Originally Called Quotes & Sayings

I'm a young guy called 'commutative ring', but I was originally 'the ring of continuous functions on a compact Hausdorff space'. Now I am an algebraic object, so I must say goodbye to my home village, the space, but I will always keep it in my heart as a set of maximal ideals. — Kato

Our whole intention was to make a record of songs that we grew up with and change them up a little bit, but we kind of stumbled on writing "Joseph's Lullaby." The irony is when I originally wrote the song, it was called "Mary's Lullaby." I wrote it from Mary's standpoint and it was in a higher key, a real falsetto, and it just wasn't right. One day, the producer's wife said, "Well, it's kind of odd that you're singing from Mary's perspective, being the guy. Why don't you do Joseph? — Bart Millard

'The New Black Yoga' originally was born from a film that I had made prior called 'Black Yoga.' And I was living in Berlin at the time, dealing with a lot of anxiety and stress around the project that I was working on, which is not an abnormal thing for me. — Rashid Johnson

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

The Greeks, at least by the fourth century BC, knew Britain as Albion. Originally applied to a Spanish tribe called the 'Albiones', the term was later adopted for Britain, perhaps because of its similarity to the Greek word for whiteness, alphos, thanks to the white chalk cliffs of the southeast coast. Pliny the Elder, writing in the first century AD, says that Britain had 'previously' been called Albion, so by then the name must have fallen out of common use.2 By the time Britain began to be referred to more frequently, the Greeks called it Prettannia, or Brettannia.3 What does seem certain is that in the fourth century BC, Pytheas of Massilia (Marseilles) sailed to Britain. Pytheas wrote down his experiences, but these only survive as incidental third-hand references by later writers. Most — Guy De La Bedoyere

Originally, I came from Texas, and we lived on - I guess you'd call it welfare, what we called relief. — Carol Burnett

An example of this is, when the simple propositions are connected by the particle or; as, either A is B or C is D; or by the particle if; as, A is B if C is D. In the former case, the proposition is called disjunctive, in the latter, conditional: the name hypothetical was originally common to both. — John Stuart Mill

The Mizo insurgency was in full swing. The Mizo Hills were originally called the Lushai Hills, lushai meaning long head. We were fortunate in having Ajit Doval, a young Intelligence Bureau (IB) officer. Doval was a livewire and had guts, venturing in disguise into territory controlled by the hostiles. — J.F.R. Jacob

The show originally started out as a ten hour mini-series. We shot two hours and then were excused for a while, for no apparent reason. Things went very quiet for a time and then a few months later we were called back and told that it was going to be a full season. — Gil Gerard

Give us a chance to show you that those so-called protective laws to aid women - however well intentioned originally - have become in fact restraints, which keep wife, abandoned wife, and widow alike from supporting her family. — Martha Griffiths

They found security in letting go rather than in holding on and, in so doing, developed an attitude toward life that might be called psychophysical judo. Nearly twenty-five centuries ago, the Chinese sages Lao-tzu and Chuang-tzu had called it wu-wei, which is perhaps best translated as "action without forcing." It is sailing in the stream of the Tao, or course of nature, and navigating the currents of li (organic pattern) - a word that originally signified the natural markings in jade or the grain in wood. As this attitude spread and prevailed in the wake of Vibration Training, people became more and more indulgent about eccentricity in life-style, tolerant of racial and religious differences, and adventurous in exploring unusual ways of loving. — Alan W. Watts

Did you know that I almost called the magazine Stag Party and the symbol was originally going to be a stag? I changed my mind just before we went to press, thank God. Somehow, it wouldn't have been the same. Can you imagine a chain of key clubs staffed by beautiful girls wearing antlers? — Hugh Hefner

Well, we were originally called Huey Lewis and the American Express. But on the eve of the release of our first record, our record label, Chrysalis Records was afraid that we'd be sued by American Express. — Huey Lewis

Redemption is not just about being saved *from* the consequences of sin, it is also about being saved *to* something- to resume the task for which we were originally created. And what was that task? In Genesis, God gives what we might call the first job description: "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it."
"Be fruitful and multiply", means to develop the social world: build families, churches, cities, governments, laws.
The second phrase, "subdue the earth" means to harness the natural world: plant crops, build bridges, design computers, compose music.
This passage is sometimes called the "cultural mandate" because it tells us that our original purpose was to create cultures and build civilizations- nothing less. — Nancy Pearcey

I should say that, in addition to my tree - love (it was originally called The Tree), it arose from my own pre-occupation with the Lord of the Rings , the knowledge that it would be finished in great detail or not at all, and the fear (near certainty ) that it would be 'not at all'. The war had arisen to darken all horizons. But no such analyses are a complete explanation even of a short story ... — J.R.R. Tolkien

The long bone beads used in the breastplate were called hair pipes. They were used as a medium of exchange in trading. The finer they were, the more valuable they were. Originally they were made out of buffalo bones and later on, out of cow bones. They were not made by the Indians, however, but by white men who traded them to the Indians. — W. Ben Hunt

He learns that the form, in its current form, was originally called a formulary, and was invented by an Englishman named Charles Babbage, the same man who invented both an early kind of computer and the cow catcher, a device attached to the front of locomotives to clear debris from train tracks. He learns that Babbage once wrote to Alfred Tennyson to correct two lines from one of Tennyson's poems, which Babbage felt lacked scientific accuracy. This, thinks Jonas, tells you everything you need to know about both the man and the invention of forms. — Stephen Dau

Psychological despotism, whether enlightened or not, is gross misuse of psychology. The main purpose of psychology is to acquire insight into, and mastery of, oneself. Not for nothing were what we now call the behavioral sciences originally called the moral sciences and "Know thyself" their main precept. To use psychology to control, dominate, and manipulate others is self-destructive abuse of knowledge. It is also a particularly repugnant form of tyranny. — Peter F. Drucker

I had originally done a production called 'The Resistance.' It was one of those underground guerilla things, very low budget. Then Starz and Ghost House ended up picking it up and funding it, and we reshot it. — Katrina Law

Originally, I wanted to call the band 'Guns 'n Robots.' I still believe that if we had just called ourselves 'Guns 'n Robots' we'd still be together. — Slash

The ancient Hebrews had a word for this awareness of the importance of things. They called it kavod. Kavod originally was a business term, referring to the heaviness of something, which was crucial in weights and measures and the maintaining of fairness in transactions. Over time the word began to take on a more figurative meaning, referring to the importance and significance of something. — Rob Bell

The "mare" in "nightmare" originally referred to a demonic woman who suffocated sleepers by lying on their chests (she was called "Old Hag" in Newfoundland). — Oliver Sacks

The Christian religion is a parody on the worship of the sun, in which they put a man called Christ in the place of the sun, and pay him the adoration originally payed to the sun. — Thomas Paine

There is a particularly unattractive and discouragingly common affliction called tunnel vision, which for all the misery it causes, ought to top the job list at the World Health Organization. Tunnel vision is a disease in which perception is restricted by ignorance and distorted by vested interest. Tunnel vision is caused by an optic fungus that multiplies when the brain is less energetic than the ego. It is complicated by exposure to politics. When a good dea is run through the filters and compressors of ordinary tunnel vision, it not only comps out reduced in scale and value but in its new dogmatic configuration produces effects the opposite of those for which it originally was intended. — Tom Robbins

The theory called Euhemerism argued that all gods may have originally been only human rulers elevated to divinity by later generations for their benefits to mankind. — Daniel J. Boorstin

We were called The Toilets originally - we were flushed with success. — Mike Peters

I actually knew Sully's sister, and I was in a band called Stripmind, and then I became roommates with Sully and being out of a band, he asked if I wanted to join in his. Tony was originally the second guitarist in the band; a guy by the name of Lee Richards was the first. The rest is pretty much history. — Robbie Merrill

Back in the eighth century bc two kingdoms, Israel and Judah, occupied roughly the territory of modern Israel. The two kingdoms fought each other, but their inhabitants shared a religion and a common ancestry, because all of them belonged to one of twelve tribes descended from the twelve sons of Jacob. The kingdom of Israel was the older of the two and was originally the location of the religion's holy sites. When that kingdom was invaded by the Assyrians in the eighth century bc, though, tens of thousands of its inhabitants were carried off to northern Iraq. The kingdom of Judah was spared; its inhabitants came to be called Judeans, and then Jews. They, too, were taken into exile in Babylon, and came back with new ideas and changed traditions. As for the exiles from Israel, they were never heard of again, and came to be called the Ten Lost Tribes. But not all the ten tribes were truly lost, say the Samaritans. Some were deported by the Assyrians, yes, but others remained. — Gerard Russell

That which is now called learning, was not learning originally. Learning does not consist, as the schools now make it consist, in the knowledge of languages, but in the knowledge of things to which language gives names. — Thomas Paine

The most prominent word on the page was Bathyscaphe. "Get it?" the guy said. "A submarine," Chang said. "Capable of going all the way to the ocean bed." "Originally I called it Nemo. After the guy in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea. He commands a submarine named Nautilus. I liked him because nemo is Latin for nobody. Which seemed appropriate. But then they made a movie about a fish. Which ruined it." He typed another command, and a search box came up. He said, "OK, start your engines. Thirty-two seconds is the wager. — Lee Child

There's an excellent movie we have on TCM called 'It Happened on Fifth Avenue,' which was originally going to be directed by Frank Capra ... but just before he was going to start working on it, he came across this story called 'The Greatest Gift.' And that turned into 'It's a Wonderful Life.' — Robert Osborne

The interesting thing about a song like 'Bulletproof Heart' - it was [originally] called 'Trans Am' - the interesting thing about the amalgamation of that song was that the song also lived within us, like we all got to live with the song and it was around for about a year before we recorded it again, so the song got to really transform, which you don't really get to do. — Mikey Way

It just so happened that my agent called and said, 'There's this movie 'Pitch Perfect.' Here are the sides.' I think I originally read for Bumper, because Donald didn't have much in the script, so I read all Bumper's lines. I beatboxed for them, because that's what my character was supposed to do. And then I was like, 'By the way, I rap.' — Utkarsh Ambudkar

I ended up on 'Heroes' because I auditioned for the part like everybody else, but the writers were writing the role of Daphne, which was originally called Joy. — Brea Grant

Catharsis returns us to the purpose for which were originally intended - to be called by God to do good - and thus ultimately returns us to ourselves. — Desmond Tutu

Wallen, like Masters and Johnson, thinks it's possible that a majority of the so-called vaginal orgasms being had during intercourse are in reality clitoral orgasms. But unlike Masters and Johnson, he doesn't suggest that most women are having them easily. He believes, like Bonaparte, that the women having them - the paraclitoridiennes of the world - are an anatomically distinct group whose sexual response is different from that of the majority of women. And that maybe these women are where the whole notion of the vaginal orgasm originally came from. — Mary Roach

Critics must excuse me if I compare them to certain animals called asses, who, by gnawing vines, originally taught the great advantage of pruning them. — William Shenstone

The day of the full moon, when the moon is neither increasing nor decreasing, the Babylonians called Sa-bat, meaning "heart-rest." It was believed that on this day, the woman in the moon, Ishtar, as the moon goddess was known in Babylon, was menstruating, for in Babylon, as in virtually every ancient and primitive society, there had been since the earliest times a taboo against a woman working, preparing food, or traveling when she was passing her monthly blood. On Sa-bat, from which comes our Sabbath, men as well as women were commanded to rest, for when the moon menstruated, the taboo was on everyone. Originally (and naturally) observed once a month, the Sabbath was later to be incorporated by the Christians into their Creation myth and made conveniently weekly. So nowadays hard-minded men with hard muscles and hard hats are relieved from their jobs on Sundays because of an archetypal psychological response to menstruation. — Tom Robbins

Why are we so easily swayed by facts forwarded by email? Why do so many Indians believe that the Taj Mahal was originally a temple called Tejo Mahalaya? Why do so many of us instantly believe and immediately proselytize that 'India has never invaded any country in her last 1,000 years of history' or that 'The word "navigation" is derived from the Sanskrit navgath' without even pausing to ask: 'Is any of this actually true? — Sidin Vadukut

I'm originally from a town called Ipswich. I currently live in Newburyport. It's a port city, so I'm right on a river. It's really close to New Hampshire; I can pretty much throw a rock. I like where I'm from. — Melissa Ferrick

While writing my memoir, 'When Skateboards Will Be Free,' I would sometimes have to pore over hours of microfilm at the New York Public Library in order to try to get one obscure detail right. For instance, was the Socialist Workers Party originally called the American Workers Party or the Workers Party of the United States? — Said Sayrafiezadeh

Parasites are not only incredibly diverse; they are also incredibly successful. There are parasitic stretches of DNA in your own genes, some of which are called retrotransposons. Many of the parasitic stretches were originally viruses that entered our DNA. Most of them don't do us any harm. They just copy and insert themselves in other parts of our DNA, basically replicating themselves. Sometimes they hop into other species and replicate themselves in a new host. According to one estimate, roughly one-third to one-half of all human DNA is basically parasitic. — Carl Zimmer

Now the Gielgud Theater is a very famous old theater, because it was originally called the Globe, and the Globe is where my mother made her very first professional appearance in London, was at the Globe Theater. — Angela Lansbury