“For all those beaten, for the broken heads,
The fosterless, the simple, the oppressed,
The ghosts in the burning city of our time…”
Litany for Dictatorships (1935)
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Stephen Vincent Benét 102
poet, short story writer, novelist 1898–1943Related quotes

Directive (1947)
Context: Back out of all this now too much for us,
Back in a time made simple by the loss
Of detail, burned, dissolved, and broken off
Like graveyard marble sculpture in the weather,
There is a house that is no more a house
Upon a farm that is no more a farm
And in a town that is no more a town.
The road there, if you'll let a guide direct you
Who only has at heart your getting lost,
May seem as if it should have been a quarry –
Great monolithic knees the former town
Long since gave up pretense of keeping covered.
And there's a story in a book about it…

“Of all ghosts the ghosts of our old loves are the worst.”
Source: The Memoirs Of Sherlock Holmes

“I have broken the machine and touched the ghost of matter.”
As quoted by Richard Reeves, A Force of Nature The Frontier Genius of Ernest Rutherford (2008) citing Ernest Rutherford Atom Man http://www.nzedge.com/ernest-rutherford/

To Leon Goldensohn, March 1, 1946, from "The Nuremberg Interviews" by Leon Goldensohn, Robert Gellately - History - 2004.

“Ant-swarming city, city abounding in dreams,
Where ghosts in broad daylight accost the passerby!”
Fourmillante cité, cité pleine de rêves,
Où le spectre en plein jour raccroche le passant!
"Les Sept Vieillards" [The Seven Old Men] http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Les_sept_vieillards
Les fleurs du mal (Flowers of Evil) (1857)

Quoted in CNR Rao, a high priest of pure science gets Bharat Ratna, 12 November 2012, 22 December 2013, IBN Live http://ibnlive.in.com/news/world-renowned-scientist-cnr-rao-gets-bharat-ratna/434510-3.html,