Thumbs Quotes - Page 13

• We learned a lot about the Moon, but what we really learned was about the Earth. The fact that just from the distance of the Moon you can put your thumb up and you can hide the Earth behind your thumb. Everything that you've ever known, your loved ones, your business, the problems of the Earth itself-all behind your thumb. And how insignificant we really all are, but then how fortunate we are to have this body and to be able to enjoy loving here amongst the beauty of the Earth itself.

  Jim Lovell

  Distance, Moon, Thumbs Up

  "In the Shadow of the Moon". Documentary, History, www.imdb.com. 2007.

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• When a catcher has to use his thumb to give signs, that means the pitcher has more than four pitches.

  Tim McCarver

  Mean, Giving, Use

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• If I fell into a barrel of boobs, I'd come out sucking my thumb

  Ian Holloway

  Barrels, Ifs

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• There was an ape in the days that were earlier, Centuries passed and his hair became curlier; Centuries more gave a thumb to his wrist — Then he was a Man and a Positivist.

  Mortimer Collins

  Men, Hair, Apes

  Mortimer Collins, F. Percy Cotton (1886). “Selections from the Poetical Works of Mortimer Collins”

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• And of course we are familiar with the English common law rule of thumb that said a man could in fact use a stick no bigger than his thumb to discipline his wife and family.

  Patricia Ireland

  Men, Law, Discipline

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• I know that [Mike] Tyson talked about wanting to eat his opponent's children, but I don't think he ever had the balls to do it. I'm different - when I kidnapped Bill Lawrence's daughter, I cut off all of her fingers before sending my demands so that I wouldn't have to sit there and wait for him to ignore them. We worked things about about nine hours in, which is good because I ate her thumb as a midnight snack.

  Zach Braff

  Daughter, Children, Cutting

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• Four circles to the kissing come, The smaller are the benter. The bend is just the inverse of The distance from the centre. Though their intrigue left Euclid dumb There's now no need for rule of thumb. Since zero bend's a dead straight line And concave bends have minus sign, The sum of squares of all four bends Is half the square of their sum.

  Frederick Soddy

  Zero, Distance, Math

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• One of the great pressures we're facing in journalism now is it's a lot cheaper to hire thumb suckers and pundits and have talk shows on the air than actually have bureaus and reporters

  Walter Isaacson

  Air, Pressure, Journalism

  "Buying the War". "Bill Moyers Journal", www.pbs.org. April 25, 2007.

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• I had a consuming ambition to possess a miller's thumb. I believe I have never since wanted anything more desperately than I wanted my right thumb to be flattened as my father’s had become,
  during his earlier years of a miller’s life.

  Jane Addams

  Father, Believe, Ambition

  Jane Addams (2012). “Twenty Years at Hull-House: With Autobiographical Notes”, p.7, Courier Corporation

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• We give this practice two thumbs down!

  Richard Blumenthal

  Practice, Two, Thumbs Down

  "Movie Notes: Fake Critic Investigated". ABC News, abcnews.go.com.

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• It is a grueling position (catching). My knees will tell you that. I've had nine knee surgeries. I've had a couple of broken thumbs, one on each hand. I can look back at it and say it's worth it to be enshrined in Cooperstown. I don't have any pain in my knees right now.

  Gary Carter

  Couple, Pain, Hands

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• My relationship with Wilhelm and Jacob Grimm reaches far back into my childhood. I grew up with Grimm's fairy tales. I even saw a theater production of 'Tom Thumb' during Advent at the State Theater in Danzig, which my mother took me to see.

  Gunter Grass

  Mother, Childhood, Saws

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• I have odd thumbs that are extremely flexible. I can bend them quite far down the back side of my hand, basically the opposite side you'd even try to attempt bending your thumb. Because of that, I'm a very good thumb wrestler.

  Laura Mennell

  Hands, Opposites, Trying

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• More people need to understand the games secular liberals play. Here's one rule-of-thumb: No matter how bad a story sounds - particularly if it sounds bad - recognize the pattern of defamation.

  Marvin Olasky

  Games, Play, People

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• A sign in the yard of a church next door said CHRIST IS THE ANSWER. (The question, of course, is: What do you say when you strike your thumb with a hammer?)

  Bill Bryson

  Doors, Church, Yards

  Bill Bryson (1989). “The Lost Continent: Travels in Small-town America”, p.55, VNR AG

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• Oh the thumb-sucker's thumb
  May look wrinkled and wet
  And withered, and white as the snow,
  But the taste of a thumb
  Is the sweetest taste yet
  (As only we thumb-sucker's know).

  Shel Silverstein

  White, Snow, Looks

  Shel Silverstein, “Thumbs”

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• There is no term comparable to green thumbs to apply to such a mechanic, but there should be. For there are men who can look, listen, tap, make an adjustment, and a machine works.

  John Steinbeck

  Men, Looks, Machines

  John Steinbeck (1993). “Cannery Row”, p.35, Penguin

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• In the absence of any other proof, the thumb alone would convince me of God's existence.

  Isaac Newton

  Absence, Proof, Existence

  "Human Nature : An Interdisciplinary Biosocial Perspective", Vol. 1, Issues 7-12, p. 47, 1978.

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• A good rule of thumb is if you've made it to 35 and your job still requires you wear a nametag, you've probably made a serious vocational error.

  Dennis Miller

  Jobs, Funny Work, Errors

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• He who has his thumb on the purse has the power.

  Otto von Bismarck

  Power, Purses

  Speech to North German Reichstag (May 21, 1869), Stenographische Berichte, (p. 1017), books.google.de.

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• Storybook happiness involves every form of pleasant thumb-twiddling; true happiness involves the full use of one's powers and talents.

  John W. Gardner

  Happiness, Use, Talent

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• As you deal with thumb-crossings, or fingerings for the F-sharp-minor scale, or chromatic scales in double thirds, it is hard to accept that these will eventually allow you to probe eternity in the final movement of Beethoven's last sonata. Imagine that you are scrubbing the grout in your bathroom and are told that removing every last particle of mildew will somehow enable you to deliver the Gettysburg Address.

  Jeremy Denk

  Finals, Movement, Addresses

  "Every Good Boy Does Fine" by Jeremy Denk, www.newyorker.com. April 8, 2013.

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• A good rule of thumb for many things in life holds that things take longer to happen than you think they will, and then happen faster than you thought they could.

  Lawrence Summers

  Thinking, Things In Life, Faster

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• Look - The moon thumbs through night's book. Finds a lake where nothing is printed. Draws a straight line. That's all it can. That's enough. Thick line. Straight toward you. - Look.

  Rolf Jacobsen

  Book, Moon, Night

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• Great oaks grow from little acorns. He has a green thumb. He has green fingers. He's sowing his wild oats. Here Ceres' gifts in waving prospect stand, And nodding tempt the joyful reaper's hand.

  Alexander Pope

  Oats, Hands, Agriculture

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