Unheard Quotes

We are a culture that relies on technology over community, a society in which spoken and written words are cheap, easy to come by, and excessive. Our culture says anything goes; fear of God is almost unheard of. We are slow to listen, quick to speak, and quick to become angry.

Francis Chan

Technology, Community, Say Anything

Francis Chan, Preston Sprinkle (2014). “The Francis Chan Collection: Crazy Love, Forgotten God, Erasing Hell, and Multiply”, p.16, David C Cook

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Being unheard is the ground floor of giving up.

Mitch Albom

Giving Up, Giving

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And I must say tonight that a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the negro poor has worsened over the last twelve or fifteen years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice and humanity.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

White, America, Years

"The Other America". Speech at Grosse Pointe High School, March 14, 1968.

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Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter.

John Keats

Music, Spiritual, Sweet

"Ode on a Grecian Urn" l. 11 (1820)

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Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into friend.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Love, Friendship, Change

Martin Luther King (Jr.) (2012). “A Gift of Love: Sermons from Strength to Love and Other Preachings”, p.50, Beacon Press

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A riot is the language of the unheard.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Inspirational, Kings, Race Riots

Martin Luther King, Jr. (2016). “MLK on "The Other America" and "Black Power"”, p.6, Beacon Press

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Riots are the voices of the unheard.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Voice, Revolution, Riot

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I think that we've got to see that a riot is the language of the unheard. And, what is it that America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the economic plight of the Negro poor has worsened over the last few years.

Martin Luther

Thinking, Years, America

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In the late 30s the name Pollock was totally unknown and unheard of.

Lee Krasner

Names, Late, Pollock

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You can be tops in Australia and be unheard of everywhere else

Barry Gibb

Australia

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It is not enough for me to stand before you tonight and condemn riots. It would be morally irresponsible for me to do that without, at the same time, condemning the contingent, intolerable conditions that exist in our society. These conditions are the things that cause individuals to feel that they have no other alternative than to engage in violent rebellions to get attention. And I must say tonight that a riot is the language of the unheard.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Alternatives, Attention, Tonight

"The Other America". Speech Grosse Pointe High School, www.gphistorical.org. March 14, 1968.

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For a director and a producer to be named on the writing credits is practically unheard of.

Terry Southern

Writing, Directors, Credit

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Jane Austen was an extraordinary woman; to actually be able to survive as a novelist in those days - unmarried - was just unheard of.

Julie Walters

Novelists, Able, Austen

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We're a very expensive group; we break a lot of rules. It's unheard of to combine opera with a rock theme, my dear .

Freddie Mercury

Music, Rocks, Groups

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Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Wisdom, Peace, Kings

"Letter from Birmingham Jail," 16 Apr. 1963

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Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on; Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd, Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone.

John Keats

Sweet, Play, Sensual

"Ode on a Grecian Urn" l. 11 (1820)

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He who comes to a conclusion when the other side is unheard, may have been just in his conclusion, but yet has not been just in his conduct.

Seneca the Younger

Justice, May, Sides

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Where I come from it was really unheard of to be at a party and someone says, 'What kind of music do you make?', and you say, 'Pop music.' You may as well have 'I'm not cool' stamped on your forehead.

Lady Gaga

Party, May, Kind

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Shake the tree of life itself and bring down fruits unheard of.

Edwin Arlington Robinson

Tree, Fruit, Shakes

Edwin Arlington Robinson (2007). “Robinson: Poems”, Everyman's Library

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All people make mistakes. All of us are sinners. All of us are criminals. All of us violate the law at some point in our lives. In fact, if the worst thing you have ever done is speed ten miles over the speed limit on the freeway, you have put yourself and others at more risk of harm than someone smoking marijuana in the privacy of his or her living room. Yet there are people in the United States serving life sentences for first-time drug offenses, something virtually unheard of anywhere else in the world.

Michelle Alexander

Mistake, Marijuana, Law

Michelle Alexander (2013). “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness”, p.215, The New Press

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To conceal a want of real ideas, many make for themselves an imposing apparatus of long compound words, intricate flourishes and phrases, new and unheard-of expressions, all of which together furnish an extremely difficult jargon that sounds very learned. Yet with all this they say-precisely nothing.

Arthur Schopenhauer

Real, Expression, Ideas

Arthur Schopenhauer, E. F. J. Payne (1974). “Parerga and Paralipomena: Short Philosophical Essays”, p.159, Oxford University Press

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When she cries, it is quiet, tearless, almost completely imperceptible: one more unheard prayer.

Joe Meno

Prayer, Quiet, Cry

Joe Meno (2011). “The Great Perhaps”, p.125, Pan Macmillan

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They stared at each other, wanting each other, drawn to each other, but their silent shout of love went unheard in the roar of misunderstanding, and the clatter of culturally ingrained beliefs.

Jean M. Auel

Belief, Silent, Misunderstanding

Jean M. Auel (2013). “The Earth's Children Series 6-Book Bundle: The Clan of the Cave Bear, The Valley of Horses, The Mammoth Hunters, The Plains of Passage, The Shelters of Stone, The Land of Painted Caves”, p.2048, Bantam

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It was reasonable to struggle, to suffer, perhaps even to die, for a more just, a more compassionate society, but not in a world with no future where, all to soon, the very words "justice," "compassion," "society," "struggle," "evil," would be unheard echoes on an empty air.

P. D. James

Struggle, Compassion, Echoes

P. D. James (2010). “The Children of Men”, p.157, Vintage

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All three combined is...a different kind of stupid formerly unheard of by humankind.

Veronica Roth

Stupid, Different, Three

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