Quotes & Sayings About Gestures

I will keep an eye on Diatribe, with her big talk and heroic gestures, to see with what force she will bring down my Achilles, when hitherto she has never managed to hit a common soldier, not even a Thersites, but she has shot her miserable self to pieces with her own weapons. — Martin Luther

Confronted with the truly microscopic, all loftiness is hopeless, completely meaningless. The diminutive of the parts is more impressive than the monumentality of the whole. I no longer have any use for the sweeping gestures of heroes on the global stage. I'm going for a walk. — Joseph Roth

It is not the man who is beside himself, but he who is cool and collected,
who is master of his countenance, of his voice, of his actions, of his gestures, of every part of his play,
who can work upon others at his pleasure. — Denis Diderot

You know about a person who deeply interests you more than you can be told. A look, a gesture, an act, which to everybody else is insignificant tells you more about that one than words can. — Henry David Thoreau

You see, Harold, I feel that much of the world's sorrow comes from people who are *this*,
[she points to a daisy]
Maude: yet allow themselves be treated as *that*.
[she gestures to a field of daisies]
— Colin Higgins

The event that will light the way for immigration in North America is the talking picture. The silent film brings nothing but entertainment - a pie in the face, a fop being dragged by a bear out of a department store - all events governed by fate and timing, not language and argument. The tramp never changes the opinion of the policeman. The truncheon swings, the tramp scuttles through a corner window and disturbs the fat lady's ablutions. These comedies are nightmares. The audience emits horrified laughter as Chaplin, blindfolded, rollerskates near the edge of the unbalconied mezzanine. No one shouts to warn him. He cannot talk or listen. North America is still without language, gestures and work and bloodlines are the only currency. — Michael Ondaatje

E made me understand something very important. Whether because I am a Latin, or because I am a neurotic, I have a need of gestures. I am myself expressive, demonstrative; every feeling I have takes on expression: words, gestures, signs, letters, articulateness or action. I need this in others. — Anais Nin

No matter how you decide to spend a little more time on your gestures of giving, the point is just quite simply that you do. — Nick Offerman

We do naught but scratch the world, frail and fraught. Every vast drama of civilizations, of peoples with their certainties and gestures, means nothing, affects nothing. Life crawls on, ever on. — Steven Erikson

Being sensitive to the problem of women is just another symptom of the quality of movies: I don't think you can do anything that's very sensitive. Everything's sort of broad strokes and big gestures - adventure things that boys, guys want to see. — Teri Garr

Major brands don't know what to do with happy customers. They make it hard for customers to say thanks and way too often companies don't celebrate and embrace customers' positive gestures. — Paul Walker

The poet should even act his story with the very gestures of his personages. Given the same natural qualifications, he who feels the emotions to be described will be the most convincing; distress and anger, for instance, are portrayed most truthfully by one who is feeling them at the moment. Hence it is that poetry demands a man with a special gift for it, or else one with a touch of madness in him; the former can easily assume the required mood, and the latter may be actually beside himself with emotion. — Aristotle.

Dating is about grand romantic gestures that mean little over the long term. Marriage is about small acts of kindness that bond you over a lifetime. — Lori Gottlieb

Here's what I think," says Jasmine between chattering teeth. "If these humans are stupid enough to go hiking in this - " she gestures to the thick mist swirling around us '-then they deserve to be led into a marsh and drowned. — Rachel Morgan

Decorative gestures add romance to a life. — Don DeLillo

At the same yoga retreat, we stood and faced each other in pairs, really looking at each other from a close distance. We were told to simply BE with the other person, maintaining eye contact, with no social gestures like laughing, smiling, or winking to put ourselves at ease.
Grown women and men cried. Really and truly sobbed.
When we were finished with the exercise, we talked about how it had felt. The thread echoed again and again: many people had never felt so *seen* by another person. Seen without walls, without judgment ... just seen, acknowledged, accepted. The experience was
for so many painfully rare. — Amanda Palmer

The nondual universe of One Taste arises as a spontaneous gesture of your own true nature. — Ken Wilber

My Queen," he finally speaks, and his usually strong voice holds the slightest tremor.
"My Footman." I don't even blink, playing along with his nonchalance. "You don't seem surprised that I'm here."
"Oh, I knew you would find your way. It was just a matter of when. You actually made it sooner than I expected." He gestures around him. "Thus, the deplorable state of my house."
"Good help is so hard to find," I tease. — A.G. Howard

Sincerity is romantic. I don't think you need gestures. — Simon Cowell

I have trained myself to pull away from all gestures of affection, because [my parents] raised me to take them seriously. — Veronica Roth

The most shocking act, closely examined, is just a louder version of some habitual gesture. — Susan Choi

A man who knows the court is master of his gestures, of his eyes and of his face; he is profound, impenetratable; he dissimulates bad offices, smiles at his enemies, controls his irritation, disguises his passions, belies his heartm speaks and acts against his feelings. — Jean De La Bruyere

Jack: Actually, I was found. Lady Bracknell: Found? Jack: Uh, yes, I was in ... a handbag. Lady Bracknell: A handbag? Jack: Yes, it was ... [makes gestures] Jack: an ordinary handbag. — Oscar Wilde

Journeying over many seas & through many countries
I came dear brother to this pitiful leave-taking
The last gestures by your graveside
The futility of words over your quiet ashes.
Life cleft us from each other
Pointlessly depriving brother of brother
Accept then, our parents' custom
These offerings, this leave-taking
Echoing forever, brother, through a brother's tears — Catullus

It is only a gesture," he said, turning back to Shadow. "But gestures mean everything. The death of one dog symbolizes the death of all dogs. — Neil Gaiman

Gestures and actions, were the foundation of any great love. And that's what he was to her. He'd shown her that she didn't have to change for any man, that the right man would love her for who she was. — Lauren Blakely

I find that once you find the sound and voice of this character you're playing, everything else follows. It comes right out of the fingertips eventually - the physicality, the gestures, the walk - for me. — Mercedes Ruehl

I needed them, sure, and we can all argue about the moment when the balance tipped and I needed them so much that I would hurt. But you can't pretend they didn't need me too, each in his or her way. They wouldn't necessarily have admitted it - except Reza - but you can't tell me they didn't love me. The heart knows. The body knows. When I was with Sirena, or Reza, or Skandar, the air moved differently between us; time passed differently; words or gestures meant more than themselves. If you've never had this experience-but who has not been visited by love, laughing?-then you can't understand. And if you have, you don't need me to say another word. — Claire Messud

Outcomes rarely turn on grand gestures or the art of the deal, but on whether you've sent someone a thank-you note. — Bernie Brillstein

As if the only genuine gestures were the small ones, the ones devoid of an audience. As if true honesty belonged to solitude, since to be witnessed was to perform, and performance was inherently false since it invited expectation. — Steven Erikson

And suddenly the miracle happens. I look across at the woman who has just made some coffee and is now reading the newspaper, whose eyes look tired and desperate, who is her usual silent self, who does not always show her affection in gestures, the woman who made me say yes when i wanted to say no, who forced me to fight for what she, quiet rightly, believed was my reason for living, who let me set off alone because her love for me was greater even than her love for herself, who made me go in serch of my dream,; and suddenly, seeing that small, quiet woman, whose eyes said more than words, who was often terrified inside, but always courageous in her actions, who could love someone without humbling herself and who never ever apologized for fighting for her man - suddenly. my fingers press down on the keys. — Paulo Coelho

I was worried in the '80s that the best abstract painting had become obsessed with materiality, and painterly gestures and materiality were up against the wall. — Frank Stella

Remembering that man is indeed the microcosm, the universe in miniature, the Divine Dance of the future should be able to convey with its slightest gestures some significance of the universe. — Ruth St. Denis

So, the thing we're all not talking about," he says. He gestures to me. "You almost died, a sadistic pansycake saved you, and now we're all waging some serious war with the factionless as allies."
"Pansycake?" says Christina.
"Dauntless slang." Lynn smirks. "Supposed to be a huge insult, only no one uses it anymore."
"Because it's so offensive," says Uriah, nodding.
"No. Because it's so stupid no Dauntless with any sense would speak it, let alone think it. Pansycake. What are you, twelve?"
"And a half," he says. — Veronica Roth

The gesture must be correct. If the gesture is correct, your mind really creates the reality of the figure, and it is not necessary to hang on all the rest [of the details] ... — Nathan Oliveira

His presence made me feel self-concious: of my appearance, of the way I was sitting, of my movements and gestures ... It was the behavior of a woman reacting to a man who attracts her. — Alice Steinbach

One Monday, just for sport, Charlie grabbed an eggplant that a spectacularly wizened granny was going for, but instead of twisting it out of his hand with some mystic kung fu move as he expected, she looked him in the eye and shook her head - just a jog, barely perceptible really - it might have been a tic, but it was the most eloquent of gestures. Charlie read it as saying: O White Devil, you do not want to purloin that purple fruit, for I have four thousand years of ancestors and civilization on you; my grandparents built the railroads and dug the silver mines, and my parents survived the earthquake, the fire, and a society that outlawed even being Chinese; I am mother to a dozen, grandmother to a hundred, and great-grandmother to a legion; I have birthed babies and washed the dead; I am history and suffering and wisdom; I am a Buddha and a dragon; so get your fucking hand off my eggplant before you lose it. — Christopher Moore

Thoreau's writings feel more alive to me than any thing that I've ever read. When I read anything by Thoreau, I see his subject. I feel it. I taste it. I smell it. I feel as though he's walking beside me, showing me with gestures and soft-spoken words the marvelous natural wonders that he's written about. — Nicholas Trandahl

It is not bad that the main beneficiaries of freedom criticize open societies, where there is much that can be criticized. It is bad if they do so by taking the side of those who seek to destroy these open societies, replacing them with authoritarian regimes, as in Venezuela or Cuba. When many artists and intellectuals betray democratic ideals, they are not betraying abstract principles, but rather the thousands and millions of flesh-and-blood people who, under dictatorships, resist and fight to gain freedom. But the saddest thing is that this betrayal of the victims does not come from principles and convictions but rather from professional opportunism and posturing, gestures and actions adapted to circumstance. Many artists and intellectuals in our times have become very cheap. — Mario Vargas-Llosa

I've never been fooled by the romantic, grand gestures. Love is all about the little things, the everyday considerations, kindnesses, and pardons. — Sarah McCoy

It is impossible for a man to conceal himself. In every act, word or gesture he stands revealed as he is, and not as he would have himself appear to be. From the Universe, nothing is or an be hidden. — Ernest Holmes

Men can become twins with age. The past was their common womb; the six months of rain and the six months of sun was the period of their common gestation. They needed only a few words and a few gestures to convey their meaning. They had graduated through the same fevers, they were moved by the same love and contempt. — Graham Greene

The leaves are falling, falling as from way off, as though far gardens withered in the skies; they are falling with denying gestures. And in the nights the heavy earth is falling from all the stars down into loneliness. We all are falling. This hand falls. And look at others: it is in them all. And yet there is one who holds this falling endlessly gently in his hands. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

I had the feeling deep in my gut that there'd been lines I should have spoken, gestures I should have made, that would have made things better. But looking back, I didn't know what they were. As a friend, I was pretty much useless, apparently. — Megan Crewe

I see poetry as a path toward new understanding and transformation, and so I've looked at specific poems I love, and at poetry's gestures in the broadest sense, in an effort to feel and learn what they offer from the inside. — Jane Hirshfield

Joy is the true gift of Christmas, and we can communicate this joy simply: with a smile, a kind gesture, a little help, forgiveness. And the joy we give will certainly come back to us. — Pope Benedict XVI

But when Lust By unchaste looks, loose gestures, and foul talk, But most by lewd and lavish arts of sin, Lets in defilement to the inward parts, The soul grows clotted by contagion, Imbodies and imbrutes, till she quite lose The divine property of her first being. — John Milton

The notion of political correctness has ignited controversy across the land. And although the movement arises from the laudable desire to sweep away the debris of racism and sexism and hatred it replaces old prejudices with new one. It declares certain topics off-limits, certain expressions off-limits, even certain gestures off-limits. What began as a crusade for civility has soured into a cause of conflict and even censorship. — George H. W. Bush

the front seat with his alarm again ringing furiously. "Are you all right?" shouted Milo. "Umphh," grunted Tock. "Sorry to get carried away, but I think you get the point." As they drove along, Tock continued to explain the importance of time, quoting the old philosophers and poets and illustrating each point with gestures that brought him perilously close to tumbling headlong from the speeding automobile. — Norton Juster

When he is away from her, he tries to conjure up her face. He closes his eyes, but the magic eludes him. When they are together he watches, learning her features, her gestures. Still, afterwards, he cannot make it happen. It is as though when she does she takes everything of herself with her. — Aminatta Forna

It is by studium that I am interested in so many photographs, whether I receive them as political testimony or enjoy them as good historical scenes: for it is culturally (this connotation is present in studium) that I participate in the figures, the faces, the gestures, the settings, the actions. — Roland Barthes

We are all, Esme decides, just vessels through which identities pass: we are lent features, gestures, habits, then we hand them on. Nothing is our own. We begin in the world as anagrams of our antecedents. — Maggie O'Farrell

Listen to the trees as they sway in the wind.
Their leaves are telling secrets. Their bark sings songs of olden days as it grows around the trunks. And their roots give names to all things.
Their language has been lost.
But not the gestures. — Vera Nazarian

Jeremy Taylor, Charles I's personal chaplain, wrote a tract, The Rule and Exercises of Holy Living, in 1650 that illustrates that not much has changed in over 360 years. He characterised drunkenness by: Apish gestures. Much talking. Immoderate laughing. Dullness of sense. Scurrility, that is wanton jeering or abusive language. A useless understanding. Stupid sleep. Epilepsies, or — Simon Wills

The way a source strains toward the light, toward the air. Its laboring work, its effort, its black passageways like despair. That's the way a poet looks for words. With muscles, gestures. — Anna Kamienska

So much of language is unspoken. So much of language is compromised of looks and gestures and sounds that are not words. People are ignorant of the vast complexity of their own communication. — Garth Stein

Don't do things or act out your posture and gestures to impress people, just be yourself and portray the confident 'you' with that high self-esteem. So relax because you are 'you'. Be sincere, be authentic. That will be impressive enough. — Archibald Marwizi

Observing is not the same as experiencing.' Li Wei gestures angrily at my stump. 'You sit there and judge others from a safe distance every day. You assume because you watch us, you understand us. But you don't. — Richelle Mead

The greater the will, the greater the flow of energy. — Paramahansa Yogananda

He was a dim secondary social success
and all with people who had truly not an idea of him. It was all mere surface sound, this murmur of their welcome, this popping of their corks
just as his gestures of response were the extravagant shadows, emphatic in proportion as they meant little, of some game of 'ombres chinoises' [French: "shadow play"]. — Henry James

Again at eight o'clock, when the dark lanes of the Forties were five deep with throbbing taxicabs, bound for the theater district, I felt a sinking in my heart. Forms leaned together in the taxis as they waited, and voices sang, and there was laughter from unheard jokes, and lighted cigarettes outlined unintelligible gestures inside. Imagining that I, too, was hurrying toward gayety and sharing their intimate excitement, I wished them well. — F Scott Fitzgerald

Sometimes in someone's gestures you can notice how a parent is somehow inhabiting that person without there being any awareness of that. Sometimes you can look at your hand and see your father. — Sam Shepard

In the sixties, the recycling of pop culture turning it into Pop art and camp had its own satirical zest. Now we're into a different kind of recycling. Moviemakers give movies of the past an authority that those movies didn't have; they inflate images that may never have compelled belief, images that were no more than shorthand gestures and they use them not as larger-than-life jokes but as altars. — Pauline Kael

Listen- all that she was then, all that she is now, those gestures, everything I remember but won't or can't articulate anymore, the perfect words that are somehow made imperfect when used to describe her and all that should remain unsaid about her- it is all unsupported by reason. I know that. But that enigmatic calm that attaches itself to people in the presence of reason- it's something from which I haven't been able to take comfort, not reliably, not since her. — Elliot Perlman

What would a Martian visitor think to see a human being laugh? It must look truly horrible: the sight of furious gestures, flailing limbs, and thorax heaving in frenzied contortions ... — Marvin Minsky

Can I persuade you that if you let a driver into your lane, or thank a sales clerk, or smile at someone in a hallway, you can change his or her life? Of course not - but if you don't go through the day with the assumption that small moments and small gestures can touch people's lives, what is the alternative belief? — Robert Maurer

Let us ask ... how things work at the level of on-going subjugation, at the level of those continuous and uninterrupted processes which subject our bodies, govern our gestures, dictate our behaviors, etc ... we should try to discover how it is that subjects are gradually, progressively, really and materially constituted through a multiplicity of organisms, forces, energies, materials, desires, thoughts, etc. We should try to grasp subjection in its material instance as a constitution of subjects. — Michel Foucault

The hand gestures of Italians are not, apparently, as clear-cut as Goethe believed. De Jorio discovered that knowing the purpose of someone's mind — Ross King

You wish, or rather, have decided, to remove a splinter from someone? Very well, but do not go after it with a stick instead of a lancet for you will only drive it deeper. Rough speech and harsh gestures are the stick, while even-tempered instruction and patient reprimand are the lancet. 'Reprove, rebuke, exhort,' says the Apostle (II Tim. 4:2), not 'batter'. — John Climacus

The gestures and the swagger and the attitude of black men is imitated everywhere in American culture, but people still find black men intolerable. — Jess Row

Day after day, Mersault let himself sink into his life as if he were sliding into water. And just as the swimmer advances by the complicity of his arms and the water which bears him up, helps him on, it was enough to make a few essential gestures - to rest one hand on a tree trunk, to take a run on the beach - in order to keep himself intact and conscious. — Albert Camus

I remember very clearly someone saying, 'Don't shake hands with the cactus,' and I thought, 'Well, why not? What could possibly go wrong?' Shaking hands is a friendly gesture. — Benedict Cumberbatch

Change your energy! Be genuinely positive. Have kind energy before you say kind words or do kind gestures. Affect other people positively. — Ilchi Lee

In newsreels or news-photos, the Arab is always shown in large numbers. No individuality, no personal characteristics or experiences. Most of the pictures represent mass rage and misery, or irrational (hence hopelessly eccentric) gestures. Lurking behind all of these images is the menace of jihad. Consequence: a fear that the Muslims (or Arabs) will take over the world. — Edward W. Said

Gratefulness is the inner gesture of giving meaning to our life by receiving life as gift. — David Steindl-Rast

You must have this charm to reach the pinnacle. It is made of everything and of nothing, the striving will, the look, the walk, the proportions of the body, the sound of the voice, the ease of the gestures. It is not at all necessary to be handsome or to be pretty; all that is needful is charm. — Sarah Bernhardt

Like every girl who grew up being read fairy tales, I thought love was all about big gestures. But now I understand exactly what Grandma meant. It's the heart he drew in the sand on our honeymoon, driving miles to get me the best chicken noodle soup when I was sick, making me coffee every morning. — Jillian Dodd

It's that the silence hanging between us, the awkward and painful glance we share, acknowledges that I'm sitting in his seat. I start to stand up, but Ely shakes his head and gestures for me to stay seated. "It's cool," he whispers. I watch him stride away to the elevator. — Rachel Cohn

She knew her duty inside and out. The prosperity of the cash drawer brought happiness to husband and wife. Not that Madame Puta was bad looking, not at all, she could even, like so many others, have been rather pretty, but she was so careful, so distrustful that she stopped short of beauty just as she stopped short of life - her hair was a little too well dressed, her smile a little too facile and sudden, and her gestures a bit too abrupt or too furtive. You racked your brains trying to figure out what was too calculated about her and why you always felt uneasy when she came near you. This instinctive revulsion that shopkeepers inspire in anyone who goes near them who knows what's what, is one of the few consolations for being as down at heel as people who don't sell anything to anybody tend to be. — Louis-Ferdinand Celine

I have reached far beyond my competence and have probably secured for good a reputation for flamboyant gestures. But the times still crowd me and give me no rest, and I see no way to avoid ambitious synthetic attempts; either we get some kind of grip on the accumulation of thought or we continue to wallow helplessly, to starve amidst plenty. So I gamble with science and write. — Ernest Becker

You continue making the gestures commanded by existence for many reasons, the first of which is habit. — Albert Camus

What the people call eloquence is the facility some persons have of speaking alone and for a long time, aided by extravagant gestures, a loud voice, and powerful lungs. — Jean De La Bruyere

A nation could change its way of life, its history, its technology, its art, literature, and culture, but it would never have a real chance to change its gestures. — Orhan Pamuk

When you are at the bottom, you find beauty in such little things, and goodness in such little gestures. When I compare any struggle today to ones that I may have had in my childhood, there is nothing that can bring me down. — Natalia Vodianova

Businesses have to make gestures that go beyond words. Persuasion no longer works. — John Gerzema

But bad manners or vulgar gestures can sometimes have a touch of poetry about them, just enough not to arouse one's indignation. — Tahar Ben Jelloun

Usually I'm frustrated when I look at my films and I don't believe that I've made a real transformation beyond my usual sets of gestures and expressions. I still have this nagging feeling that it's me, that I didn't create a unique character. — Helena Bonham Carter

Love is not necessarily about grand gestures. It can be the little things, like someone knows you like a certain food so they pick it up for you. Stuff like that is sweet. It's little things that are nice and thoughtful that you can do every day. — Emma Roberts

OPERA, n. A play representing life in another world, whose inhabitants have no speech but song, no motions but gestures and no postures but attitudes. — Ambrose Bierce

The different tempos and yeah, it's cadence. It's the way she moves through space, it's gestures. — Vera Farmiga

The protection of human rights to promote the dignity of the individual is too important a matter for symbolic gestures alone. It is only through the pursuit of practical and effective efforts to promote human rights that we show our real commitment to the welfare of individuals and society. — Alexander Downer

Maybe, it is not the thorn on the rose that we should see, but the beauty of the gesture. — Shannon L. Alder

There was only a language of families, a tongue woven from a lifetime of shared experiences. Its vocabulary consisted of gestures and curt sentences, incomprehensible to all outsiders. Inside, it wasn't difficult to translate at all. — Courtney Milan

You wake from dreams of doom and
for a moment
you know: beyond all the noise and the gestures, the only real thing, love's calm unwavering flame in the half-light of an early dawn. — Dag Hammarskjold

Adam leans into my ear. I feel the soft whispers of his breath just before he begins to speak.
"You guys are disgusting, you know that, right?"
I look up, startled, and find Kenji frozen midmovement, his spoon halfway to his mouth, his head cocking in our direction. He gestures with his spoon at our faces. "What the hell is this? You guys playing footsie under the table or someshit? — Tahereh Mafi

Being shown a gesture of love is like being offered a portion of God. — Deepak Chopra

Are we, as we age, I wonder, repaid for all our thoughtless gestures — Anita Shreve

To express oneself fluently involves more than simply speaking the language properly. It includes inflection, voice, posture, gestures, and clothing. All of these elements add up to an individual's personal expression. They are the elements of style. — Kate Betts

If music serves to convey feelings through the interaction of physical gestures and sound, the musician needs his brain state to match the emotional state he is trying to express. Although the studies haven't been performed yet, I'm willing to bet that when B.B. King is playing the blues and when he is feeling the blues, the neural signatures are very similar. (Of course there will be differences, too, and part of the scientific hurdle will be subtracting out the processes involved in issuing motor commands and listening to music, versus just sitting on a chair, head in hands, and feeling down.) And as listeners, there is every reason to believe that some of our brain states will match those of the musicians we are listening to. — Daniel J. Levitin

Demetrious was studying Law on the Open University and was, in all ways, a ray of sunshine into her life: warm and glorious, achingly temporary. He lived just off the high street with his boyfriend Rob, who worked in the City, doing something neither Demi nor Sukie pretended to understand.
"All the cute guys are gay," Sukie had laughed, that first day, holding her coffee mug high to her face to hide her genuine disappointment. Demi had just tilted his head and looked at her playfully, an expression she would get to know well.
"I'm not gay," he had clarified, matter-of-factly.
"Living with a boyfriend called Rob doesn't sound very straight!" Sukie had pointed out.
"Labels!" Demi had scorned, with one of his characteristic and very Greek hand gestures. "I fall in love with the person, not the gender. — Erin Lawless