Shoes

"[In Auschwitz,] Death begins with the shoes; for most of us, they show themselves to be instruments of torture, which, after a few hours of marching, cause painful sores that become fatally infected. Whoever has them is forced to walk as if he were dragging a convict's chain (this explains the strange gait of the army which returns every evening on parade); he arrives last everywhere, and everywhere he gets beaten. He cannot escape if someone chases him; his feet swell and the more they swell, the more the friction against the wood and the canvas of the shoes becomes intolerable. Then only the hospital is left: but to enter the hospital with a diagnosis of "dicke Füsse" (swollen feet) is extremely dangerous, because it is well known to all, and especially to the SS, that here there is no cure for that complaint."

"Wear comfortable shoes!"

"And all the people inside looked at Karen’s red shoes, and all the figures gazed at them; when Karen knelt before the altar and put the golden goblet to her mouth, she thought only of the red shoes. It seemed to her as though they were swimming about in the goblet, and she forgot to sing the psalm, forgot to say the “Lord’s Prayer.”"

"I can’t concentrate in flats!"

"I had no shoes, and I felt sorry for myself until I met a man who had no feet. I took his shoes. Now I feel better."

"You can never take too much care over the choice of your shoes. Too many women think that they are unimportant, but the real proof of an elegant woman is what is on her feet."

"For want of a nail the shoe is lost, for want of a shoe the horse is lost, for want of a horse the rider is lost."

"Who is worse shod, than the shoemaker's wife, With shops full of shoes all her life?"

"I played in a new pair of shoes one day and they wore big blisters on my feet. The next day we came up short of players, a couple of men hurt and one missing. [...] I tried it with my old shoes on and just couldn't make it. He told me I'd have to play anyway, so I threw away the shoes and went to the outfield in my stockinged feet. [...] They picked it up and started calling me Shoeless Joe all around the league, and it stuck. I never played the outfield barefoot, and that was the only day I ever played in my stockinged feet, but it stuck with me."

"The shoe that fits one person pinches another."

"The most important thing to remember is that you can wear all the greatest clothes and all the greatest shoes, but you’ve got to have a good spirit on the inside. That’s what’s really going to make you look like you’re ready to rock the world."

"We’ve been wearing heels for so long, we’ve gotten so used to them that we feel more comfortable wearing them when we’re going up on stage. It straightens our postures; it makes us feel more confident. It’s not comfortable, but we’re so adjusted now that it feels weird without them."

"Shoes transform your body language and attitude. They lift you physically and emotionally."

"High heels were invented by a woman who had been kissed on the forehead."

"Give a girl the right shoes and she can conquer the world."

"I don’t know who invented high heels, but all women owe him a lot!"

"If I’m going dancing, then I wear the highest heels with the shortest dress."

"A Roman divorced from his wife, being highly blamed by his friends, who demanded, "Was she not chaste? Was she not fair? Was she not fruitful?" holding out his shoe, asked them whether it was not new and well made. "Yet," added he, "none of you can tell where it pinches me.""

"“Make a general practice of wearing sandals, for a man is riding as it were when he wears sandals” (5230)."

"You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose."

"The Stoical scheme of supplying our wants by lopping off our desires, is like cutting off our feet when we want shoes."

"Buckle shoes, bow shoes, Pretty pointy-toe shoes, Strappy, cappy low shoes; Let's have some to try."

"Beauty is a pair of shoes that makes you wanna die."

"A king of ancient India, oppressed by the roughness of the earth, upon soft human feet, proposed that his whole territory should be carpeted with skins. However, one of his wise men pointed out that the same result could be achieved far more simply by taking a single skin and cutting off small pieces to bind beneath the feet. These were the first sandals."