“… and they watched the fire which does contain within it something of men themselves inasmuch as they are less without it and are divided from their origins and are exiles. For each fire is all fires, the first fire and the last ever to be.”

“It is something like fire working on wood; the heat draws out all the moisture, the greenness and the heaviness. It grows warm, begins to glow, becomes more like the fire itself. As the wood slowly takes on the likeness of fire, the dissimilarity between the two grows less until finally, in a rapid movement, the fire takes from the wood its own substance; the wood becomes fire and loses at the same time its separateness and inequality, since it has become fire. No longer merely like fire, it has become one substance with the fire. Likeness is lost in union.”

Johannes Tauler (1300–1361) German theologian

“Unemployment, of course, sends the economy into a recession, creating more unemployment. Ironically, unemployment hurts women more than men. Feminists argue that’s because of sex discrimination: women are the last to be hired and the first to be fired. Correct on the outcome; wrong on the reason. We hire first what we need most, and we fire first what we need least. That’s why you hire the garbage collector first, and fire him last. Men may be hired first and fired last because more men are willing to do society’s dirty work and hazardous work for a lower price.”

Warren Farrell (1943) author, spokesperson, expert witness, political candidate

“Motivation is a fire from within. If someone else tries to light that fire under you, chances are it will burn very briefly.”

Stephen R. Covey (1932–2012) American educator, author, businessman and motivational speaker

“It is not light that burns, that purifies, that consumes, that divides, and that recomposes; it is fire. And this fire we are talking about always follows light.”

Joseph Joubert (1754–1824) French moralist and essayist

“For fire flames but in the heart of a colder fire.
All voice is but echo caught from a sound-less voice.
Height is not deprivation of valley, nor defect of desire.
But defines, for the fortunate, that joy in
which all joys should rejoice.”

Robert Penn Warren (1905–1989) American poet, novelist, and literary critic

“One who walks from fire to fire dies from the cold.”

Antonio Porchia (1885–1968) Italian Argentinian poet

“Through centuries of centuries, fire and water face each other; the fire, upright, buoyant and leaping; the water flat, creeping, gliding, widening its lines and its surface. When they touch, is it the water which hisses and roars, or is it the fire?”

Henri Barbusse (1873–1935) French novelist

“Whoever criticizes others must have something to replace them. Criticism without suggestion is like trying to stop flood with flood and put out fire with fire. It will surely be without worth.”

Mozi (-470–-391 BC) Chinese political philosopher and religious reformer of the Warring States period

“There's no smoke without fire.”

Georgy Zhukov (1896–1974) Marshal of the Soviet Union