“Absence is to love as wind is to fire: it extinguishes the little flame, it fans the big.”

— Umberto Eco

Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Umberto Eco 120

Italian semiotician, essayist, philosopher, literary critic… 1932–2016

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“Absence extinguishes the minor passions and increases the great ones, as the wind blows out a candle and fans a fire.”

François de La Rochefoucauld book Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims

L'absence diminue les médiocres passions, et augmente les grandes, comme le vent éteint les bougies et allume le feu.
http://books.google.com/books?id=QSdPNfXQavAC&q=%22L'absence+diminue+les+m%C3%A9diocres+passions+et+augmente+les+grandes+comme+le+vent+%C3%A9teint+les+bougies+et+allume+le+feu%22&pg=PA75#v=onepage
Variant translation: Absence weakens the minor passions and adds to the effects of great ones, as the wind blows out a candle and fans a fire.
Maxim 276.
Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims (1665–1678)

“Though jealousy be produced by love as ashes are by fire, yet jealousy extinguishes love, as ashes smother the flame.”

Marguerite de Navarre book Heptaméron

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“Summer set lip to earth's bosom bare;
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Francis Thompson (1859–1907) British poet

The Poppy http://books.google.com/books?id=qM8VAAAAYAAJ&q="Summer+set+lip+to+earth's+bosom+bare+And+left+the+flushed+print+in+a+poppy+there+Like+a+yawn+of+fire+from+the+grass+it+came+And+the+fanning+wind+puffed+it+to+flapping+flame"&pg=PA6#v=onepage.

“I warned you then and I'm warning you now
If you mess with me you're playing with fire
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Ozzy Osbourne (1948) English heavy metal vocalist and songwriter

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“Love lights more fires than hate extinguishes.”

Элла Уилер Уилкокс (1850–1919)

“A little knowledge is said to be a dangerous thing, but it is not dangerous to the imagination. Knowledge is to the imagination what fuel is to flame. A little feeds it; a great deal extinguishes it.”

Alfred Austin (1835–1913) British writer and poet

Source: The Poet's Diary (1904), p. 158.

“You shall also keep your fires burning if the ships are blown back by contrary winds, but if the ships are foreign or not Dutch (onduitsch) you shall at once extinguish your fire.”

Jan van Riebeeck (1619–1677) Dutch colonial governor

Precis of the Archives of the Cape of Good Hope, January 1656 - December 1658, Riebeeck's Journal, H. C. V. Leibrandt, Cape Town 1897, p. 117

On the 3rd of May 1658 Jan van Riebeeck gave further instructions to the men on Robben Island;