Quotes about ash

A collection of quotes on the topic of ash, likeness, time, timing.

Quotes about ash

Jack London photo

“I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.”

Jack London (1876–1916) American author, journalist, and social activist

The Bulletin, San Francisco, California, December 2, 1916, part 2, p. 1.
Also included in Jack London’s Tales of Adventure, ed. Irving Shepard, Introduction, p. vii (1956)

Gustav Mahler photo
Kurt Cobain photo

“She'll come back as fire
burn all the liars
leave a blanket of ash on the ground”

Kurt Cobain (1967–1994) American musician and artist

Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge on Seattle.
Song lyrics, In Utero (1993)

Pablo Neruda photo

“It is time, love, to break off that sombre rose,
shut up the stars and bury the ash in the earth;
and, in the rising of the light, wake with those who awoke
or go on in the dream, reaching the other shore of the sea which has no other shore.”

Pablo Neruda (1904–1973) Chilean poet

Es la hora, amor mío, de apartar esta rosa sombría,
cerrar las estrellas, enterrar la ceniza en la tierra:
y, en la insurrección de la luz, despertar con los que despertaron
o seguir en el sueño alcanzando la otra orilla del mar que no tiene otra orilla.
La Barcarola Termina (The Watersong Ends) (1967), trans. Anthony Kerrigan in Selected Poems by Pablo Neruda [Houghton Mifflin, 1990, ISBN 0-395-54418-1] (p. 500).

Friedrich Nietzsche photo
Joan of Arc photo

“Alas! that my body, clean and whole, never been corrupted, today must be consumed and burnt to ashes!”

Joan of Arc (1412–1431) French folk heroine and Roman Catholic saint

As quoted by Jean Toutmouille during the retrial after her execution (5 March 1449), as quoted in Jeanne d'Arc, maid of Orleans, Deliverer of France (1902) by T. Douglas Murray

Nas photo
George Orwell photo
Marguerite de Navarre photo
Georges Lemaître photo
Sylvia Plath photo

“Out of the ash
I rise with my red hair
and I eat men like air.”

Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer

"Lady Lazarus"
Ariel (1965)
Variant: p>Herr God, Herr Lucifer,
Beware.
Beware.Out of the ash
I rise with my red hair
And I eat men like air.</p
Source: Ariel: The Restored Edition

William Shakespeare photo
Leonard Cohen photo
Scott Westerfeld photo
C.G. Jung photo
Ray Bradbury photo
Oscar Wilde photo
Octavia E. Butler photo

“In order to rise from its own ashes, a Phoenix first must burn.”

Variant: In order to rise
From its own ashes
A phoenix
First
Must
Burn.
Source: Parable of the Talents

Cassandra Clare photo
Carl Sandburg photo

“I tell you the past is a bucket of ashes.”

Carl Sandburg (1878–1967) American writer and editor

"Prairie" (1918)
Source: Cornhuskers

Emil M. Cioran photo

“True confessions are written with tears only. But my tears would drown the world, as my inner fire would reduce it to ashes.”

Emil M. Cioran (1911–1995) Romanian philosopher and essayist

Source: On the Heights of Despair (1934)

Annie Dillard photo
Sojourner Truth photo

“Then I will speak upon the ashes.”

Sojourner Truth (1797–1883) African-American abolitionist and women's rights activist
Francesca Lia Block photo
Periyar E. V. Ramasamy photo

“If god is the root cause for our degradation destroy that god. If it is religion destroy it. If it is Manu Darma, Gita, or any other Mythology (Purana), burn them to ashes. If it is temple, tank, or festival, boycott them. Finally if it is our politics, come forward to declare it openly.”

Periyar E. V. Ramasamy (1879–1973) Tamil politician and social reformer

Veeramani, January 1981 (2005) Collected Works of Periyar E.V.R., Third Edition, Chennai. The Periyar Self-Respect Propaganda Institution, p. 489.
Society

Don Henley photo

“I've been tryin' to get down to the Heart of the Matter
Because the flesh will get weak
And the ashes will scatter
So I'm thinkin' about forgiveness
Forgiveness
Even if you don't love me anymore.”

Don Henley (1947) American singer, lyricist, producer and drummer

"The Heart of the Matter"
Song lyrics, The End of the Innocence (1989)

Barack Obama photo
Stephen Hawking photo
Napoleon I of France photo

“A little while ago, I stood by the grave of the old Napoleon, a magnificent tomb, and I gazed upon the sarcophagus of rare and nameless marble, where rest at last the ashes of that restless man. I leaned over the balustrade and thought about the career of the greatest soldier of the modern world. I saw him walking upon the banks of the Seine, contemplating suicide. I saw him at Toulon—I saw him putting down the mob in the streets of Paris—I saw him at the head of the army of Italy—I saw him crossing the bridge of Lodi with the tri-color in his hand—I saw him in Egypt in the shadows of the pyramids—I saw him conquer the Alps and mingle the eagles of France with the eagles of the crags. I saw him at Marengo—at Ulm and Austerlitz. I saw him in Russia, where the infantry of the snow and the cavalry of the wild blast scattered his legions like winter's withered leaves. I saw him at Leipsic in defeat and disaster—driven by a million bayonets back upon Paris—clutched like a wild beast—banished to Elba. I saw him escape and retake an empire by the force of his genius. I saw him upon the frightful field of Waterloo, where Chance and Fate combined to wreck the fortunes of their former king. And I saw him at St. Helena, with his hands crossed behind him, gazing out upon the sad and solemn sea. I thought of the orphans and widows he had made—of the tears that had been shed for his glory, and of the only woman who ever loved him, pushed from his heart by the cold hand of ambition. And I said I would rather have been a French peasant and worn wooden shoes. I would rather have lived in a hut with a vine growing over the door, and the grapes growing purple in the kisses of the autumn sun. I would rather have been that poor peasant with my loving wife by my side, knitting as the day died out of the sky—with my children upon my knees and their arms about me—I would rather have been that man and gone down to the tongueless silence of the dreamless dust, than to have been that imperial impersonation of force and murder, known as 'Napoleon the Great.”

Napoleon I of France (1769–1821) French general, First Consul and later Emperor of the French

Robert G. Ingersoll, The Liberty of Man, Woman and Child
About

Barack Obama photo
Henry Miller photo
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow photo
Sarvajna photo

“By wearing a mark of ash one were to reach heaven, a donkey (that rolls in ash) should reach there surely.”

Sarvajna Kannada poet, pragmatist and philosopher

Tripadis

Marilyn Manson photo
Lewis Carroll photo
Karl Marx photo

“When we have chosen the vocation in which we can contribute most to humanity, burdens cannot bend us because they are only sacrifices for all. Then we experience no meager, limited, egotistic joy, but our happiness belongs to millions, our deeds live on quietly but eternally effective, and glowing tears of noble men will fall on our ashes.”

Karl Marx (1818–1883) German philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist and revolutionary socialist

Writings of the Young Marx on Philosophy and Society, L. Easton, trans. (1967), p. 39
Reflections of a Youth on Choosing an Occupation (1835)

Jawaharlal Nehru photo

“Without peace, all other dreams vanish and are reduced to ashes.”

Jawaharlal Nehru (1889–1964) Indian lawyer, statesman, and writer, first Prime Minister of India

Address to the United Nations (28 August 1954); as quoted in The Macmillan Dictionary of Political Quotations (1993) by Lewis D. Eigen and Jonathan Paul Siegel, p. 698

Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay photo

“To every man upon this earth
Death cometh soon or late.
And how can man die better
Than facing fearful odds,
For the ashes of his fathers,
And the temples of his gods”

Horatius, st. 26 & 27; this quote is often truncated to read:
Lays of Ancient Rome (1842)
Context: Then out spake brave Horatius,
The Captain of the Gate:
"To every man upon this earth
Death cometh soon or late.
And how can man die better
Than facing fearful odds,
For the ashes of his fathers,
And the temples of his gods, And for the tender mother
Who dandled him to rest,
And for the wife who nurses
His baby at her breast,
And for the holy maidens
Who feed the eternal flame,
To save them from false Sextus
That wrought the deed of shame?"

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien photo
Suzanne Collins photo
Thomas Hardy photo
Sherrilyn Kenyon photo
Cassandra Clare photo
Carl Sagan photo
Cormac McCarthy photo
David Levithan photo
John Muir photo

“Yet how hard most people work for mere dust and ashes and care, taking no thought of growing in knowledge and grace, never having time to get in sight of their own ignorance.”

John Muir (1838–1914) Scottish-born American naturalist and author

Source: John Muir: His Life and Letters and Other Writings

Cormac McCarthy photo
Sherrilyn Kenyon photo
Sherrilyn Kenyon photo
Madeline Miller photo

“Yes she met with a slight accident involving a stake." Ash said "funny how that happens sometimes…”

L.J. Smith (1965) American author

Source: Night World, No. 1

Rick Riordan photo
Jean-Dominique Bauby photo
Sharon Shinn photo
Elie Wiesel photo

“Of one thing I am perfectly sure: God's story never ends with 'ashes.”

Elisabeth Elliot (1926–2015) American missionary

Source: These Strange Ashes

“Ash? Get bent and die.”

Daughters of Darkness

Cassandra Clare photo
Karen Marie Moning photo

“I told you, Ms. Lane, never believe anything is dead-"
"- I know, I know, until you've 'burned it, poked around in its ashes, and then waited a day or two to see if anything rises from them.”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Variant: Don't celebrate yet, Ms. Lane. Don't believe anything is dead until you've burned it, poked around in its ashes, and then waited a day or two to see if anything rises from them.
Source: Bloodfever

Charles Baudelaire photo
George Gordon Byron photo

“I am ashes where once I was fire…”

George Gordon Byron (1788–1824) English poet and a leading figure in the Romantic movement

Source: Selected Poems

Sherman Alexie photo
Simone de Beauvoir photo

“‎A day in which I don't write leaves a taste of ashes.”

Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) French writer, intellectual, existentialist philosopher, political activist, feminist, and social theorist
Jim Butcher photo
Kelley Armstrong photo
Robert Jordan photo

“Bloody flaming ashes”

Robert Jordan (1948–2007) American writer
Cormac McCarthy photo
Sherrilyn Kenyon photo
Margaret Atwood photo
Dorothy L. Sayers photo

“The ashes of your existence will fertilize the soil for the universe to follow.”

Richard Kadrey (1957) San Francisco-based novelist, freelance writer, and photographer

Source: Sandman Slim

“Bad magic happens"
Ash Redfern”

L.J. Smith (1965) American author

Source: Secret Vampire

Cassandra Clare photo
Cassandra Clare photo
Charles Bukowski photo
Sherrilyn Kenyon photo
Jodi Picoult photo
Sherrilyn Kenyon photo
Cassandra Clare photo

“He was all silver and ashes, not like Will's strong colors of blue and black and gold.”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

Source: The Infernal Devices: Clockwork Angel

Margaret Atwood photo
Patrick Rothfuss photo
Antonio Machado photo

“I thought my fireplace dead
and stirred the ashes.
I burned my fingers.”

Antonio Machado (1875–1939) Spanish poet

Source: Border of a Dream: Selected Poems

Sherrilyn Kenyon photo

“You are the Energizer Bunny for badasses. -Ash”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: No Mercy

Agatha Christie photo
Sherrilyn Kenyon photo