The New York Times reports that, for security reasons, the Secret Service may seek to block a lane of Fifth Avenue in front of the president-elect’s residence.*
*[UPDATE: Today Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that Fifth Avenue in front of Trump Tower will remain open for the foreseeable future.]
A good dog doesn’t block the road.
—Chinese proverb
Americans will put up with anything as long as it doesn’t block traffic.
—Dan Rather
With the same cement, ever sure to bind
We bring to one dead level ev’ry mind.
Then take him to develop if you can,
And hew the block off, and get out the man.—Alexander Pope, The Dunciad
Some scientists claim that hydrogen, because it is so plentiful, is the basic building block of the universe. I dispute that. I say that there is more stupidity than hydrogen, and that is the basic building block of the universe.
—Frank Zappa
The real stumbling-block of totalitarian régimes is not the spiritual need of men for freedom of thought; it is men’s inability to stand the physical and nervous strain of a permanent state of excitement, except during a few years of their youth.
—Simone Weil
I ain’t lookin’ to block you up,
Shock or knock or lock you up,
Analyze you, categorize you,
Finalize you or advertise you.—Bob Dylan, “All I Really Want to Do”
Of course I lie to people. But I lie altruistically — for our mutual good. The lie is the basic building block of good manners. That may seem mildly shocking to a moralist — but then what isn’t?
—Quentin Crisp
There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening, that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and will be lost.
—Martha Graham
I choose a block of marble and chop off whatever I don’t need.
—Auguste Rodin
No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money.
—Samuel Johnson
Writing about a writer’s block is better than not writing at all.
—Charles Bukowski, The Last Night of the Earth Poems
The house of my body has spoken
often as you rebuild me like blocks,
and promise to come visit
when I’m finally adjusted on safe land,
and am livable, joist to joist
with storm windows and screens …—Anne Sexton, “There You Were”
Awaiting the sensation of a short, sharp shock,
From a cheap and chippy chopper on a big black block.—W. S. Gilbert, The Mikado
Was it always in my nature to take a bad time and block out the good times, until any success becomes an accident and failure seemed the only truth?
—Lillian Hellman
The block of granite which was an obstacle in the pathway of the weak, became a stepping-stone in the pathway of the strong.
—Thomas Carlyle
It is the eye of ignorance that assigns a fixed and unchangeable color to every object; beware of this stumbling block.
—Paul Gauguin
There is no worse screen to block out the Spirit than confidence in our own intelligence.
—John Calvin
Man’s great misfortune is that he has no organ, no kind of eyelid or brake, to mask or block a thought, or all thought, when he wants to.
—Paul Valery
