Anthems Quotes & Sayings

Inside the coop where he'll stay until he's killed, the rooster sings anthems to liberty because he was given two roosts. — Fernando Pessoa

I could not retreat, as did so many, into the church and its mysteries. My parents rejected all dogmas. We spurned the holidays marketed by the people who wanted to be white. We would not stand for their anthems. We would not kneel before their God. And so I had no sense that any just God was on my side. "The meek shall inherit the earth" meant nothing to me. The meek were battered in West Baltimore, stomped out at Walbrook Junction, bashed up on Park Heights, and raped in the showers of the city jail. My understanding of the universe was physical, and its moral arc bent toward chaos then concluded in a box. That — Ta-Nehisi Coates

Medieval theologians used to dispute how the angels in the heaven spent their time, when not balancing on needle points and singing anthems to the Lord. I know. They slump glued to their clouds, glasses at the ready, as the Archangel Micheal (that well-known slasher) and stonewalling St Peter open against the Devils XI. It could not be Heaven, otherwise. — John Fowles

Through woods and mountain passes The winds, like anthems, roll. — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I can't claim to know the words of all the national anthems in the world, but I don't know of any other that ends with a question and a challenge as ours does: Does that flag still wave o'er the land of the free and the home of the brave? That is what we must all ask. — Ronald Reagan

In many (most?) churches there are programs and activities ... but so little worship. There are songs and anthems and musicals ... but so little worship. There are announcements and readings and prayers ... but so little worship. — Charles R. Swindoll

If patriotism were defined, not as blind obedience to government, not as submissive worship to flags and anthems, but rather as love of one's country, one's fellow citizens (all over the world), as loyalty to the principles of justice and democracy, then patriotism would require us to disobey our government, when it violated those principles. — Howard Zinn

The crowding of children into insufficient, often squalid spaces seems an inexplicable anomaly in the United States. Images of spaciousness and majesty, of endless plains and soaring mountains, fill our folklore and our music and the anthems that our children sing. "This land is your land," they are told; and, in one of the patriotic songs that children truly love because it summons up so well the goodness and the optimism of the nation at its best, they sing of "good" and "brotherhood" "from sea to shining sea." It is a betrayal of the best things that we value when poor children are obliged to sing these songs in storerooms and coat closets. — Jonathan Kozol

Always the seer is a sayer. Somehow his dream is told; somehow he publishes it with solemn joy: sometimes with pencil on canvas, sometimes with chisel on stone, sometimes in towers and aisles of granite, his soul's worship is builded; sometimes in anthems of indefinite music, but clearest and most permanent, in words. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

I see the crowd singing 'Rock 'N Roll' or 'Back Road' at my concerts ... they are anthems and they lift up your life. — Rodney Atkins

Surely, we must renounce nationalism and all its symbols: its flags, its pledges of allegiance, its anthems, its insistence in song that God must single out America to be blessed. — Howard Zinn

There is no passion that is not finely expressed in those parts of the inspired writings which are proper for divine songs and anthems. — Joseph Addison

One reason Elvis mattered, she said, was that in his prime, pop music had still been politically innocent, therefore deeply life-affirming, therefore relevant. By the time he died, most pop songs had become, usually without the conscious intention of those who wrote and sang them, anthems endorsing the values of fascism, which remains the case to this day. — Dean Koontz

And now we have the formalities over, we'll have the National Anthems. — Brian Moore

I mean, when you think about it, it's 'bombs bursting in air,' 'rocket's red glare,' it's all kinds of - you know a lot of national anthems are that way, too - all kinds of military jargon, and the land - there's only one phrase 'the land of the free,' which is kind of nice, and 'the home of the brave?' I don't know ... Are we the only ones who are brave on the planet? I mean, all the brave people live here I mean, it's just stupid, I think. I'm embarrassed, I'm embarrassed every time I hear it. — Bill Press

For all karaoke freaks around the nation, "Total Eclipse of the Heart" is one of those sacred anthems. It's the kind of song that announces, "Dearly beloved, we have so totally gathered here today. — Rob Sheffield

I'm really sick of anthems. Every song has to be a very big singalong thing - it feels very Eighties. There are a lot of 'whoah whoa whoahs,' this stadium thing. You're even getting that from some of the 'folk' groups. I can't stand it. — Oscar Isaac

Some anthems are great for sports. You've got the Russian national anthem ... 'O Canada,' how wonderful is that for hockey ... but I chose the Italian national song because at my first World Cup, I saw the Italians play four times, and they won all four times - they won the championship. — George Vecsey

What are the temples which Roman robbers have reared, - what are the towers in which feudal oppression has fortified itself...to the deep forests which the eye of God has alone pervaded, and where Nature, in her unviolated sanctuary, has for ages laid her fruits and flowers on His altar! What is the echo of roofs...or or aisles that pealed the anthems of painted pomp, to the silence that has reigned in these dim groves since the first fiat of Creation was spoken. — Charles Fenno Hoffman

For me, a wake-up playlist completely depends on what mood I'm in. If I need to get into action pretty quick, it will be between Beyonce and Miles Davis. I'm a massive Beyonce fan, and all of her anthems will do it for me. And Miles Davis, because I grew up hearing his music because my dad played it a lot, so that will always be special to me. — Laura Mvula

When I but hear her sing, I fare Like one that raised, holds his ear To some bright star in the supremest Round; Through which, besides the light that's seen There may be heard, from Heaven within, The rests of Anthems, that the Angels sound. — Owen Feltham

I wanted to make youthful, irreverent anthems. Parents might not get it, but kids would. — Kesha

The records are black boxes for me. Like, if you want to know who I am, my views, my perspective, things I love, things I hate, my convictions, my anthems. I've never let people's opinions affect the way I write. — Katy Perry

All you hear Catholics turning out these days are pop versions of the old Protestant anthems. — Richard Morris

To drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty, and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony. — Frederick Douglass

The fact that I'm on 'Essex Anthems' makes me happy, especially because half of my family's from Essex. — Jess Glynne

I wrote 'Oath' for Cher Lloyd because there were really no best-friend anthems out there. Not only did she love it, she wanted me to rap on it, too! — Becky G

Grunge was so self-consciously lowbrow and nonaspirational that it seemed, at first, impervious to the hype and glamour normally applied swiftly to any emerging trend. But sure enough, grunge anthems found their way onto the soundtracks of television commercials, and Dodge Neons were hawked by kids in flannel shirts saying, 'Whatever.' — Douglas Rushkoff

And storied windows richly dight, Casting a dim religious light. There let the pealing organ blow, To the full-voiced choir below, In service high, and anthems clear As may, with sweetness, through mine ear Dissolve me into ecstasies, And bring all heaven before mine eyes. — John Milton

I have no praise anthems, nor old Negro spirituals. The spirit and soul are the body and brain, which are destructible - that is precisely why they are so precious. — Ta-Nehisi Coates

But in Shimabukuro's hands, as he breaks out experimental jazz, lays down a steady blues train, or shreds on rock anthems, this little jumping flea becomes a melodic monster. — Mother Jones

The groves were God's first temple. Ere man learned To hew the shaft, and lay the architrave, And spread the roof above them,
ere he framed The lofty vault, to gather and roll back The sound of anthems; in the darkling wood, Amidst the cool and silence, he knelt down And offered to the Mightiest solemn thanks And supplication. — William C. Bryant

Three-quarters of the flags, borders and anthems sitting at the U.N. today were not there 60 some-odd years ago. — Juan Enriquez

Oh, Brethren, it is sickening work to think of your cushioned seats, your chants, your anthems, your choirs, your organs, your gowns, and your bands, and I know not what besides, all made to be instruments of religious luxury, if not of pious dissipation, while ye need far more to be stirred up and incited to holy ardor for the propagation of the truth as it is in Jesus. — Charles Spurgeon

Nations will seldom obtain good national anthems by offering prizes for them. The man and the occasion must meet. — John Philip Sousa

What struck me as I began to study history was how nationalist fervor
inculcated from childhood on by pledges of allegiance, national anthems, flags waving and rhetoric blowing
permeated the educational systems of all countries, including our own. I wonder now how the foreign policies of the United States would look if we wiped out the national boundaries of the world, at least in our minds, and thought of all children everywhere as our own. Then we could never drop an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, or napalm on Vietnam, or wage war anywhere, because wars, especially in our time, are always wars against children, indeed our children. — Howard Zinn