Quotes about ash

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

Quotes about ash

“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)

Time, Wise

“My life has made me
Stronger.
I never knew that I had it inside me
to move up from the ashes.
My life is a victory…I am not a victim.
I have been through the worst situations
and
am still here.”

Stephie Pahlavi Zan

Life, Victory

“Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire.”

Gustav Mahler (1860–1911) late-Romantic Austrian composer

“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)

“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).

Love, Dreams, Star, Light

“you must be ready to burn yourself in your own flame;
how could you rise anew if you have not first become ashes?”

Friedrich Nietzsche book Thus Spoke Zarathustra

Source: Thus Spoke Zarathustra

“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

“As well a well-wrought urn becomes
The greatest ashes, as half-acre tombs.”

John Donne The Canonization

The Canonization, stanza 4

“Then I rose, wiping the blunts ash from my clothes
then froze only to blow the herb smoke through my nose
and told my little man that i'm a go cyprose
there's some jewels in the skull that he can sell if he chose
words of wisdom from nas try to rise up above”

Nas (1973) American rapper, record producer and entrepreneur

One Love
On Albums, Illmatic (1994)

Wisdom, Clothes

“Ah, the poverty, the shortness the disappointment of human joy! For in reality car en realite, what is the duration of the supreme moment of love? It is nothing, an instant, a second perhaps. A second of ecstasy, and after that- dust, ashes, nothingness.”

George Orwell book Down and Out in Paris and London

Source: Down and out in Paris and London (1933), Ch. 2, Charlie

Love, Disappointment, Cars, Reality

“Though jealousy be produced by love as ashes are by fire, yet jealousy extinguishes love, as ashes smother the flame.”

Marguerite de Navarre book Heptaméron

Fifth Day, Novel XLVIII (trans. W. K. Kelly)
L'Heptaméron (1558)

Love, Jealousy

“We want a fireworks theory of evolution. The last two thousand million years are slow evolution: they are the smoke and ashes of bright but very rapid fireworks.”

Georges Lemaître (1894–1966) Belgian scientist and priest

Article in Nature, 1931, vol 128, page 704

“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

Men

“Nor shall this peace sleep with her; but as when
The bird of wonder dies, the maiden phoenix,
Her ashes new-create another heir
As great in admiration as herself.”

William Shakespeare Henry VIII

Source: Henry VIII

Peace, Bird, Sleep

“Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash.”

Leonard Cohen (1934–2016) Canadian poet and singer-songwriter

Life

“Never give us what we really want. Cut the dream into pieces and scatter them like ashes. Dole out the empty promises. Package our aspirations and sell them to us, cheaply made enough to fall apart.”

Scott Westerfeld book So Yesterday

Source: So Yesterday

Dreams

“Leonardo da Vinci wrote in his Notebooks: “It should not be hard for you to stop sometimes and look into the stains of walls, or ashes of a fire, or clouds, or mud or like places in which … you may find really marvelous ideas.”

C.G. Jung book Man and His Symbols

Source: Man and His Symbols

Idea

“Monday burn Millay, Wednesday Whitman, Friday Faulkner, burn 'em to ashes, then burn the ashes. That's our official slogan.”

Ray Bradbury book Fahrenheit 451

Source: Fahrenheit 451

“I want to love you simply, in words not spoken: tinder to the flame which transforms it to ash
I want to love you simply, in signs not expressed: clouds to the rain which make them evanescent (Aku Ingin-I Want)”

Sapardi Djoko Damono (1940) Indonesian poet

Love

“Even ashes are a part of your freedom.”

Sarah Waters book Fingersmith

Source: Fingersmith

Freedom, Parting

“I want to make Romeo jealous! I want the dead lovers of the world to hear our laughter, and grow sad. I want a breath of our passion to stir their dust into consciousness, to wake their ashes into pain.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

Pain, World, Sadness, Lovers

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

Octavia E. Butler book Parable of the Talents

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

“I don't care," Clary said. "He'd do it for me. Tell me he wouldn't. If I were missing-"
"He'd burn the whole world down till he could dig you out of the ashes. I know," Alec said.”

Cassandra Clare The City of Lost Souls

Source: City of Lost Souls

World

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

Carl Sandburg (1878–1967) American writer and editor

"Prairie" (1918)
Source: Cornhuskers

Moving On, Past

“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)

World, Tear

Annie Dillard (1945) American writer

Source: The Writing Life

Learning

“Then I will speak upon the ashes.”

Sojourner Truth (1797–1883) African-American abolitionist and women's rights activist

“Flowers are reincarnation. They come out of the earth of our ashes. Nothing else looks so soul-like.”

Francesca Lia Block book Echo

Source: Echo

Soul, Flowers

“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

God, Religion

“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)

Love, Forgiveness, Heart

“And then, on September 11, 2001, the world fractured. It's beyond my skill as a writer to capture that day, and the days that would follow — the planes, like specters, vanishing into steel and glass; the slow-motion cascade of the towers crumbling into themselves; the ash-covered figures wandering the streets; the anguish and the fear. Nor do I pretend to understand the stark nihilism that drove the terrorists that day and that drives their brethren still. My powers of empathy, my ability to reach into another's heart, cannot penetrate the blank stares of those who would murder innocents with abstract, serene satisfaction.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

Preface to the 2004 edition of Dreams from My Father, p. x
2004

World, Fear, Understanding, Heart

“I'm sorry to disappoint science fiction fans, but if information is preserved, there is no possibility of using black holes to travel to other universes. If you jump into a black hole, your mass energy will be returned to our universe but in a mangled form which contains the information about what you were like but in a state where it can not be easily recognized. It is like burning an encyclopedia. Information is not lost, if one keeps the smoke and the ashes. But it is difficult to read. In practice, it would be too difficult to re-build a macroscopic object like an encyclopedia that fell inside a black hole from information in the radiation, but the information preserving result is important for microscopic processes involving virtual black holes.”

Stephen Hawking (1942–2018) British theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author

"Information Loss in Black Holes" http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0507171 (July 2005)

Disappointment, Travel, Universe, Science

“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

Love, Fate, Children, World

“Throughout American history, there have been moments that call on us to meet the challenges of an uncertain world, and pay whatever price is required to secure our freedom. They are the soul-trying times our forbearers spoke of, when the ease of complacency and self-interest must give way to the more difficult task of rendering judgment on what is best for the nation and for posterity, and then acting on that judgment — making the hard choices and sacrifices necessary to uphold our most deeply held values and ideals. This was true for those who went to Lexington and Concord. It was true for those who lie buried at Gettysburg. It was true for those who built democracy’s arsenal to vanquish fascism, and who then built a series of alliances and a world order that would ultimately defeat communism. And this has been true for those of us who looked on the rubble and ashes of 9/11, and made a solemn pledge that such an atrocity would never again happen on United States soil; that we would do whatever it took to hunt down those responsible, and use every tool at our disposal – diplomatic, economic, and military — to root out both the agents of terrorism and the conditions that helped breed it.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

"A Way Forward in Iraq", Remarks to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs (20 November 2006)
2006

Lie, World, Way, Democracy

“Through it all I learned the value of being humble to the dust, reduced to ashes. Everyone should experience that. Before you can recognize you're somebody, you have to know you're nobody. [-] The butterfly was just a lowly worm in its beginning. The worm didn't live with the moment-to-moment expectation of sprouting wings and taking flight. He lived a useful and productive life, the life of a worm. And he had to die a worm in order to be born as an angel! The spinning of the cocoon is, in and of itself, remarkable. It is as wondrous as the emergence and first flight of the butterfly.”

Henry Miller (1891–1980) American novelist

Reflections (1981)

Life, Angels, Learning

“Something the heart must have to cherish,
Must love and joy and sorrow learn;
Something with passion clasp, or perish
And in itself to ashes burn.”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow book Hyperion

Hyperion, book ii.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Love, Learning, Passion, Heart

“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

“Understand this, tell others: in my dream vultures chase me into my burning house. There, they pick out the brains of my family, dismember them, devour. I emerge from my home and I am burning, skin falling away like a snake as the structure crumbles into a black skeleton. I cannot fight off the vultures. A young man or woman emerges from the ashes. He/she doesn't save me, because he/she is holding my cracked and swollen heart in one hand and a piece of paper in the other. I can read it. It discusses and compares in great detail the differences between me and the vultures. He wraps my heart in the paper and tosses it to the ground. Can you see?”

Marilyn Manson (1969) American rock musician and actor

As quoted in MarilynManson.com (6 February 1999).
1990s

Family, Dreams, Home, Understanding

“The pictures, with their ruddy light,
Are changed to dust and ashes white,
And I am left alone with night.”

Lewis Carroll Three Sunsets and Other Poems

Faces in the Fire (1860), st. 13
Three Sunsets and Other Poems (1898)

Light, Change, Night

“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)

Men, Tear, Joy, Happiness

“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

Peace, Dreams

“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”

Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay book Lays of Ancient Rome

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?"

Death, God, Fear

“All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.”

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien book The Fellowship of the Ring

Source: The Fellowship of the Ring, Poem Riddle of Strider

Light, Strong, Spring

“Dust to dust, ashes to ashes. Halleluiah amen, you are dismissed.”

Ted Dekker (1962) American writer

“Maybe I'll be like the man in the Hanging Tree still waiting for an answer.' Gale who I have never seen cry has tears in his eyes. To keep them from spilling over. I reach forward and press my lips against his. We taste of heat, ashes and misery.”

Suzanne Collins book Mockingjay

Source: Mockingjay

Tear, Tree, Waiting, Cry

“To dwellers in a wood almost every species of tree has its voice as well as its feature. At the passing of the breeze the fir-trees sob and moan no less distinctly than they rock; the holly whistles as it battles with itself; the ash hisses amid its quiverings; the beech rustles while its flat boughs rise and fall.”

Thomas Hardy Under the Greenwood Tree

Source: Under the Greenwood Tree (1872), ch. 1

Tree

“Ewwww-eee-wwww. Hey Ash, you vant to suck my blud? (Fang)
No, thanks. The last thing I want is to catch parvo from you, or some other freaky dog disease that makes me lift my leg around hydrants. (Acheron)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon Night Embrace

Source: Night Embrace

Disease, Dogs

“Valentine!"
"You mean father. I despise this modern habit of calling one's parents by their names."
"What I want to call you is a hell of a lot more unprintable than your name."
- Clary Fray and Valentine Morgenstern (City of Ashes)”

Cassandra Clare book City of Ashes

Source: City of Ashes

Hell, Parent

“Ash held one finger up. "OK. Now listen-"
Mary-Lynnette kicked him in the shins. She knew it was inapporopriate, she knew it was uncalled-for, but she couldn't stop herself. She justto.
"Oh, for God's sake," Ash said, hopping backward. "Are you?”

L.J. Smith book Daughters of Darkness

Source: Daughters of Darkness

God

“We are made of stellar ash. Our origin and evolution have been tied to distant cosmic events. The exploration of the cosmos is a voyage of self-discovery.”

Carl Sagan book Cosmos

Source: Cosmos

Distant

“Then they set out along the blacktop in the gunmetal light, shuffling through the ash, each the other's world entire.”

Cormac McCarthy book The Road

Source: The Road

World, Light

“why won't they
leave me
alone?
don't they
realize I
have a
tinder heart
and a
paper body
and that
any spark
will turn me
straight to ash?”

David Levithan The Realm of Possibility

Source: The Realm of Possibility

Heart

“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

People, Knowledge, Time

“And the dreams so rich in color. How else would death call you? Waking in the cold dawn it all turned to ash instantly. Like certain ancient frescoes entombed for centuries suddenly exposed to the day.”

Cormac McCarthy book The Road

Source: The Road

Death, Dreams, Color

“Do me a favor."

"Don't lick your seat belt?"

Ash's expression was total confusion. "Huh? where did that randomness come from?”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Invincible

“The hour grows late."

"Late? So? Do you have to be on Ash Campus early tomorrow? At the University of Nothing Matters?”

Kresley Cole American writer

Source: Endless Knight

Universe

“I swear if that's a pair of demon horns digging into my belly and stabbing me right now, Ash, I'm going to beat you after it's born."

'Cause face it, horns on the head didn't come from my side of the family or genetic code.”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Retribution

Family

“When I am dead, I charge you to mingle our ashes and bury us together.”

Madeline Miller book The Song of Achilles

Source: The Song of Achilles

Dead

“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

“Percy," Grover said, "the godsdon't appreciate people sitting in their thrones. I mean like turn-you-into-a-pile-of-ashes don't appreciate it.”

Rick Riordan book The Last Olympian

Source: The Last Olympian

People

“I am fading away. Slowly but surely. Like the sailor who watches his home shore gradually disappear, I watch my past recede. My old life still burns within me, but more and more of it is reduced to the ashes of memory.”

Jean-Dominique Bauby book The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

Source: The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

Life, Home, Memory, Past

“A truth comes out when it must;
A dream comes true when it will.
Though the world turn to ash and dust
A secret’s a secret still.”

Sharon Shinn (1957) American science fiction writer

Source: The Safe-Keeper's Secret

Truth, Secret, World, Dreams

“Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, that turned my life into one long night seven times sealed.
Never shall I forget that smoke.
Never shall I forget the small faces of the children whose bodies I saw transformed into smoke under a silent sky.
Never shall I forget those flames that consumed my faith forever.
Never shall I forget the nocturnal silence that deprived me for all eternity of the desire to live.
Never shall I forget those moments that murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to ashes.
Never shall I forget those things, even were I condemned to live as long as God Himself.
Never.”

Elie Wiesel book Night

Source: Night (1960)

Life, God, Children, Faith

“Jeremy: "Who did it? Wait-you think I did. Don't you?"
Ash: "It did cross our minds at one point. Actually, it seemed to keep crossing them. Back and forth. Maybe we should put in a crosswalk.”

L.J. Smith book Daughters of Darkness

Source: Daughters of Darkness

Thinking, Waiting

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

Elisabeth Elliot (1926–2015) American missionary

Source: These Strange Ashes

God

“Ash? Get bent and die.”

L.J. Smith book Daughters of Darkness

Daughters of Darkness

“She could understand suddenly why people talked about passion as fire: She felt as if they had caught aflame and were burning like the dry Malibu hills, about to become ashes that would mix together forever.”

Cassandra Clare book Lady Midnight

Source: Lady Midnight

People, Understanding, Passion

“QUINN; You always look after Number One, don't you?
ASH; Doesn't everybody?”

L.J. Smith book Daughters of Darkness

Source: Daughters of Darkness

“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

Waiting, Dead