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)
“You can blow out a candle
But you can't blow out a fire
Once the flames begin to catch
The wind will blow it higher”
Biko
Song lyrics, Peter Gabriel (III) (1980)
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Peter Gabriel 56
English singer-songwriter, record producer and humanitarian 1950Related quotes
Poem: The Drunken Fisherman http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/g_l/lowell/onlinepoems.htm
“For nowadays the world is lit by lightning! Blow out your candles, Laura -- and so goodbye….”
Tom, Scene Seven
Source: The Glass Menagerie (1944)
Context: Oh, Laura, Laura, I tried to leave you behind me, but I am more faithful than I intended to be! I reach for a cigarette, I cross the street, I run into the movies or a bar, I buy a drink, I speak to the nearest stranger — anything that can blow your candles out! — for nowadays the world is lit by lightning! Blow out your candles Laura — and so goodbye…
“Blow the candle out, I don't need to see what my thoughts look like.”
Source: Germinal
“If it rains, let it rain, if the wind blows, let it blow.”
As quoted in The Essence of Zen : Zen Buddhism for Every Day and Every Moment (2002) by Mark Levon Byrne, p. 28.
Context: From the world of passions returning to the world of passions:
There is a moment's pause.
If it rains, let it rain, if the wind blows, let it blow.
“Wherever waves can roll, and winds can blow.”
The Farewell (1764), line 38; comparable with: "Far as the breeze can bear, the billows foam", Lord Byron, The Corsair, canto i. stanza 1
“The wind is blowing, adore the wind.”
Symbol 8
The Symbols
“A great wind is blowing and that either gives you imagination… or a headache.”
As quoted in Daughters of Eve (1930) by Gamaliel Bradford, p. 192
Variant: A great wind is blowing, and that gives you either imagination or a headache.