Quotes about burning

A collection of quotes on the topic of burn, burning, likeness, fire.

Quotes about burning

“What is to give light must endure burning.”

Viktor E. Frankl (1905–1997) Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist, and Holocaust survivor

“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

“Now I have neither happiness nor unhappiness. Everything passes. That is the one and only thing that I have thought resembled a truth in the society of human beings where I have dwelled up to now as in a burning hell. Everything passes.”

Osamu Dazai book No Longer Human

The Third Notebook: Part Two
Source: No Longer Human

Truth, Hell, Happiness

“All heaven's glory is within and so is hell's fierce burning.
You must yourself decide in which direction you are turning”

Angelus Silesius (1624–1677) German writer

The Cherubinic Wanderer

Hell

“Bodies have their own light which they consume to live: they burn, they are not lit from the outside.”

Egon Schiele (1890–1918) austrian painter

Light

“Your kisses lift me higher… like the sweet song of a choir. You light my morning sky, with burning love.”

Elvis Presley (1935–1977) American singer and actor

Love, Kiss, Light

“Wordless,
Infinite —
You.
You intensify
everything.
You are
fire
burning
all that
is left
of my
heart.”

Frida Kahlo (1907–1954) Mexican painter

Heart

“There is no need to carry me to another prison. My life is already ebbing away. I suggest that you nail me to a cross and burn me alive. My flaming body will be a torch to light my people on their path to freedom.”

Gavrilo Princip (1894–1918) Bosnian assassin

Said to the prison warden on being moved to another prison; as quoted by Borivoje Jevtic (1914) http://wwi.lib.byu.edu/index.php/The_Assassination_of_Archduke_Franz_Ferdinand

Life, People, Freedom, Light

“My spirit is warmed up with the visions of my destiny; while my heart is burning with the desires to achieve them all. Those thoughts have produced a thick smoke that's clouding my mind from focusing in the present moment.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Heart

“Being the companion of the folk of this world is fire. There must be an Abraham if the fire is not going to burn”

Shams-i Tabrizi (1185–1248) 1185-1248, spiritual instructor of Mewlānā Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Balkhi.

you
Me & Rumi (2004)

World

“To bear children into this world is like carrying wood into a burning house.”

Peter Wessel Zapffe (1899–1990) Norwegian philosopher, mountaineer, and author

As quoted in Reflekser i trylleglass: stemmer fra vårt århundre [Magical Reflections : Voices of Our Century] (1998) edited by Haagen Ringnes

World, Children, Housing

“Being a student is like someone behind bars; only those who burn the midnight oil will get the certificate of freedom.”

Ahmed Omaar

Freedom

“The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!"”

Jack Kerouac book On the Road

Part One, Ch. 1
On the Road (1957)
Context: They danced down the streets like dingledodies, and I shambled after as I've been doing all my life after people who interest me, because the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!"

People, Star, Time, Madness

“If I were fire, I would burn; if I were a woodcutter, I would strike. But I am a heart, and I love.”

Nikos Kazantzakis book The Last Temptation of Christ

Source: The Last Temptation of Christ

Love, Heart

“Once she was gone, I knelt next to Annabeth and felt her forehead. She was still burning up.
"You're cute when you're worried," she muttered. "Your eyebrows get all scrunched together."
"You aregoing to die while I owe you a favor," I said. "Why did you take that knife?"
"You would've done the same for me."
It was true. I guess we both knew it. Still, I felt like somebody was poking my heart with a cold metal rod.”

Rick Riordan book The Last Olympian

Source: The Last Olympian

Heart

“A thousand Dreams within me softly burn”

Arthur Rimbaud (1854–1891) French Decadent and Symbolist poet

Dreams

“Yes I was burned but I called it a lesson learned. Mistake overturned so I call it a lesson learned. My soul has returned so I call it a lesson learned… another lesson learned”

Alicia Keys (1981) American singer-songwriter, pianist, and actress

Soul, Learning

“Angels, living light most glorious!
Beneath the Godhead in burning desire
in the darkness and mystery of creation
you look on the eye of your God
never taking your fill:
What glorious pleasures take shape within you!”

Hildegard of Bingen (1098–1179) Medieval saint, prophetise, mystic and Doctor of Church

"O gloriosissimi"

God, Pleasure, Angels, Light

“There are three lessons I would write, —
Three words — as with a burning pen,
In tracings of eternal light
Upon the hearts of men.”

Friedrich Schiller (1759–1805) German poet, philosopher, historian, and playwright

Hope, Faith, and Love (c. 1786); also known as "The Words of Strength", as translated in The Common School Journal Vol. IX (1847) edited by Horace Mann, p. 386
Context: There are three lessons I would write, —
Three words — as with a burning pen,
In tracings of eternal light
Upon the hearts of men. Have Hope. Though clouds environ now,
And gladness hides her face in scorn,
Put thou the shadow from thy brow, —
No night but hath its morn. Have Faith. Where'er thy bark is driven, —
The calm's disport, the tempest's mirth, —
Know this: God rules the hosts of heaven,
The habitants of earth. Have Love. Not love alone for one,
But men, as man, thy brothers call;
And scatter, like the circling sun,
Thy charities on all. Thus grave these lessons on thy soul, —
Hope, Faith, and Love, — and thou shalt find
Strength when life's surges rudest roll,
Light when thou else wert blind.

Men, Light, Heart

“Do not be afraid to burn a bridge you never want to cross again.”

Gandolfo – (RJ Intindola)

2018

“The love of God is so hot than a burning coal. It burns the heart and warms the chest; while at the same time calming the mind like still water.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

God, Time, Heart, Water

“In India, people burn themselves when the soul leaves the body, at the same time they wish to reincarnate into something else while destroying the body part.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Soul, Time, People, Parting

“Rise and demand; you are a burning flame.
You are sure to conquer there where the final horizon
Becomes a drop of blood, a drop of life,
Where you will carry the universe on your shoulders,
Where the universe will bear your hope.”

Miguel ángel Asturias (1899–1974) colombia

Life, Hope, Universe

The quote is mistakenly attributed to the author

“She was a wild, wicked slip of a girl. She burned too brightly for this world.”

Emily Brontë book Wuthering Heights

Variant: She burned too bright for this world.
Source: The quote is attributed to Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë, but only first part appears in book. https://books.google.pl/books?id=Aiye9MLNh9EC&q=wild%2C+wicked+slip#v=snippet&q=wild%2C%20wicked%20slip&f=false

World, Girl

“She wears trouble like a crown. If she ever falls in love, she’ll fall like a comet, burning the sky as she goes.”

Holly Black book Black Heart

Source: Black Heart

Love

“Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin
Dance me through the panic 'til I'm gathered safely in
Lift me like an olive branch and be my homeward dove
Dance me to the end of love”

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

Love, Beauty, Dance

“Sarah: "Buildings burn, people die, but real love is forever…”

James O'Barr The Crow

Source: The Crow

Love, People

“Loneliness adds beauty to life. It puts a special burn on sunsets and makes night air smell better.”

Henry Rollins (1961) American singer-songwriter

Beauty, Life, Beauty, Loneliness

“We must embrace pain and burn it as fuel for our journey”

Kenji Miyazawa (1896–1933) Japanese poet and author of children's literature

Positive, Graduation, Pain

“My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But, ah, my foes, and, oh, my friends —
It gives a lovely light.”

Edna St. Vincent Millay book A Few Figs from Thistles

Misattributed
Source: Edna St. Vincent Millay, in "First Fig" from A Few Figs from Thistles (1920); said to be a motto Roald Dahl lived by.

Love, Light, Night

“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 vital we rid ourselves of [homosexuals]; like weed we must pull them up, throw them on the fire and burn them. This is not out of a spirit of vengeance, but of necessity; these creatures must be exterminated.”

Heinrich Himmler (1900–1945) Nazi officer, Commander of the SS

18 Feb 1937
1930s

“Love all men, even your enemies; love them, not because they are your brothers, but that they may become your brothers. Thus you will ever burn with fraternal love, both for him who is already your brother and for your enemy, that he may by loving become your brother. … Even he that does not as yet believe in Christ … love him, and love him with fraternal love. He is not yet thy brother, but love him precisely that he may be thy brother.”

Aurelius Augustinus (354–430) early Christian theologian and philosopher

Source: On the Mystical Body of Christ, p.436

Love, Men, Christ

“[…] your own are burning and your memories and you don't want to leave them. Everything will burn to the end, you suffer, but nobody is punishing you, they are just setting your soul free. Don't be afraid because while you fear death they will rend your soul like demons. Only calm down and you will see the angels who are setting you free and then you will be free.”

Dimitris Lyacos (1966) Greek writer

Source: Poena Damni Z213: Exit, p. 88, Shoestring Press, 2010.

Death, Fear, Angels, Soul

“I can better understand the inert blindness & defiant ignorance of the reactionaries from having been one of them. I know how smugly ignorant I was—wrapped up in the arts, the natural (not social) sciences, the externals of history & antiquarianism, the abstract academic phases of philosophy, & so on—all the one-sided standard lore to which, according to the traditions of the dying order, a liberal education was limited. God! the things that were left out—the inside facts of history, the rational interpretation of periodic social crises, the foundations of economics & sociology, the actual state of the world today … & above all, the habit of applying disinterested reason to problems hitherto approached only with traditional genuflections, flag-waving, & callous shoulder-shrugs! All this comes up with humiliating force through an incident of a few days ago—when young Conover, having established contact with Henneberger, the ex-owner of WT, obtained from the latter a long epistle which I wrote Edwin Baird on Feby. 3, 1924, in response to a request for biographical & personal data. Little Willis asked permission to publish the text in his combined SFC-Fantasy, & I began looking the thing over to see what it was like—for I had not the least recollection of ever having penned it. Well …. I managed to get through, after about 10 closely typed pages of egotistical reminiscences & showing-off & expressions of opinion about mankind & the universe. I did not faint—but I looked around for a 1924 photograph of myself to burn, spit on, or stick pins in! Holy Hades—was I that much of a dub at 33 … only 13 years ago? There was no getting out of it—I really had thrown all that haughty, complacent, snobbish, self-centred, intolerant bull, & at a mature age when anybody but a perfect damned fool would have known better! That earlier illness had kept me in seclusion, limited my knowledge of the world, & given me something of the fatuous effusiveness of a belated adolescent when I finally was able to get around more in 1920, is hardly much of an excuse. Well—there was nothing to be done … except to rush a note back to Conover & tell him I'd dismember him & run the fragments through a sausage-grinder if he ever thought of printing such a thing! The only consolation lay in the reflection that I had matured a bit since '24. It's hard to have done all one's growing up since 33—but that's a damn sight better than not growing up at all.”

H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author

Letter to Catherine L. Moore (7 February 1937), in Selected Letters V, 1934-1937 edited by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei, pp. 407-408
Non-Fiction, Letters

God, Age, World, Education

“Our burning question as to the whence and whither — all we can ourselves observe about it is the present environment.”

Erwin Schrödinger (1887–1961) Austrian physicist

Science and Humanism (1951)
Context: I am born into an environment — I know not whence I came nor whither I go nor who I am. This is my situation as yours, every single one of you. The fact that everyone always was in this same situation, and always will be, tells me nothing. Our burning question as to the whence and whither — all we can ourselves observe about it is the present environment. That is why we are eager to find out about it as much as we can. That is science, learning, knowledge; it is the true source of every spiritual endeavour of man. We try to find out as much as we can about the spatial and temporal surroundings of the place in which we find ourselves put by birth…

Question

“Life is always on the edge of death; narrow streets lead to the same place as wide avenues, and a little candle burns itself out just like a flaming torch does. I choose my own way to burn.”

Sophie Scholl (1921–1943) White Rose member

As quoted in O2 : Breathing New Life Into Faith (2008) by Richard Dahlstrom, Ch. 4 : Artisans of Hope: Stepping into God's Kingdom Story, p. 63; this source is disputed as it does not cite an original document for the quote. It is also used in The White Rose (1991) by Lillian Garrett-Groag, a monologue during Sophie's interrogation.
Disputed
Context: The real damage is done by those millions who want to "survive." The honest men who just want to be left in peace. Those who don't want their little lives disturbed by anything bigger than themselves. Those with no sides and no causes. Those who won't take measure of their own strength, for fear of antagonizing their own weakness. Those who don't like to make waves — or enemies. Those for whom freedom, honor, truth, and principles are only literature. Those who live small, mate small, die small. It's the reductionist approach to life: if you keep it small, you'll keep it under control. If you don't make any noise, the bogeyman won't find you. But it's all an illusion, because they die too, those people who roll up their spirits into tiny little balls so as to be safe. Safe?! From what? Life is always on the edge of death; narrow streets lead to the same place as wide avenues, and a little candle burns itself out just like a flaming torch does. I choose my own way to burn.

Life, Death, Way

“You burn with the flames of desire for someone that doesn’t notice or pay attention. Your love affair has not even begun and the flames are now burning into your soul. You can douse the flames; you must first walk away. Only then can you be transformed.”

Gandolfo – (RJ Intindola)

1977 (from the poem, Douse the Flames)

Soul, Love, Making love

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Heart, Love

“if you want to shine like sun first you have to burn like it.”

Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) Führer and Reich Chancellor of Germany, Leader of the Nazi Party

Sun

“Love is a fog that burns with the first daylight of reality.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

Love, Reality

“I prefer someone who burns the flag and then wraps themselves up in the Constitution over someone who burns the Constitution and then wraps themselves up in the flag.”

Molly Ivins (1944–2007) American journalist

Funny

“If I am more alive because love burns and chars me,
as a fire, given wood or wind, feels new elation,
it's that he who lays me low is my salvation,
and invigorates the more, the more he scars me.”

Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475–1564) Italian sculptor, painter, architect and poet

Love, Feeling

“We burn daylight.”

William Shakespeare book Romeo and Juliet

Source: Romeo and Juliet

“Fire wants to burn
Water wants to flow
Air wants to rise
Earth wants to bind
Chaos wants to devour
Cal wants to live”

Cassandra Clare book The Iron Trial

Source: The Iron Trial

Water

“Here I am frozen, when I deserve to burn.”

E. Lockhart book We Were Liars

Source: We Were Liars

“We all live in a house on fire, no fire department to call; no way out, just the upstairs window to look out of while the fire burns the house down with us trapped, locked in it.”

Tennessee Williams The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore

Christopher
Source: The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore (1963)

Way, Housing

“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

“It's better to burn out than to fade away.”

Neil Young (1945) Canadian singer-songwriter

Misattributed

“The Gospel is not an old, old story, freshly told. It is a fire in the Spirit, fed by the flame of Immortal Love; and woe unto us, if, through our negligence to stir up the Gift of God which is within us, that fire burns low.”

Leonard Ravenhill (1907–1994) British writer

Source: Why Revival Tarries

Love, God

“Love is like a friendship caught on fire. In the beginning a flame, very pretty, often hot and fierce, but still only light and flickering. As love grows older, our hearts mature and our love becomes as coals, deep-burning and unquenchable.”

Bruce Lee (1940–1973) Hong Kong-American actor, martial artist, philosopher and filmmaker

Deep, Relationship, Valentine's Day, Wedding

“It's better to burn out than to fade away.”

Kurt Cobain (1967–1994) American musician and artist

Quoted by Cobain in his suicide note, this is from the song My My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue) by Neil Young, from his album Rust Never Sleeps (1979)
Misattributed
Variant: It's better to burn out than fade away.

“I am Bhole Baba (Simple Father). I am nobody and nothing. I am only like a mirror in which you can see yourself. I am like a fire. Don’t keep too far away or you will not get warmth. But don’t get too near or you may burn yourself. Learn the right distance. My name is Maha Prabhuji”

Haidakhan Babaji teacher in northern India

The Great God
About Himself
Source: Gaura Devi. (1990). Babaji’s Teachings. P.7.

God, Learning

“Of course, no government, no nation, can meet this challenge alone. Everybody has a responsibility. Every nation can take action. Modern anti-trafficking laws must be passed and enforced and justice systems must be strengthened. Victims must be cared for. […] And more broadly, as nations, let’s recommit to addressing the underlying forces that push so many into bondage in the first place. With development and economic growth that creates legitimate jobs, there’s less likelihood of indentured servitude around the globe. A sense of justice that says no child should ever be exploited, that has to be burned into the cultures of every country.”

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

2012, Remarks at Clinton Global Initiative (September 2012)

Justice, Law, Sense, Country

“O God! If I worship You for fear of Hell, burn me in Hell
and if I worship You in hope of Paradise, exclude me from Paradise.
But if I worship You for Your Own sake,
grudge me not Your everlasting Beauty.”

Rabia Basri Muslim saint and Sufi mystic

as quoted in Khushwant Singh, The Freethinker's Prayer Book (2013), p. 35

God, Fear, Beauty, Hope

“I can smell burning flesh … and I hope to God it's human.”

Morrissey (1959) English singer

"… midway through his performance, he was overcome with fumes from the backstage barbecue." - Tim Jonze Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/apr/20/morrissey-coachella-meat-fumes/. Live at Coachella festival, California (2009) In Concert

God, Hope

“In his arms, my lady lay asleep, wrapped in a veil.
He woke her then and trembling and obedient
She ate that burning heart out of his hand;
Weeping I saw him then depart from me.”

Dante Alighieri book Vita Nuova

ne le braccia avea
madonna involta in un drappo dormendo.
Poi la svegliava, e d'esto core ardendo
lei paventosa umilmente pascea:
appresso gir lo ne vedea piangendo.
Source: La Vita Nuova (1293), Chapter I, First Sonnet (tr. Mark Musa)

Heart

“We all remember how many religious wars were fought for a religion of love and gentleness; how many bodies were burned alive with the genuinely kind intention of saving souls from the eternal fire of hell. Only if we give up our authoritarian attitude in the realm of opinion, only if we establish the attitude of give and take, of readiness to learn from other people, can we hope to control acts of violence inspired by piety and duty.”

Karl Popper (1902–1994) Austrian-British philosopher of science

Utopia and Violence (1947)

Love, War, People, Religion

“You're my bondage and my freedom,
my flesh burning like a naked summer night,
you're my country.
Hazel eyes marbled green,
you're awesome, beautiful, and brave,
you're my desire always just out of reach.”

Nâzım Hikmet (1902–1963) Turkish poet

From You're

Beauty, Freedom, Summer, Night

“O Eternal God, now may it please you
to burn in love
so that we become the limbs
fashioned in the love you felt
when you begot your Son
at the first dawn
before all creation.
And consider this need which falls upon us,
take it from us for the sake of your Son,
and lead us to the joy of your salvation.”

Hildegard of Bingen (1098–1179) Medieval saint, prophetise, mystic and Doctor of Church

"O eterne deus"

Love, God, Fashion, Joy

“You still stand watch, O human star, burning without a flicker, perfect flame, bright and resourceful spirit. Each of your rays a great idea — O torch which passes from hand to hand, from age to age, world without end.”

Karel Čapek R.U.R.

R.U.R. (1920)

Age, World, Star, Idea

“If they cry for their parents, they are beaten severely, sometimes hanged upside down from trees and even branded or burned with cigarettes.”

Kailash Satyarthi (1954) Indian children's rights activist

Kailash Satyarthi’s crusade to save childhood continues… (2014)

Parent, Tree, Cry

“I love the freedoms we got in this country, I appreciate your freedom to burn your flag if you want to, but I really appreciate my right to bear arms so I can shoot you if you try to burn mine.”

Johnny Cash (1932–2003) American singer-songwriter

From "Ragged Old Flag" on The Great Lost Performance

Love, Freedom, Country

“I leave you, hoping that the lamp of liberty will burn in your bosoms until there shall no longer be a doubt that all men are created free and equal.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

Speech in reply to Senator Stephen Douglas in the Lincoln-Douglas debates http://www.bartleby.com/251/1003.html of the 1858 campaign for the U.S. Senate, at Chicago, Illinois (10 July 1858) 1850s, Lincoln–Douglas debates (1858) Context: My friend has said to me that I am a poor hand to quote Scripture. I will try it again, however. It is said in one of the admonitions of our Lord, "As your Father in Heaven is perfect, be ye also perfect." The Saviour, I suppose, did not expect that any human creature could be perfect as the Father in Heaven; but He said, "As your Father in Heaven is perfect, be ye also perfect." He set that up as a standard; and he who did most toward reaching that standard, attained the highest degree of moral perfection. So I say in relation to the principle that all men are created equal, let it be as nearly reached as we can. If we cannot give freedom to every creature, let us do nothing that will impose slavery upon any other creature. Let us then turn this Government back into the channel in which the framers of the Constitution originally placed it. Let us stand firmly by each other. If we do not do so we are turning in the contrary direction, that our friend Judge Douglas proposes — not intentionally — as working in the traces tend to make this one universal slave nation. He is one that runs in that direction, and as such I resist him. My friends, I have detained you about as long as I desired to do, and I have only to say, let us discard all this quibbling about this man and the other man; this race and that race and the other race being inferior, and therefore they must be placed in an inferior position; discarding our standard that we have left us. Let us discard all these things, and unite as one people throughout this land, until we shall once more stand up declaring that all men are created equal. My friends, I could not, without launching off upon some new topic, which would detain you too long, continue to-night. I thank you for this most extensive audience that you have furnished me to-night. I leave you, hoping that the lamp of liberty will burn in your bosoms until there shall no longer be a doubt that all men are created free and equal.

Men, Hope

“Dear God, these are anxious times. Tonight for the first time I lay in the dark with burning eyes as scene after scene of human suffering passed before me. I shall promise You one thing, God, just one very small thing: I shall never burden my today with cares about my tomorrow, although that takes some practice. Each day is sufficient unto itself. I shall try to help You, God, to stop my strength ebbing away, though I cannot vouch for it in advance. But one thing is becoming increasingly clear to me: that You cannot help us, that we must help You to help ourselves. And that is all we can manage these days and also all that really matters: that we safeguard that little piece of You, God, in ourselves. And perhaps in others as well. Alas, there doesn't seem to be much You Yourself can do about our circumstances, about our lives. Neither do I hold You responsible. You cannot help us, but we must help You and defend Your dwelling place inside us to the last.”

Etty Hillesum (1914–1943) Jewish diarist

12 July 1942, p. 488-89
Etty: The Letters and Diaries of Etty Hillesum, 1941-1943

God, Suffering, Time, Help

“It's better to fade away like an old soldier than to burn out.”

John Lennon (1940–1980) English singer and songwriter

Playboy interview (1980)
Context: It's better to fade away like an old soldier than to burn out. I don't appreciate worship of dead Sid Vicious or of dead James Dean or of dead John Wayne. It's the same thing. Making Sid Vicious a hero, Jim Morrison — it's garbage to me. I worship the people who survive. Gloria Swanson, Greta Garbo.

“Each and every one of us has a fire that burns inside us. They can try like hell to put it out, but as long as we know in our minds who we are meant to be, they will never stand a chance.”

Andrew Biersack (1990) American singer-songwriter

Chance, Hell

“Was there no sword, nothing with which to batter down these walls, this protection, this begetting of children and living behind curtains, and becoming daily more involved and committed, with books and pictures? Better burn one’s life out like Louis, desiring perfection; or like Rhoda leave us, flying past us to the desert; or choose one out of millions and one only like Neville; better be like Susan and love and hate the heat of the sun or the frost-bitten grass; or be like Jinny, honest, an animal. All had their rapture; their common feeling with death; something that stood them in stead. Thus I visited each of my friends in turn, trying, with fumbling fingers, to prise open their locked caskets. I went from one to the other holding my sorrow — no, not my sorrow but the incomprehensible nature of this our life — for their inspection. Some people go to priests; others to poetry; I to my friends, I to my own heart, I to seek among phrases and fragments something unbroken — I to whom there is not beauty enough in moon or tree; to whom the touch of one person with another is all, yet who cannot grasp even that, who am so imperfect, so weak, so unspeakably lonely. There I sat.”

Virginia Woolf book The Waves

Bernard, section IX
The Waves (1931)

Tree, Hate, Making love, Sun

“On the grave of this poor stranger, let there be neither lamp nor rose,
Let neither butterfly's wing burn nor nightingale sing.”

Nur Jahan (1577–1645) Padshah Begum of the Mughal Empire

epitaph on Nur Jahan's tomb, translated by Wheeler Thackston, quoted in "Nur Jahan", p. 275

Singing

“Be willing to expose your unhappiness. Give a voice to the sorrow, the anger, the fear, the deep loneliness burning at your core. Break some taboos. Say the ‘wrong’ thing. Shatter the false image. You may lose followers. You may lose friends. You may lose your job. You will certainly lose your mask.

Change may scare the shit out of you. Good. It’s supposed to. You may lose everything and you may have to begin life again. But the soul will rejoice. It has been through myriad deaths and rebirths. It couldn’t give a fuck about protecting itself from change. It finds change thrilling, life-giving, erotic even.

Yes, there is a bigger Happiness that embraces and celebrates even our deepest unhappiness!”

Jeff Foster (1980) Spiritual teacher

Source: https://www.instagram.com/p/B5RcCpknF7y/

“When the burning coal stops emitting the smoke, then you will surely understand that the fire does not always need the presence of the smoke.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Understanding

“Fire wants to burn
Water wants to flow
Air wants to rise
Earth wants to bind
Chaos wants to devour
-Iyana Sharpe”

isharpe001

Water

“And now, my poor old woman, why are you crying so bitterly? It is autumn. The leaves are falling from the trees like burning tears- the wind howls. Why must you mimic them?”

Mervyn Peake book Titus Groan

Source: Titus Groan

Autumn, Tear, Tree, Cry

“And then what?"
"I'll burn that bridge when I cross it.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Bites

“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

“Happiness always has an object… Depends on external things. Joy… Has no object. It seizes you for no apparent reason, it's like the sun, its burning is fueled by its own heart.”

Susanna Tamaro (1957) Italian writer

Source: Follow Your Heart

Sun, Heart, Joy, Dependency

“Ninety percent of true love is acute, ear-burning embarrassment.”

Terry Pratchett book Wyrd Sisters

Source: Wyrd Sisters

Love

“Sometimes the hardest thing in life is to know which bridge to cross and which to burn”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

Variant: The hardest thing to learn in life is which bridge to cross and which to burn.

Life

“You burn the paper, but not the words. You silence the words, but not the thoughts. You kill the thoughts only if you kill the man. And you will find that his thoughts rise again in the minds of others - twice as strong as before.”

Linda Sue Park book When My Name Was Keoko

Source: When My Name Was Keoko

Strong, Silence

“When one burns one's bridges, what a very nice fire it makes.”

Dylan Thomas (1914–1953) Welsh poet and writer

“The lamps are burning and the starry sky is over it all.”

Vincent Van Gogh book The Letters of Vincent van Gogh

Source: The Letters of Vincent van Gogh

“I was the first woman to burn my bra - it took the fire department four days to put it out.”

Dolly Parton (1946) American singer-songwriter and actress

“Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
in the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?”

William Blake (1757–1827) English Romantic poet and artist

St. 1
1790s, The Tyger (1794)

Fear, Night

“If you're bored with life, if you don't get up every morning with a burning desire to do things, you don't have enough goals.”

Lou Holtz (1937) American college football coach, professional football coach, television sports announcer

Life

“You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.”

Ray Bradbury book Ray Bradbury

As quoted in "Bradbury Still Believes in Heat of ‘Fahrenheit 451’" http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19930312&slug=1689996, interview by Misha Berson, in ', credited to "Ray Bradbury, quoted by Misha Berson in Seattle Times", in "Quotable Quotes", The Reader's Digest, Vol. 144, No. 861, January 1994, p. 25 http://books.google.com/books?output=html&id=ZqqUAAAAIAAJ&q=%22people+to+stop+reading%22#search_anchor), or an indirect reference to the re-quoting in Reader's Digest (such as: The Times Book of Quotations (Philip Howard, ed.), 2000, Times Books and HarperCollins, p. 93 Variant: We're not teaching kids to read and write and think. … There's no reason to burn books if you don't read them. As quoted in "At 80, Ray Bradbury Still Fighting the Future He Foresaw" http://www.raybradbury.com/articles_peoria.html, interview by Roger Moore, in The Peoria Journal Star (August 2000) Context: The problem in our country isn't with books being banned, but with people no longer reading. Look at the magazines, the newspapers around us – it's all junk, all trash, tidbits of news. The average TV ad has 120 images a minute. Everything just falls off your mind. … You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.

People, Books, Reading