noise quotes

   Insects are what neurosis would sound like, if neurosis could make a noise with its nose.

- Martin Louis Amis
  The Information, pt.3.

New York is a jungle, they tell you.You could go further, and say that New York is a jungle. New York is a jungle. Beneath the columns of the old rain forest, made of melting macadam, the mean Limpopo of swamped Ninth Avenue bears an angry argosy of crocs and dragons, tiger fish, noise machines, sweating rainmakers.

- Martin Louis Amis
  Money.

The Englishmay not likemusicbuttheyabsolutely love the noise it makes.

- SirThomas Beecham
Quoted in L  Ayre The Wit of Music (1930).

O come let us sing unto the L: let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation. Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving, and make a joyful noise unto him with psalms. Psalms

-Bible (Old Testament)
ORDPsalms 95:1^2.

He's one of those men who argues by increments of noiseso that as you open your mouth he says another, cleverer, louder thing.

- Dame A(ntonia) S(usan) ne  e Drabble Byatt
  Possession, ch.15.

   Secrets with girls, like loaded guns with boys, Are never valued till they make a noise.

- George Crabbe
  Tales of the Hall,'The Maid's Story', l.84^5.

As virtuous men pass mildly away, And whisper to their souls, to go, Whilst some of their sad friends do say, The breath goes now, and some say, no: 280 So let us melt, and make no noise, No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move; 'Twere profanation of our joys To tell the laity of our love.

-John Donne
c.1595^1605  'A  Valediction: Forbidding Mourning', collected in Songs and Sonnets (1633).

I throw myself down in my Chamber, and I call in, and invite God, and his Angels thither, and when they are there, I neglect God and his Angels, for the noise of a fly, for the rattling of a coach, for the whining of a door.

-John Donne
  Sermon preached at the funeral of Sir  William Cockayne, 12 Dec.

Forasmuch as there isgreat noise in the city caused by hustling over large balls, from which many evils may arise, which God forbid, we command and forbid on behalf of the King, on pain of imprisonment, such game to be used in the city in future.

-Edward II
  Royal proclamation, banning football from the streets of London.

It will be generally admitted that Beethoven's Fifth Symphony is the most sublime noise that has ever penetrated into the ear of man.

- E(dward) M(organ) Forster
  Howards End, ch.5.

In summertime in Bredon The bells they sound so clear; Round both the shires they ring them In steeples far and near, A happy noise to hear.

- A(lfred) E(dward) Housman
  A Shropshire Lad, no.21.

How on earth are the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Governor of the Bank of England†to be taken seriouslyagainst that kind of background noise? It is rather like sending your opening batsmen to the crease, only for them to find, the moment the first balls are bowled, that their bats have been broken before the game by the team captain.

- Baron Howe
  Personal statement on his resignation, House of Commons,13 Nov.

Sweetly they slept On the blue fields of heaven, and then there crept A little noiseless noise among the leaves, Born of the very sign that silence heaves.

-John Keats
  'I Stood Tip-Toe upon a Little Hill', l.9^12.

A loud noise at one end and no sense of responsibilityat the other.

- Ronald Arbuthnot Knox
His definition of a baby.  Attributed.

Nursed amid her noise, her crowds, her beloved smokewhat have I been doing all my life, if I have not lent out my heart with usury to such scenes?

- Charles Lamb
  Of London. Letter to Thomas Manning,15 Feb. Collected in E  W Marrs Letters of Charles and Mary Lamb, vol.2 (1975).

A man hates to be moved to folly bya noise.

-Arabia
  Of the emotion arousedby the military trumpets. TheMint, pt.3, ch.9.

Oh, no, the machine, the machine is necessary. A man comesintoagreat hotelandsays,Iama messenger. Who is this man? He disappears walking, there is no noise, nothing. Maybe he will never come back, maybe he will never deliver the message.But a man who rides up on a great machine, this man is responsible, this man exists. He will be given messages.

- Arthur Miller
  Rodolpho.  A View From the Bridge, act1.

I did but prompt the age to quit their clogs By the known rules of ancient liberty, When strait a barbarous noise environs me Of owls and cuckoos, asses, apes and dogs.

-John Milton
c.1646  'On the Detraction Which Follow'd Upon My Writing Certain Treatises'.

Lord Hailsham said the other day that the machinery of Government was creaking. My Lords, it is not even moving sufficiently to emit a noise of any kind.

- (Alexander) Victor Edward Paulet Montagu
  House of Lords, 20  Apr, shortly before disclaiming his peerage.

It is with narrow-souled people as with narrow-necked bottles: the less they have in them, the more noise they make in pouring it out.

- Alexander Pope
  Miscellanies,'Thoughts onVarious Subjects', vol.2.

Those that govern most make least noise.

-John Selden
TableTalk (published1689).

So all day long the noise of battle rolled Among the mountains by the winter sea.

-Tennyson
  Idylls of the King,'The Passing of Arthur', l.170^1.

We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness.God is the friend of silence. See how naturetrees, flowers, grassgrows in silence; see the stars, themoon and thesun, how they move insilence† We need silence to be able to touch souls.

-Bojaxhiu
  A Gift for God,'Willing Slaves to theWill of God'.

   Ambition, madam, is a great man's madness, That is not kept in chains, and close-pent rooms, But in fair lightsome lodgings, and isgirt With the wild noise of prattling visitants, Which makes it lunatic beyond all cure.

-John Webster
  The Duchess of Malfi, act1, sc.1.