“Can storied urn, or animated bust
Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath?
Can Honour's voice provoke the silent dust,
Or Flatt'ry soothe the dull cold ear of Death?”

“Marat
Today they need you because you are going to suffer for them
They need you and they honour the urn which holds your ashes
Tomorrow they will come back and smash that urn
and they will ask
Marat who was Marat”

Peter Weiss Marat/Sade

“But, thou art ever there, to bring
The hovering vision back, and breathe
New glories o'er the blighted spring,
And call a lovelier Life from Death,
And whisper, with a voice divine,
Of real worlds, as bright as thine.”

Emily Brontë (1818–1848) English novelist and poet

“Black Death sits upon an eminence, and numbers the silent peoples for their lord; yet the greater part of the troop remains. The Gortynian judge shakes them in his inexorable urn, demanding the truth with threats, and constrains them to speak out their whole lives' story.”
In speculis Mors atra sedet dominoque silentes adnumerat populos; maior superinminet ordo. arbiter hos dura versat Gortynius urna vera minis poscens adigitque expromere vitas usque retro.

Statius book Thebaid

“The City is of Night; perchance of Death,
But certainly of Night; for never there
Can come the lucid morning's fragrant breath
After the dewy dawning's cold grey air.”

James Thomson (B.V.) (1834–1882) Scottish writer (1834-1882)

“Man is naturally a proud Animal, and is fond of nothing more than the Breath of Fame to sooth his Vanity, and flatter his Self-Admiration.”

Richard Blackmore (1654–1729) English poet and physician

“He said, 'The royal robe I wear
Trails all along the fields of light:
Its silent blue and silver bear
For gems the starry dust of night.'
'The breath of joy unceasingly
Waves to and fro its folds starlit,
And far beyond earth's misery
I live and breathe the joy of it.”

George William Russell (1867–1935) Irish writer, editor, critic, poet, and artistic painter

“The molasses voice pours into the sponge ear of the microphone and is transformed into silent, pulsing waves that radiate over a hundred miles.”

Katherine Dunn book Geek Love

“…because city honours are not village honours. Like certain wines, they do not travel; carry them back to the village and you find they are dust in your hands.”

Laurie Lee (1914–1997) British writer

“The fact is there are no stories I can tell my friends that will make them feel better. History cannot be erased, although we can soothe ourselves by speculating about it.”

Margaret Atwood (1939) Canadian writer