“Take a straw and throw it up into the air — you may see by that which way the wind is.”
John Selden (1584–1654) English jurist and scholar of England's ancient laws and constitution, and of Jewish law
Libels.
Table Talk (1689)
“A straw vote only shows which way the hot air blows.”
— O. Henry
"A Ruler of Men" Rolling Stones http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3815/3815-h/3815-h.htm (1913)
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O. Henry49
American short story writer 1862–1910Related quotes
“Happiness is a Slurpee and a hot pink straw.”
Jenny Han (1980) American writer
Source: It's Not Summer Without You
Boris Johnson (1964) British politician, historian and journalist
Source: EU referendum: Leaving EU a 'leap in the dark' says Cameron https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-35634239 BBC News (22 February 2016)
“[T]he only mark-to-market thing in politics is Election Day; everything else is hot air.”
Mike Murphy (political consultant) (1962) American political consultant
2010s, 2018, Interview with Bill Kristol (2018)
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (1841–1935) United States Supreme Court justice
"Holmes-Pollock Letters : The Correspondence of Mr. Justice Holmes and Sir Frederick Pollock, 1874-1932" (2nd ed., 1961), p. 109.
Often quoted as "I wouldn't give a fig for the simplicity on this side of complexity; I would give my right arm for the simplicity on the far side of complexity" and attributed to Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr..
1930s
Albert Pike book Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry
Source: Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry (1871), Ch. I : Apprentice, The Twelve-Inch Rule and Common Gavel, p. 1
Context: Force, unregulated or ill-regulated, is not only wasted in the void, like that of gunpowder burned in the open air, and steam unconfined by science; but, striking in the dark, and its blows meeting only the air, they recoil, and bruise itself. It is destruction and ruin. It is the volcano, the earthquake, the cyclone; — not growth and progress. It is Polyphemus blinded, striking at random, and falling headlong among the sharp rocks by the impetus of his own blows.
Henry S. Haskins (1875–1957)
Source: Meditations in Wall Street (1940), p. 58
“The only way to avoid No Deal is to vote for a deal.”
Theresa May (1956) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
Brexit: Corbyn tells May to rule out no deal at meeting https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-47052227 BBC News (30 January 2019) <br class="br">2010s, On Brexit
“It seems to me that the argument of the defendant's counsel blows hot and cold at the same time.”
Sir Francis Buller, 1st Baronet (1746–1800) British judge
L'Anson v. Stuart (1787), 1 T. R. 753. Compare: ". . . . This would be blowing hot and cold". Lawrence, J., Berkeley Peerage Case (1811), 4 Camp. 412; "Hot and cold were in one body fixt; And soft with hard, and light with heavy mixt", Dryden.
“Writing without making mistakes is like vomiting hot air.”
Günter Brus (1938) Austrian artist
Source: Nervous Stillness on the Horizon (2006), P. 261 (2003)