Recite Quotes

“Do you order righteousness of the people and forget yourselves while you recite the Scripture? Then will you not reason?”

— Qur'an

“Recite Holy Quran, It is the only way.”

— Waseem Latif

“So, then, the best of the historian is subject to the poet; for whatsoever action or faction, whatsoever counsel, policy, or war-stratagem the historian is bound to recite, that may the poet, if he list, with his imitation make his own, beautifying it both for further teaching and more delighting, as it pleaseth him; having all, from Dante's Heaven to his Hell, under the authority of his pen.”

— Philip Sidney

“I could not get my fill of looking.
There should be a song for women to sing at this moment or a prayer to recite. But perhaps there is none because there are no words strong enough to name that moment.”

— Anita Diamant

“Just as there is no warning for childbirth, there is no preparation for the sight of a first child ... There should be a song for women to sing at this moment, or a prayer to recite. But perhaps there is none because there are no words strong enough to name the moment.”

— Anita Diamant

“Everyone should be able to do one card trick, tell two jokes, and recite three poems, in case they are ever trapped in an elevator.”

— Lemony Snicket

“At the first such gathering, I politely sat with them for half an hour, drank some vodka, and even recited a toast about how great it was that Gulya had such great friends. This proved to be a tactical error, since afterward Gulya wanted me to drink vodka and recite toasts with them every night, which was not compatible with my program of study of the great Uzbek language.”

— Elif Batuman

“Quoting from Neil Kinnock, running against Thatcher in 1987:
Why am I the first Kinnock in a thousand generations to be able to get to university? Why is Glenys the first woman in her family in a thousand generations to be able to get to university? Is it because all our predecessors were thick? Did they lack talent? Those people who could sing, and play, and recite, and write poetry, those people who could make wonderful things with their hands? Those people who could dream dreams, see visions? Why didn't they get it? Was it because they were weak? Those people who could work eight hours underground and then come up and play football? Weak? Those women who could survive eleven childbearings? Were they weak? Anybody really think that they didn't get what we have because they didn't have the talent, or the strength, or the endurance, or the commitment? Of course not. It was because there was no platform on which they could stand.”

— Joe Biden

“All sens of purpose, of responsibility, indeed of any imaginable future, were removed from her by the deaths of her husband and child. It was they who used to make her life a story, they who seemed to be giving it a beginning, a middle and an end. Nowadays, her life is more like a newspaper: aimless, up-to-date, full of meaningless events for Colonel Leek to recite when no one's paying attention. For all the use she is to Society, beyond intercepting the odd squirt of sperm that would otherwise have troubled a respectable wife, she might as well be dead. Yet, she exists, and, against the odds, she is happy.”

— Michel Faber

“Instead, the Buddha replied, "I am going to send you back to the same forest, but I will provide you with the only protection you will need." This was the first teaching of metta meditation. The Buddha encouraged the monks not only to recite the metta phrases but to actually practice them. As these stories all seem to end so happily, so did this one-it is said that the monks went back and practiced metta, so that the tree spirits became quite moved by the beauty of the loving energy filling the forest, and resolved to care for and serve the monks in all ways. The inner meaning of the story is that a mind filled with fear can still be penetrated by the quality of lovingkindness. Moreover, a mind that is saturated by lovingkindness cannot be overcome by fear; even if fear should arise, it will not overpower such a mind.”

— Sharon Salzberg

“Well, we all know how satisfying it is to recite the shortcomings and hollowness of others - especially those who have money and recognition where we have none. It is certainly more pleasurable than inspecting our own shortcomings.”

— Stephen Fry

“When I was little I used to dance and model and that was fun. But I was always the person that was goofing off and I would memorize every line in every movie that I saw. And at recess that's what I would do, I would talk to my friends and recite movies.”

— Ashley Benson

“Irish fathers still have certain responsibilities, and by the time my two daughters turned seven, they could swim, ride a bike, sing at least one part of a Woody Guthrie song, and recite all of W. B. Yeats's 'The Song of Wandering Aengus.'”

— Adrian McKinty

“Stop blaming people for not helping you. No matter how your teacher teaches you to recite a poem, you can't wear her smiling face to the platform. You've got to put that smile on your own face.”

— Israelmore Ayivor

“No matter how you are taught by your teacher about how to recite a poem, it is impossible to wear your teacher's smiling face to the stage. You got to change your own face into a smiling one!”

— Israelmore Ayivor

“Oh God," Coyote said, and rolled onto his side, propping his head up on one hand. "It's hard to remember something that long ago. It's almost like an epic poem I memorized once, and can barely recite anymore.”

— Kim Stanley Robinson

“My mother's father taught English literature. When I was about ten or eleven, I could recite Macaulay's 'Lays of Ancient Rome.' While other kids were playing pedestrian war games, I'd be Horatius keeping the bridge.”

— Bernie Taupin

“If we eat any food, or drink any beverage, we must recite a blessing over them before and after.”

— Shmuel Yosef Agnon

“Teach me to sing and recite,
To whistle and jingle and strum.
Teach me to color and paint,
To sculpt and weave and create.
Teach me to sway and dance,
To tap and leap and twirl.
Teach me to laugh and giggle,
To tickle and play and pretend.
Teach me that life is beautiful.”

— Richelle E. Goodrich

“The difficulties of life don't stop attacking your self-worth and self-confidence, you just have to repair and fortify every time. Recall and recite it; tell yourself what you are worth.”

— Innocent Mwatsikesimbe

“People recite lines to me all the time, anywhere I get recognized.”

— Steven Bauer

“I write quite a lot of sonnets, and I think of them almost as prayers: short and memorable, something you can recite.”

— Carol Ann Duffy

“I can recite poetry, but I cannot write it.”

— Irrfan Khan

“Jews have deep respect for the Queen and the royal family. We say a prayer for them every Sabbath in synagogue. We recite a special blessing on seeing the Queen.”

— Jonathan Sacks

“Recite the Periodic Table of Teatime, in correct order, with Elemental Symbols, please.'
A-Through-L sat back on his handsome black haunches, shut his eyes, and said: 'Hot Tea (H), Herbal Tea (He), Lingonberry Scones (Li), Berry Jam (Be), Butter (B), Cream (C), Napoleons (N), Orange Marmalade (O), Frosting (F), Nettle Tea (Ne) ...”

— Catherynne M. Valente

“When you're on TV, you're looking at a half-page of material, trying to memorize it really quickly. By the time it's on TV, I've already forgotten what I said, but I can still recite my whole role from Shakespeare in the Park. It works a different set of muscles.”

— Jesse Tyler Ferguson

“The most important part of the process of mourning is regularly reciting kaddish in a synagogue. Kaddish is a doxology, which Jewish tradition has mandated children to recite daily in a synagogue during the year of mourning for a deceased parent and then on the anniversary of his or her death thereafter.”

— David Novak

“He wants you to smile and smell sweet and be his lady love. He wants to hear you recite all your pretty little words the way the septa taught you. He wants you to love him ... and fear him.”

— George R.R. Martin

“2:40AM - 2:41AM (erotic_performance.exe): The curtain opened to reveal a Gateway 2000 computer and monitor running a Fenestra 98 operating system. The display booted up and opened a program on its desktop. The computer then began to rapidly recite a multitude of differential equations as well as their respective 3D graphical representations for 20 seconds. At the end of the program, the monitor displayed the word "INSERT" in the form of a screensaver. D-6744 and D-3432 both inserted $5 into its floppy drive. The curtain then closed at the end of the show.”

— Anonymous.

“We think scientific literacy flows out of how many science facts can you recite rather than how was your brain wired for thinking. And it's the brain wiring that I'm more interested in rather than the facts that come out of the curriculum or the lesson plan that's been proposed.”

— Neil DeGrasse Tyson

“A Kindle returns us to the inconvenience of the scroll, except with batteries and electronic glitches. It's as handy as bringing Homer along to recite the 'Iliad' while playing a lyre.”

— P. J. O'Rourke

“Victims recite problems. Leaders develop solutions. That might seem like common sense, but common sense is rarely common practice.”

— Robin S. Sharma

“God's reality is displayed to us in His Word or His world and we do not then feel in our heart any grief or longing or hope or fear or awe or joy or gratitude or confidence, then we may dutifully sing and pray and recite and gesture as much as we like, but it will not be real worship.”

— John Piper

“My opponent asks her supporters to recite a three-word loyalty pledge. It reads, 'I'm With Her.' I choose to recite a different pledge. My pledge reads, 'I'm with you - the American people.'”

— Donald Trump

“After you are here, I will try not to become one of those parents who brag incessantly about their children, who force them to recite the alphabet backward or sing the Lord's Prayer in German to horrified dinner guests. One of those parents who tell people who aren't interested and haven't askd what their progeny's grade-point average is, what school they go to, how handsome and brilliant and psychic they are.
If something goes awry and I do become one of those parents, you have my permission to sneak into my bedroom while I am sleeping and pinch my nostrils shut.”

— Suzanne Finnamore

“Random House, in the catbird seat, since it gets to recite last, declares in 1966, "The use of like in place of as is universally condemned by teachers and editors, notwithstanding its wide currency, especially in advertising slogans. Do as I say, not as I do does not admit of like instead of as. In an occasional idiomatic phrase, it is somewhat less offensive when substituted for as if (He raced down the street like crazy), but this example is clearly colloquial and not likely to be found in any but the most informal written contexts." I find this excellent. It even tells who will hurt you if you make a mistake, and it withholds aid and comfort from those friends of cancer and money, those greedy enemies of the language who teach our children to say after school, "Winston tastes good like a cigarette should.”

— Kurt Vonnegut

“Simon remembered a rhyme his mother used to recite to him, about magpies. You were supposed to count them and say: one for sorrow, two for mirth, three for a wedding, four for a birth, five for silver, six for gold, seven for a secret that's never been told.
"Right," simon said. He had already lost count of the numbers of birds there were. Seven, he guessed. A secret that's never been told. Whatever that was.”

— Cassandra Clare

“Recite your Rosary with faith, with humility, with confidence, and with perseverance.”

— Louis De Montfort

“Religious creeds are a great obstacle to any full sympathy between the outlook of the scientist and the outlook which religion is so often supposed to require ... The spirit of seeking which animates us refuses to regard any kind of creed as its goal. It would be a shock to come across a university where it was the practice of the students to recite adherence to Newton's laws of motion, to Maxwell's equations and to the electromagnetic theory of light. We should not deplore it the less if our own pet theory happened to be included, or if the list were brought up to date every few years. We should say that the students cannot possibly realise the intention of scientific training if they are taught to look on these results as things to be recited and subscribed to. Science may fall short of its ideal, and although the peril scarcely takes this extreme form, it is not always easy, particularly in popular science, to maintain our stand against creed and dogma.”

— Arthur Stanley Eddington

“There is no higher or purer pleasure than to sit with closed eyes and hear a naturally expressive voice recite ... a play of Shakespeare's.”

— Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

“My favorite movie is Dumb and Dumber. It's a classic and I can pretty much recite the entire movie.”

— Derek Holland

“Happiness is to take up the struggle in the midst of the raging storm and not to pluck the lute in the moonlight or recite poetry among the blossoms.”

— Ding Ling

“Learning to be silent is far more difficult and far more important than learning to recite prayers.”

— Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I Of Constantinople

“I remember in school - in elementary school - I used to recite poems. We'd have to recite poems. And I would always just, like, roll on the floor, like, just make it such a huge, melodramatic portrayal of whatever it was.”

— Cecile McLorin Salvant

“Have you not often met poor old women who are most faithful to the pious recitation of the Rosary? You also must do all that you can to recite it with fervour. Get right down, at the feet of Jesus: it is a good thing to make oneself small in the presence of so great a God.”

— Columba Marmion

“When I recite poems onstage, I put myself into the very personal struggle and it grants tremendous perspective. At the same time you get another perspective on the poem you're reciting.”

— David Whyte

“I am feeling fine. I remember these words and recite them. These are the things you say when asked how you are. After all, it would be odd to say: I'm not feeling. Or, more to the point: I'm not, I have ceased to be. Where am I?”

— Marya Hornbacher

“When we are placed in a set of circumstances where we have to take initiative and be creative, some of us find it hard to transition. Those people have been trained not to think but to obey orders. They are slaves to the training, unconsciously pledging allegiance to the average. Mentally they recite from the manual of mediocrity.”

— T.D. Jakes

“During my last year of college I wrote the same ten pages over and over again. Those ten pages became the first few pages of my first novel. I can still recite the opening paragraph from memory - only now I cringe when I do it because they are - surprise! - a classic example of overwriting, in addition to being a more than a little pretentious.”

— Patricia Briggs

“I take pride in never being rude to anyone on this earth, which contains a great number of unbearable villains who set upon you to recount their sufferings and even recite their poems.”

— Heinrich Heine