other considerations, ought not men, in choosing a business either for themselves or children, to refuse such as are unwholesome for the body, and such as make a man too dependent, too much obliged to please others, and too much subjected to their humors in order to be recommended and get a livelihood? ~ Benjamin Franklin

Trying to restore some kind of natural balance of humors in the world. ~ Kate Atkinson

Unsociable humors are contracted in solitude, which will, in the end, not fail of corrupting the understanding as well as the manners, and of utterly disqualifying a man for the satisfactions and duties of life. Men must be taken as they are, and we neither make them or ourselves better by flying from or quarreling with them. ~ Edmund Burke

Those who see and observe kings, heroes, and statesmen, discover that they have headaches, indigestion, humors and passions, just like other people; every one of which in their turns determine their wills in defiance of their reason. ~ Lord Chesterfield

A man's liberal and conservative phases seem to follow each other in a succession of waves from the time he is born. Children are radicals. Youths are conservatives, with a dash of criminal negligence. Men in their prime are liberals (as long as their digestion keeps pace with their intellect). The middle aged run to shelter: they insure their life, draft a will, accumulate mementos and occasional tables, and hope for security. And then comes old age, which repeats childhood - a time full of humors and sadness, but often full of courage and even prophecy. ~ E.B. White

Those great and glorious actions that dazzle our eyes with their luster are represented by statesmen as the result of great wisdomand excellent design; whereas, in truth, they are commonly the effects of the humors and passions. ~ Francois De La Rochefoucauld

A vile and overbearing temper becomes sometimes, in one long accustomed to the exercise of power, unendurable to those who are subject to its humors. ~ Samuel Freeman Miller

Laziness breeds humors of the blood ~ Galen

A wise parent humors the desire for independent action, so as to become the friend and advisor when his absolute rule shall cease. ~ Elizabeth Gaskell

No matter how impressive it might sound to your future colleagues, not only is raw meat more difficult to ingest and less nutrient rich, it's also rife with ill humors.

When feasting on the flesh of your enemies, gentle friends, always take the time to cook it first. ~ Jay Kristoff

French wines may be said but to pickle meat in the stomach, but this is the wine that digests, and doth not only breed good blood, but it nutrifieth also, being a glutinous substantial liquor; of this wine, if of any other, may be verified that merry induction: That good wine makes good blood, good blood causeth good humors, good humors cause good thoughts, good thoughts bring forth good works, good works carry a man to heaven, ergo, good wine carrieth a man to heaven. ~ James Howell

Exercise ferments the humors, casts them into their proper channels, throws off redundancies, and helps nature in those secret distributions, without which the body cannot subsist in its vigor, nor the soul act with cheerfulness. ~ Joseph Addison

Humor's an excellent way to make a point more palatable and/or relatable. ~ Jen Lancaster

Any man that walks the mead
In bud, or blade, or bloom, may find,
According as his humors lead,
A meaning suited to his mind. ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson

Don't you fancy having one of your dresses in the Smithsonian, Shelby?"
"Your humor's always been on the odd side, Grant."
"Thanks. ~ Nora Roberts

I had to sit down and explain to [her friend] that AA was for quitters ~ Chelsea Handler

It's just theories. Human beings can't help making them, but the fact is that theories are just fantasies. And they change. When America was a new country, people believed in something called phlogiston. You know what that is? No? Well, it doesn't matter, because it wasn't real anyway. They also believed that four humors controlled behavior. And they believed that the earth was only a few thousand years old. Now we believe the earth is four billion years old, and we believe in photons and electrons, and we think human behavior is controlled by things like ego and self-esteem. We think those beliefs are more scientific and better."

"Aren't they?"

Thorne shrugged. "They're still just fantasies. They're not real. Have you ever seen a self-esteem? Can you bring me one on a plate? How about a photon? Can you bring me one of those?"

Kelly shook her head. "No, but …"

"And you never will, because those things don't exist. No matter how seriously people take them," Thorne said. "A hundred years from now, people will look back at us and laugh. They'll say, 'You know what people used to believe? They believed in photons and electrons. Can you imagine anything so silly?' They'll have a good laugh, because by then there will be newer and better fantasies." Thorne shook his head. "And meanwhile, you feel the way the boat moves? That's the sea. That's real. You smell the salt in the air? You feel the sunlight on your skin? That's all real. You ~ Michael Crichton

The preferred medications were those that forestalled corruption. We know 'as a result of more than three thousand years of experience that Myrrh and Aloes preserve corpses.' (Lange, 1689) Are not these deteriorations of the bodies of the same nature as those that accompany the diseases of the humors? ~ Michel Foucault

Graphic design is the paradise of individuality, eccentricity, heresy, abnormality, hobbies and humors. ~ George Santayana

Humor's always been the problem of my work, hasn't it? When working, I feel satisfied when I surprise myself. And when I surprise myself, I wind up laughing. ~ Kara Walker

The difficult part of good temper consists in forbearance, and accommodation to the ill-humors of others. ~ William Empson

Oh, those lapses, darling. So many of us walk around letting fly with "errors." We could do better, but we're so slovenly, so rushed amid the hurly-burly of modern life, so imprinted by the "let it all hang out" ethos of the sixties, that we don't bother to observe the "rules" of "correct" grammar.

To a linguist, if I may share, these "rules" occupy the exact same place as the notion of astrology, alchemy, and medicine being based on the four humors. The "rules" make no logical sense in terms of the history of our language, or what languages around the world are like.

Nota bene: linguists savor articulateness in speech and fine composition in writing as much as anyone else. Our position is not - I repeat, not - that we should chuck standards of graceful composition. All of us are agreed that there is usefulness in a standard variety of a language, whose artful and effective usage requires tutelage. No argument there.

The argument is about what constitutes artful and effective usage. Quite a few notions that get around out there have nothing to do with grace or clarity, and are just based on misconceptions about how languages work.

Yet, in my experience, to try to get these things across to laymen often results in the person's verging on anger. There is a sense that these "rules" just must be right, and that linguists' purported expertise on language must be somehow flawed on this score. We are, it is said, permissive - perhaps a ~ John McWhorter

No one really knows for sure the thoughts or emotions of another and, therefore, one credits other persons with one's own faults, beliefs and humors - particularly one's faults. ~ Helen Crampton

Some of the young ladies even ate the salmon without concern to vital humors
when everyone knew colored fish flesh could bring on an attack of hysteria. ~ Gail Carriger

I am now of all humors that have showed themselves humors
since the old days of goodman Adam to the pupil age of this
present twelve o'clock at midnight. ~ William Shakespeare

A doctor? For me? Why? Because I'm laughing? Ha, ha, ha! Now hear this: I laugh out ouf an inner obligation!... to vent the ill humors of my growing solitude, which thrives on the imbecility of my fellow men!... Ha, ha, ha! I don't need any doctor! No one can chase away the demon on the duty in my mouth!... Ha,ha,ha! The demon confiscating my thoughts!... Ha,ha,ha! The demon jumping on my tongue... in my ear... in my larynx. ~ Juan Filloy