“Turning, for them who pass, the common dust
Of servile opportunity to gold.”
Desultory Stanza.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
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William Wordsworth 306
English Romantic poet 1770–1850Related quotes
Source: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (1974), Ch. 29
Context: The bones of the Sophists long ago turned to dust and what they said turned to dust with them and the dust was buried under the rubble of declining Athens through its fall and Macedonia through its decline and fall. Through the decline and death of ancient Rome and Byzantium and the Ottoman Empire and the modern states—buried so deep and with such ceremoniousness and such unction and such evil that only a madman centuries later could discover the clues needed to uncover them, and see with horror what had been done.
Source: The Wheel of Time: Shamans of Ancient Mexico, Their Thoughts About Life, Death and the Universe], (1998), Quotations from "Tales of Power" (Chapter 10)
“Strike the enemy’s settlements, turn them into dust, pave the Arab roads with the skulls of Jews.”
Michael B. Oren, Six Days of War [Oxford University Press, 2002], p293
“O pray the earth enfold
Our life-sick hearts and turn them into dust.”
A Last Word (1899).
“If gold must be gold, it must pass through the furnace.”
On the fact that difficulties serve a purpose - "Bewitching Favour" http://www.africanews.com/site/Bewitching_Favour/list_messages/27081 Africa News (September 22 2009)
“Broadway — the great sluice that washes out the dust of the gold-mines of Gotham.”
"From Each According to His Ability"
The Voice of the City (1908)
Source: Humboldt From 'The Gods and Other Lectures'