Quotes & Sayings About Oil

Weak men are easily put out of humor. Oil freezes quicker than water. — Berthold Auerbach

We're very interested in seeing what science Exxon has been using for its own purposes because they're tremendously active in offshore oil drilling in the Arctic, for example, where global warming is happening at a much more rapid rate than in more temperate zones. — Eric Schneiderman

I like the connection - me touching her. She's oil on my troubled, deep, dark waters.
Hmm ... flowery, Grey. — E.L. James

If the Olive Trees knew the hands that planted them, Their Oil would become Tears. — Mahmoud Darwish

Today, President Obama finally met with BP's CEO, Tony Hayward, but the meeting was only scheduled 20 minutes. Call me crazy, but I think it should take more time to discuss an oil spill than it does to get your oil checked. — Jimmy Fallon

The oil industry is a stunning example of how science, technology, and mass production can divert an entire group of companies from their main task ... No oil company gets as excited about the customers in its own backyard as about the oil in the Sahara Desert ... But the truth is, it seems to me, that the industry begins with the needs of the customer for its products. From that primal position its definition moves steadily back stream to areas of progressively lesser importance until it finally comes to rest at the search for oil. — Theodore Levitt

On a certain afternoon of July, at the tawniest hour, on Galvez Island, the earth -- the tilting spinning earth -- was unearthly. There is no accounting for this adequacy, this splendor that overtakes you. You lack neither flour nor oil while the famine lasts. On a certain afternoon, at a certain hour, the earth is earth no longer, but a fragment of eternity. And you, greenhorn jest of time, are a fragment of eternity too. — Benjamin Taylor

The greatest asset, even in this country, is not oil and gas. It's integrity. Everyone is searching for it, asking, 'Who can I do business with that I can trust?' — George Foreman

The Arctic and the Antarctic are melting quickly. We may have waited too long to get started. But this is a day for optimism because the battle is fully joined, and the idea that big oil is unbeatable is no longer true. — Bill McKibben

Wherever a tension needed the solvent of good-will, or friction the oil of benevolence; wherever suspicion needed the antidote of frankness, or wounded pride the disinfectant of a hearty laugh - there Taft was sent. — Doris Kearns Goodwin

Coal, oil and gas are called fossil fuels, because they are mostly made of the fossil remains of beings from long ago. The chemical energy within them is a kind of stored sunlight originally accumulated by ancient plants. Our civilization runs by burning the remains of humble creatures who inhabited the Earth hundreds of millions of years before the first humans came on the scene. Like some ghastly cannibal cult, we subsist on the dead bodies of our ancestors and distant relatives. — Carl Sagan

You put some Vaseline under your eyes at night and under your chin, and you put a little bit on your chest and you'll avoid stretch marks and I'll get you some Vaseline, you can change your oil and fry chicken with it, too, but you best make sure you have something. — Tyler Perry

If I think too much about all of those Chinese factories where all the stuff in a Wal-Mart is made, I get that woozy feeling you get when you see ducks covered in crude oil. — Douglas Coupland

The nation was cracking under the weight of bloated modernity and all the patches pasted onto its excessive and malfunctioning hypercomplexity, and people were bewildered by the strange glitches, failures and shortages. Going forward, nothing would really work anymore as it was designed to, yet the hope and expectation that it would all magically recover dominated the chatter in the rare moments when people could step back from their frantic lives and share a meal or a drink. — James Howard Kunstler

Finally, slowly, like a newly lighted oil lamp gathering kerosene up into its wick, Wally's face began to glow. He turned to Mack Fulton. "Mack, you know what's on my mind? — Clive Cussler

For a hundred years we have been one of the largest oil-producing countries in the world but with a 60 percent poverty rate and now we are canceling the historical debt. — Hugo Chavez

The Killer is never hunted. I never heard what sort of oil he has. Exception might be taken to the name bestowed upon this whale, on the ground of its indistinctness. For we are all killers, on land and on sea; Bonapartes and Sharks included. — Herman Melville

The Bible is still the only dirty book I've ever read, at least in its current incarnation as a weapon of the homophobes. Bible scholarship keeps trying to catch up, proving that all the hatred of gay is just stupid translation, though the snake-oil preachers don't want to hear it. — Paul Monette

The hidden master of the Filipino-style Chinese donut is Benito Taganes, proprietor and king of the bubbling vats at Mabuhay. Mabuhay, dark, cramped, invisible from the street, stays open all night long. It drains the bars and cafes after hours, concentrates the wicked and the guilty along its chipped Formica counter, and thrums with the gossip of criminals, policemen, shtarkers and shlemiels, whores and night owls. With the fat applauding in the fryers, the exhaust fans roaring, and the boom box blasting the heartsick kundimans of Benito's Manila childhood, the clientele makes free with their secrets. A golden mist of kosher oil hangs in the air and baffles the senses. Who could overhear with ears full of KosherFry and the wailing of Diomedes Maturan? — Michael Chabon

What I see are people who want affordable energy. They want strong environmental standards - they want a lot of things - but first and foremost they want affordable energy. And if you want affordable energy, you want oil, gas and coal. — John S. Watson

Champagne is the wine of civilization and the oil of government. — Winston Churchill

Lennie Smullenski and Anthony Zuck bake the goodies in the back room in big steel ovens and troughs of hot oil. Clouds of flour and sugar sift onto table surfaces and slip under foot. And lard is transferred daily from commercial sized vats directly to local butts. — Janet Evanovich

Baldwin told the story again and again of standing on Broadway and being told by Delaney to look down. Delaney asked him what he saw, and Baldwin said a puddle. Delaney said, 'Look again,' and then Baldwin saw the reflections of the buildings, distorted and radiant in the oil on the puddle. He taught me to see, Baldwin said, and that 'what one cannot or will not see, says something about you. — Rachel Cohen

President Obama and our all-of-the-above energy strategy is the real deal. We are proud of the fact that we are importing less oil than at any time in modern history, and it has been because of the president's vision and courage. — Ken Salazar

What an advantage that knowledge can be stored in books! The knowledge lies there like hermetically sealed provisions waiting for the day when you may need a meal. Surely what the Collector was doing as he pored over his military manuals, was proving the superiority of the European way of doing things, of European culture itself. This was a culture so flexible that whatever he needed was there in a book at his elbow. An ordinary sort of man, he could, with the help of an oil-lamp, turn himself into a great military engineer, a bishop, an explorer or a General overnight, if the fancy took him. — J.G. Farrell

Civilization is in no immediate danger of running out of energy or even just out of oil. But we are running out of environment-that is, out of the capacity of the environment to absorb energy's impacts without risk of intolerable disruption-and our heavy dependence on oil in particular entails not only environmental but also economic and political liabilities. — Vijay V. Vaitheeswaran

Thoughtless people are not unusual," observed the Scarecrow, "but I consider them more fortunate than those who have useless or wicked thoughts and do not try to curb them. Your oil can, friend Woodman, is filled with oil, but you only apply the oil to your joints, drop by drop, as you need it, and do not keep spilling it where it will do no good. Thoughts should be restrained in the same way as your oil, and only applied when necessary, and for a good purpose. If used carefully, thoughts are good things to have. — L. Frank Baum

If you covered a broom handle with oil and shoved it up my arse, then put me on a trampoline, in a lift, I could write a better song on the walls. — Dylan Moran

A lot of lies and misinformation has been put about by eco nuts on the back of a report by an idiot economist [Sir Nicholas Stern]. Environmental head bangers are talking nonsense when they claim that aviation is the fastest-growing source of carbon emissions. Coal-fired and oil-fired power stations are the biggest contributor of carbon but I have yet to hear any fearless eco warriors advocating nuclear power as they drive around in their SUVs to their next protest meeting. — Michael O'Leary

I believe deeply that children are more powerful than oil, more beautiful than rivers, more precious than any other natural resource a country can have. — Danny Kaye

Vegetables cooked for salads should always be on the crisp side, like those trays of zucchini and slender green beans and cauliflowerets in every trattoria in Venice, in the days when the Italians could eat correctly. You used to choose the things you wanted: there were tiny potatoes in their skins, remember, and artichokes boiled in olive oil, as big as your thumb, and much tenderer ... and then the waiter would throw them all into an ugly white bowl and splash a little oil and vinegar over them, and you would have a salad as fresh and tonic to your several senses as La Primavera. It can still be done, although never in the same typhoidic and enraptured air. You can still find little fresh vegetables, and still know how to cook them until they are not quite done, and chill them, and eat them in a bowl. — Mary Francis Kennedy Fisher

Rather than literally burning the midnight oil, which he judged to be unhealthy, John Adams advised his son to make the most of college by developing an inquisitive outlook that would prompt him to get to know the most exceptional scholars and question them closely. Ask them about their tutors, manner of teaching. Observe what books lie on their tables. Fall into questions of literature, science, or what you will. — David McCullough

I bear in my soul the proofs of the Spirit's truth and power, and I will have none of your artful reasonings. The gospel to me is truth: I am content to perish if it be not true. I risk my soul's eternal fate upon the truth of the gospel, and I know that there is no risk in it. My one concern is to keep the lights burning, that I may thereby benefit others. Only let the Lord give me oil enough to feed my lamp, so that I may cast a ray across the dark and treacherous sea of life, and I am well content. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

States with tremendous oil and natural gas reserves have the most to gain economically from proper regulation. — Gina McCarthy

We have used so much polyethylene ( plastic ) since the invention of this oil derivative that plastic broken down has over time completely changed the molecular structure of seawater . — Norbert F Hoffmann Jr

Robots can now milk cows. Oil prices have fallen globally, meaning both the petro-states and those indirectly propped up by them are weakened. At the same time, slower growth in China has lately shrunk its voracious appetite for African, Australian, and Latin American commodities. China accounted for more than a third of global growth in recent years, and its growth engine multiplied the growth of many of the countries that exported raw materials to Beijing. That has slowed. China's total debt has grown from roughly 150 percent of its GDP in 2007 to around 240 percent today - a massive increase in one decade that is dampening its growth and its imports and shrinking China's wallet for foreign aid and investment in African and Latin American commodity-exporting countries. In — Thomas L. Friedman

Whaling was the oil business of its day. — Nathaniel Philbrick

The significant collapse of oil prices shows that it was previously way too high. — Wolfgang Schauble

I've voted in some cases to remove and reduce tax breaks for the oil industry in other cases I've voted not to because I felt that the proposals covered too much. — Jeff Bingaman

I painted with acrylic paint, and the reason why I went to oil was mainly because I didn't control it. I was looking for the insecurity of it. I mean, I might have found another reason later, but at that moment, the reason was I was looking for the insecurity. — Albert Oehlen

The one thing people seem to forget is the more oil we have, the lower the price and the lower the profits the oil companies make. — David Pratt

Some people have criticized the United States and the United States military for guarding oil fields and not guarding the Iraqi National Museum which had priceless antiquities in it. They say that this shows a fundamental lack of respect for Iraqi history. I want to remind those people of this: The oldest relics in the museum, 5,000 or 6,000 years old. That oil is 65 million years old. You had to guard that ... Those antiquities will only last another 5,000 or 6,000 years. When we burn that oil, those fumes will linger long after. — Jon Stewart

One pound of uranium is worth about 3 million pounds worth of coal or oil. — James Lovelock

I was a dispatcher, flat-tire fixer, changed the oil, fixed the fan belts. There was nothing too good for me. — Manuel Moroun

The prospect of sitting across the table from Caleb Halliday, knowing he thought she was a trollop, was patently unappealing. Besides, one had to take a personality as strong as Caleb's in small, measured doses. Like castor oil. — Linda Lael Miller

His feelings for Adam were an oil spill; he'd let them overflow and now there wasn't a damn place in the ocean that wouldn't catch fire if he dropped a match. — Maggie Stiefvater

Running out of energy in the long run is not the problem ... The bind comes during the next 10 years: getting over our dependence on crude oil. — Kenneth S. Deffeyes

The quickest and easiest way to improve your health and mood is by taking omega 3 supplements, in the form of fish oils or flaxseed. Add a good general multivitamin and mineral daily as well, as this will ensure that any trace deficiencies causing health or mood problems are addressed. — Liz Miller

The oil sequence was about two or three days. It was very cold and was snowing. — Jason Statham

There are no rules about investment. Sharks can be good. Artist's dung can be good. Oil on canvas can be good. — Charles Saatchi

The cement in our whole democracy today is the worker who makes $ 15 an hour. He's the guy who will buy a house and a car and a refrigerator. He's the oil in the engine. — Lee Iacocca

It happened as it always did, swallowing her swiftly and completely. Intense. Painful. Quick, vivid colors spun beneath her eyelids. Sounds were sharp inside her skull. Fire shot up through her bones. She may have been screaming and she wouldn't have known. There was smoke in her nose, thick and black, and she couldn't breathe. It stung her eyes and licked at her skin. Wood and metal crashed down as skin blistered and popped and she knew this wasn't her, knew it was someone else, someone with a bigger body, bigger boots and darker jeans, and big ol' hands with scars on the fingers. Men's hands. Nails blunt and dirty with oil and grease and burning and- The cars were on fire. Paper burned and curled and rags ignited, the cement floor pockmarked by flash fires. Meat withered in her nose and she realized it was her. Him. Dancing embers blackened and burned bone. He screamed and she hoped she was not. He writhed and she really hoped she was not. He was dying, dead, and- — Angele Gougeon

[I predict] the electricity generated by water power is the only thing that is going to keep future generations from freezing. Now we use coal whenever we produce electric power by steam engine, but there will be a time when there'll be no more coal to use. That time is not in the very distant future ... Oil is too insignificant in its available supply to come into much consideration. — Charles Proteus Steinmetz

Recep Tayyip Erdogan would be considered a gradualist. He is not decreeing Sharia as the law of the land tomorrow. He's making gradual steps to desecularize the country so it's not a shock to everyone, doesn't cause all kinds of panic in the western world and the Europe world. And ISIS might be growing impatient. Even though they've been allied over oil and Syria, ISIS could be growing impatient. Then they see the deal with Israel, and they say, "To hell with this." — Rush Limbaugh

We've run out of good projects. This is not a money issue ... If these oil companies had fantastic projects, they'd be out there [developing new fields]. — Matthew Simmons

Cars are the most central thing in America, in a lot of ways. They've probably influenced the way we live more than anything else, and yet every really big problem - whether it's the environment or who dictates the international economy because of oil - is all tied to cars. Ultimately, cars are bad for civilization. I don't know if they'll end us. — Chuck Klosterman

Bin Laden was completely protected by the oil companies in this country who told [President] Bush not to go after him because it would piss off the Saudis. — Oliver Stone

You spent it on oil for your hair,' I said, 'and on baubles for your whores, on furs and on horses, on jewels and on silk. A man, Lord Eardwulf, dresses in leather and iron. And he fights. — Bernard Cornwell

Psychotherapy, unlike castor oil, which will work no matter how you get it down, is useless when forced on an uncooperative patient. — Abigail Van Buren

We have known for decades that our survival depends on finding new sources of energy. Yet we import more oil today than ever before. — Barack Obama

The national oil companies still want to acquire some expertise so they will outsource more, but not totally. — Andrew Gould

I believe - though I may be wrong, because I'm no expert - that this war is about what most wars are about: hegemony, money, power and oil. — Dustin Hoffman

I think attempting to sell people an easy fix for pain is the worst kind of snake oil. — Brene Brown

I use omega-3 oil. I love light oil on my skin. It's one of my favorite feelings in the world. — Gwyneth Paltrow

Debt deflation is when there's less money that people have to spend out of their paychecks on goods and services, because they're paying the FIRE sector. Oil going down is a function of the supply and demand of oil in the market. It's a separate phenomenon. — Michael Hudson

There is no night porter wandering about in King's. The authorities pay you the compliment, ugly gate-crasher, of treating you as a grown-up. And since we are not grown-up you and I, we will perform our midnight frolics as the inmates burn the midnight oil. — Whipplesnaith

Without the religious element, life is like an engine running without oil-it seizes up. — Romano Guardini

No one wants to stoke coal if he can regulate an oil valve instead. — Stavros Niarchos

I want all my drems to come true,
But for that I have to keep patience and burn the midnight oil. — Rahul Rawat

Prominent exploration experts have recently predicted that total world production of liquid oil will peak by about the end of this decade-or a few years later if production does not rise much-and will decline thereafter. — Amory Lovins

The profits of oil, coal, and natural gas companies will have to yield to the imperative of sustaining life on earth. — Robert Pollin

What Tyler says about the crap and the slaves of history, that's how I felt. I wanted to destroy something beautiful I'd never have. Burn the Amazon rain forests. Pump chlorofluorocarbons straight up to gobble the ozone. Open the dump valves on supertankers and uncap offshore oil wells. I wanted to kill all the fish I couldn't afford to eat, and smother the French beaches I'd never see. I wanted the whole world to hit bottom. Pounding that kid, I really wanted to put a bullet between the eyes of every endangered panda that wouldn't screw to save its species and every whale or dolphin that gave up and ran itself aground — Chuck Palahniuk

Oil kindles extraordinary emotions and hopes, since oil is above all a great temptation. It is the temptation of ease, wealth, strength, fortune, power. It is a filthy, foul-smelling liquid that squirts obligingly up into the air and falls back to earth as a rustling shower of money. — Ryszard Kapuscinski

China is thus following a path similar to that set by the United States after World War II, when it gave unstinting support to undemocratic governments in the Middle East on the promise of long-term access to low-priced oil-though without the huge arms transfers that accompanied, and remain a key component of, US political support. — Melvin Gurtov

Ladies and gentlemen, attention, please!
Come in close where everyone can see!
I got a tale to tell, it isn't gonna cost a dime!
(And if you believe that,
we're gonna get along just fine.) — Stephen King

Some of the most powerful antiseptic essential oils include lavender oil, tea tree oil, and clove oil. — Althea Press

Growing up, my father was a financial analyst for an oil company. He was just a regular dad. And when I would say, 'Hey, come see my play,' he'd say, 'Sure.' He'd see one, 'Oh, good play' - you know, very typical dad reaction. — Eric McCormack

Often, after extinguishing the oil lamp in our house on stilts, we would lie on our beds and smoke in the dark. Book titles poured from our lips, the mysterious and exotic names evoking unknown worlds. It was like Tibetan incense, where you need only say the name, Zang Xiang, to smell the subtle, refined fragrance and to see the joss sticks sweating beads of scented moisture which, in the lamplight, resemble drops of liquid gold. — Dai Sijie

I say, Bertie, is it really true that you were once engaged to Honoria?"
"It is."
Biffy coughed.
"How did you get out - I mean, what was the nature of the tragedy that prevented the marriage?"
"Jeeves worked it. He thought out the entire scheme."
"I think, before I go," said Biffy thoughtfully, "I'll just step into the kitchen and have a word with Jeeves."
I felt that the situation called for complete candour.
"Biffy, old egg," I said, "as man to man, do you want to oil out of this thing?"
"Bertie, old cork," said Biffy earnestly, "as one friend to another, I do. — P.G. Wodehouse

What makes someone an artist? I don't think is has anything to do with a paintbrush. There are painters who follow the numbers, or paint billboards, or work in a small village in China, painting reproductions. These folks, while swell people, aren't artists. On the other hand, Charlie Chaplin was an artist, beyond a doubt. So is Jonathan Ive, who designed the iPod. You can be an artist who works with oil paints or marble, sure. But there are artists who work with numbers, business models, and customer conversations. Art is about intent and communication, not substances. — Seth Godin

Towles burn. Bathroom inferno! Chanel No. 5, it burns. Oil paintings of racehorses and dead pheasants burn. The reproduction Oriental carpets burn. Evie's bad dried flower arrangements, they're these little tabletop infernos. Too cute! Evie's Katty Kathy doll, it melts, then it burns. Evie's collection of big carnival stuffed animals - Cootie, Poochie, Pam-Pam, Mr. Bunnits, Choochie, Poo Poo and Ringer - it's fun-fur holocaust. Too sweet. Too precious. — Chuck Palahniuk

What?" I said, suspicion starting to rise in me. "When did they start coming after you?"
"Was it - was it after the oil-slick Hummer crash?" the Gasman asked Iggy tentatively.
My eyes widened. Oil-slick Hummer crash?
Iggy rubbed his chin, thinking.
"Or maybe it was more - after the bomb," the Gasman said in a low voice, looking down.
"I think it was the bomb," Iggy agreed. "That definitely seemed to tick them off. — James Patterson

I've never been a fan of personality-conflict burgers and identity-crisis omelets with patchouli oil. I function very well on a diet that consists of Chicken Catastrophe and Eggs Overwhelming and a tall, cool Janitor-in-a-Drum. I like to walk out of a restaurant with enough gas to open a Mobil station. — Tom Waits

St. Albert and the LSD Revelation Revolution oil painting by Alex Grey, 2006 color image in the book Net of Being by Alex Grey, 2012 — Rhoney Gissen Stanley

By loving and leaving all that oil has done for us ... we are able to then begin the creation of a world which is more resilient, more nourishing, and in which we find ourselves fitter, more skilled and more connected to each other. — Rob Hopkins

'The Next Wave' started as a drawing for a new silkscreen fine art print. I ended up doing the prints digitally because the water-based inks were better for the environment than the oil based inks. So, I learned about the Epson digital printers to get the image I wanted. — John Van Hamersveld

Together we kept that machine greased like a stripper in a plastic pool full of baby oil. — Jamie McGuire

The soy is seeping through the material like a BP oil slick in a Louisiana swamp. — Poppet

I won't get killed,' Rose protested.
Is that a promise?' Fish asked dryly, stirring his tea. 'If you break your word, I'll never believe you again.'
Rose shook her head at him. 'How can you even taste your tea if you put that much sugar in it?'
Don't change the subject. I don't want to be responsible for depriving the world of Rose Brier. Under no circumstances are you allowed to help us do anything more dangerous than ... change the oil in my car. — Regina Doman

The air smelled of salt and frying fish, of hot tar and honey, of incense and oil and sperm. — George R R Martin

He never understood why she chose him. She loved abstract things like music and books and strange words. Ove was a man filled entirely with tangible things. He liked screwdrivers and oil filters. He went through life with his hands firmly shoved in his pockets. She danced. — Fredrik Backman

Pretense is the oil that lubricates society. — Mary Roberts Rinehart

Pricey oil makes clear that wealth really is energy in various forms. — Robert Kiyosaki

Figure 18. As the thickness of a layer increases, the two surfaces produce a partial reflection of monochromatic light whose probability fluctuates in a cycle from 0% to 16%. Since the speed of the imaginary stopwatch hand is different for different colors of light, the cycle repeats itself at different rates. Thus when two colors such as pure red and pure blue are aimed at the layer, a given thickness will reflect only red, only blue, both red and blue in different proportions (which produce various hues of violet), or neither color (black). If the layer is of varying thicknesses, such as a drop of oil spreading out on a mud puddle, all of the combinations will occur. In sunlight, which consists of all colors, all sorts of combinations occur, which produce lots of colors. — Richard Feynman

If we had continued making progress at the rate we were during the Carter administration, we would be free of oil imports from Saudi Arabia today. — Jay Inslee

Time, which shows so vacant, indivisible, and divine in its coming, is slit and peddled into trifles and tatters. A door is to bepainted, a lock to be repaired. I want wood, or oil, or meal, or salt; the house smokes, or I have a headache; then the tax; and an affair to be transacted with a man without heart or brains; and the stinging recollection of an injurious or very awkward word,
these eat up the hours. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Acne affects the skin's oil glands, which can over produce an oil called 'sebum'. — Miles Reise

Most of us have not heard about Master Limited Partnerships. These special financing arrangements allow oil and gas investors to avoid paying certain corporate income taxes, but are not available to clean energy businesses. — Bernie Sanders

Oil companies earned a permanent enemy in me when they messed with the electric car the first time around, and I think they continue to do a disservice in making it seem like fossil fuels are cheaper than they really are in terms of total cost. — Chris Paine

Technology is such a broad kind of term, it really applies to so many things, from the electric light to running cars on oil. All of these different things can be called technology. I have kind of a love-hate relationship with it, as I expect most people do. With the computer, I spend so many hours sitting in front of a computer. — Jeff Bridges