Quotes about burning
page 6

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Jane Austen photo
Juliet Marillier photo
Charlaine Harris photo
George Bernard Shaw photo
Max Brooks photo
E.M. Forster photo
Neal Shusterman photo
Anne Sexton photo

“We talked death with burned-up intensity, both of us drawn to it like moths to an electric light bulb. Sucking on it!”

Anne Sexton (1928–1974) poet from the United States

Source: Anne Sexton: A Self-Portrait in Letters

Edward O. Wilson photo
Cassandra Clare photo
Cassandra Clare photo
Francesco Petrarca photo
Charles Bukowski photo
Chuck Palahniuk photo
Cassandra Clare photo
Markus Zusak photo

“There were stars. They burned my eyes.”

Source: The Book Thief

Robert Burns photo
Federico García Lorca photo
Jonathan Franzen photo
Ralph Waldo Emerson photo
Anaïs Nin photo
Richelle Mead photo
Henry Ford photo
Ray Bradbury photo

“It was a pleasure to burn.”

Source: Fahrenheit 451

Henry Rollins photo
Edith Hamilton photo
Don Marquis photo
Jean Paul Sartre photo

“So this is hell. I'd never have believed it. You remember all we were told about the torture-chambers, the fire and brimstone, the "burning marl." Old wives' tales! There's no need for red-hot pokers. Hell is—other people!”

Garcin, Act 1, sc. 5
Variant: So that is what hell is. I would never have believed it. You remember: the fire and brimstone, the torture. Ah! the farce. There is no need for torture: Hell is other people.
Source: No Exit (1944)

Rick Riordan photo
Pablo Neruda photo
Bret Easton Ellis photo
Steven Wright photo
Herman Melville photo

“For God's sake, be economical with your lamps and candles! not a gallon you burn, but at least one drop of man's blood was spilled for it.”

Herman Melville (1818–1891) American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet

Source: Moby-Dick or, The Whale

Sigmund Freud photo

“What progress we are making. In the Middle Ages they would have burned me. Now they are content with burning my books.”

Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) Austrian neurologist known as the founding father of psychoanalysis

Letter to Ernest Jones (1933), as quoted in The Columbia Dictionary of Quotations (1993) by Robert Andrews, p. 779
1930s

Leslie Stephen photo
David Draiman photo
Peter Gabriel photo

“All my instincts, they return.
And the grand façade, so soon will burn.
Without a noise, without my pride
I reach out from the inside.”

Peter Gabriel (1950) English singer-songwriter, record producer and humanitarian

In Your Eyes
Song lyrics, So (1986)

Ayaan Hirsi Ali photo
Ella Wheeler Wilcox photo
James Thomson (B.V.) photo

“The street-lamps burn amidst the baleful glooms,
Amidst the soundless solitudes immense
Of ranged mansions dark and still as tombs.”

James Thomson (B.V.) (1834–1882) Scottish writer (1834-1882)

Part I
The City of Dreadful Night (1870–74)

Bono photo

“See them burning crosses, see the flames get higher and higher”

Bono (1960) Irish rock musician, singer of U2

"Bullet The Blue Sky"
Lyrics, The Joshua Tree (1987)

Geert Wilders photo
Frederick Douglass photo

“His zeal in the cause of freedom was infinitely superior to mine. Mine was as the taper light, his was as the burning sun. Mine was bounded by time. His stretched away to the silent shores of eternity. I could speak for the slave. John Brown could fight for the slave. I could live for the slave. John Brown could die for the slave.”

Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman

Regarding John Brown, as quoted in A Lecture On John Brown http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=mfd&fileName=22/22002/22002page.db&recNum=9&tempFile=./temp/~ammem_rvc6&filecode=mfd&next_filecode=mfd&prev_filecode=mfd&itemnum=2&ndocs=32

Pete Doherty photo

“Doff your cap and raise your glasses,
Make a toast to the boring classes
I'm burning your secrets to keep me warm.”

Pete Doherty (1979) English musician, writer, actor, poet and artist

"Love on the Dole"
Lyrics and poetry

Nisargadatta Maharaj photo
Jean Paul Sartre photo
Chuck Palahniuk photo
Garth Brooks photo
Radhanath Swami photo

“Lying down to sleep on the earthen riverbank, I thought, Vrindavan is attracting my heart like no other place. What is happening to me? Please reveal Your divine will. With this prayer, I drifted off to sleep.
Before dawn, I awoke to the ringing of temple bells, signaling that it was time to begin my journey to Hardwar. But my body lay there like a corpse. Gasping in pain, I couldn’t move. A blazing fever consumed me from within, and under the spell of unbearable nausea, my stomach churned. Like a hostage, I lay on that riverbank. As the sun rose, celebrating a new day, I felt my life force sinking. Death that morning would have been a welcome relief. Hours passed.
At noon, I still lay there. This fever will surely kill me, I thought.
Just when I felt it couldn’t get any worse, I saw in the overcast sky something that chilled my heart. Vultures circled above, their keen sights focused on me. It seemed the fever was cooking me for their lunch, and they were just waiting until I was well done. They hovered lower and lower. One swooped to the ground, a huge black and white bird with a long, curving neck and sloping beak. It stared, sizing up my condition, then jabbed its pointed beak into my ribcage. My body recoiled, my mind screamed, and my eyes stared back at my assailant, seeking pity. The vulture flapped its gigantic wings and rejoined its fellow predators circling above. On the damp soil, I gazed up at the birds as they soared in impatient circles. Suddenly, my vision blurred and I momentarily blacked out. When I came to, I felt I was burning alive from inside out. Perspiring, trembling, and gagging, I gave up all hope.
Suddenly, I heard footsteps approaching. A local farmer herding his cows noticed me and took pity. Pressing the back of his hand to my forehead, he looked skyward toward the vultures and, understanding my predicament, lifted me onto a bullock cart. As we jostled along the muddy paths, the vultures followed overhead. The farmer entrusted me to a charitable hospital where the attendants placed me in the free ward. Eight beds lined each side of the room. The impoverished and sadhu patients alike occupied all sixteen beds. For hours, I lay unattended in a bed near the entrance. Finally that evening the doctor came and, after performing a series of tests, concluded that I was suffering from severe typhoid fever and dehydration. In a matter-of-fact tone, he said, “You will likely die, but we will try to save your life.””

Radhanath Swami (1950) Gaudiya Vaishnava guru

Republished on The Journey Home website.
The Journey Home: Autobiography of an American Swami (Tulsi Books, 2010)

Fridtjof Nansen photo

“Let me tell you the secret of such so-called successes as there have been in my life, and here I believe I give you really good advice. It was to burn my boats and demolish my bridges behind me. Then one loses no time in looking behind, when one should have quite enough to do in looking ahead…”

Fridtjof Nansen (1861–1930) Norwegian polar explorer and Nobel Peace Prize laureate

Rectorial address delivered at St. Andrews University, 3 November 1926. Translated in [Nansen, Fridtjof, Adventure, and other papers, https://books.google.com/books?id=G6snAQAAMAAJ, 1927, Books for Libraries Press, 27]

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg photo

“Man loves company — even if it is only that of a small burning candle.”

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–1799) German scientist, satirist

K 40
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook K (1789-1793)

Leonard Cohen photo

“If you are the dealer, I'm out of the game
If you are the healer, it means I'm broken and lame
If thine is the glory then mine must be the shame
You want it darker
We kill the flame

Magnified, sanctified, be thy holy name
Vilified, crucified, in the human frame
A million candles burning for the help that never came
You want it darker

Hineni, hineni
I'm ready, my Lord”

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

"You Want It Darker" ·  Full text online http://genius.com/Leonard-cohen-you-want-it-darker-lyrics ·  YouTube audio https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0nmHymgM7Y
You Want It Darker (2016)

“Things oughtn’t to be the way they are, altogether. But letting a madman burn down the barn is no way to improve them.”

Avram Davidson (1923–1993) novelist

Source: Rogue Dragon (1965), Chapter V (p. 49)

L. Frank Baum photo
Robert E. Howard photo

“If there is a hereafter, the Democrats will burn because they were the Doers that killed the republic, the Republicans because they were the Talkers who abetted its murder. And such will be a well deserved fate for both. It is enough to make an agnostic hope there is a God.”

Michael Scheuer (1952) American counterterrorism analyst

As quoted in "Obama and his party offer America's young … death, misery, and slavery" http://non-intervention.com/1143/obama-and-his-party-offer-america%E2%80%99s-young-%E2%80%A6-death-misery-and-slavery/ (2013), by M. Scheuer, Michael Scheuer's Non-Intervention.
2010s

Wisława Szymborska photo
Robert A. Heinlein photo
Lydia Maria Child photo

“They [the slaves] have stabbed themselves for freedom—jumped into the waves for freedom—starved for freedom—fought like very tigers for freedom! But they have been hung, and burned, and shot—and their tyrants have been their historians!”

Lydia Maria Child (1802–1880) American abolitionist, author and women's rights activist

Chapter VI http://utc.iath.virginia.edu/abolitn/abeslmca3t.html
1830s, An Appeal on Behalf of That Class of Americans Called Africans (1833)

Alan Moore photo
Neil Young photo
Dmitri Mendeleev photo
Robert G. Ingersoll photo
William Saroyan photo
William Lai photo

“When coal-fired power generation is a necessity for Taiwan, the Linkou Power Plant, equipped with the most advanced generators and pollution control and abatement systems and burning the types of coal that have the fewest impurities, is the model we look toward.”

William Lai (1959) Taiwanese politician

William Lai (2018) cited in " Premier visits coal-fired power plant to alleviate public concerns http://focustaiwan.tw/news/aipl/201803180015.aspx" on Focus Taiwan, 18 March 2018.

Freeman Dyson photo
Thomas Henry Huxley photo
Mike Malloy photo
Halldór Laxness photo
Gabrielle Roy photo
Thomas Campbell photo

“The meteor flag of England
Shall yet terrific burn,
Till danger's troubled night depart,
And the star of peace return.”

Thomas Campbell (1777–1844) British writer

Stanza 4
Ye Mariners of England http://www.poetsgraves.co.uk/Classic%20Poems/Campbell/ye%20mariners_of_england.htm (1800)

Thomas Jefferson photo
George W. Bush photo
Tim O'Brien photo
Wafa Sultan photo

“Only the Muslims defend their beliefs by burning down churches, killing people and destroying embassies. This path will not yield any results. The Muslims must ask themselves what they can do for humankind, before they demand that humankind respect them.”

Wafa Sultan (1958) American psychistrist

Cited in: John M. Broder. " For Muslim Who Says Violence Destroys Islam, Violent Threats http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/11/international/middleeast/11sultan.html?pagewanted=print&_r=0" in The Saturday Profile, New York Times, March 11, 2006
Interview on Al Jazeera TV, 2006

Charles Krauthammer photo
Richard Nixon photo
Kate Bush photo

“I look at you and see
my life that might have been
your face just ghostly in the smoke.
They're setting fire to the cornfields
as you're taking me home.
The smell of burning fields
will now mean you and here.”

Kate Bush (1958) British recording artist; singer, songwriter, musician and record producer

Song lyrics, The Sensual World (1989)

N. K. Jemisin photo

“So, there was a girl.
What I’ve guessed, and what the history books imply, is that she was unlucky enough to have been sired by a cruel man. He beat both wife and daughter and abused them in other ways. Bright Itempas is called, among other things, the god of justice. Perhaps that was why He responded when she came into His temple, her heart full of unchildlike rage.
“I want him to die,” she said (or so I imagine). “Please Great Lord, make him die.”
You know the truth now about Itempas. He is a god of warmth and light, which we think of as pleasant, gentle things. I once thought of Him that way, too. But warmth uncooled burns; light undimmed can hurt even my blind eyes. I should have realized. We should all have realized. He was never what we wanted Him to be.
So when the girl begged the Bright Lord to murder her father, He said, “Kill him yourself.” And He gifted her with a knife perfectly suited to her small, weak child’s hands.
She took the knife home and used it that very night. The next day, she came back to the Bright Lord, her hands and soul stained red, happy for the first time in her short life. “I will love you forever,” she declared. And He, for a rare once, found Himself impressed by mortal will.
Or so I imagine.
The child was mad, of course. Later events proved this. But it makes sense to me that this madness, not mere religious devotion, would appeal most to the Bright Lord. Her love was unconditional, her purpose undiluted by such paltry considerations as conscience or doubt. It seems like Him, I think, to value that kind of purity of purpose—even though, like warmth and light, too much love is never a good thing.”

Source: The Broken Kingdoms (2011), Chapter 11 “Possession” (watercolor) (pp. 202-203)

W. H. Auden photo
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Vitruvius photo
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Stephen King photo
Enoch Powell photo

“So long as the figures 'now superseded' and the academic projections based upon them held sway, it was possible for politicians to shrug their shoulders. With so much of immediate and indisputable importance on their hands, why should they attend to what was forecast for the end of the century, when most of them would be not only out of office but dead and gone? … It was not for them to heed the cries of anguish from those of their own people who already saw their towns being changed, their native places turned into foreign lands, and themselves displaced as if by a systematic colonisation. For these the much vaunted compassion of the parties and politicians was not available: the parties and the politicians preferred to be busy making speeches on race relations; and if any of their number dared to tell them the truth, even less than the whole truth, about what was happening and what would happen here in England, they denounced them as racialist and turned them out of doors. They could feel safe; for they said in their hearts: 'If trouble comes, it will not be in our time; let the next generation see to it!' … The explosive which will blow us asunder is there and the fuse is burning, but the fuse is shorter than had been supposed. The transformation which I referred to earlier as being without even a remote parallel in our history, the occupation of the hearts of this metropolis and of towns and cities across England by a coloured population amounting to millions, this before long will be past denying. It is possible that the people of this country will, with good or ill grace, accept what they did not ask for, did not want and were not told of. My own judgment— it is a judgment which the politician has a duty to form to the best of his ability— I have not feared to give: it is— to use words I used two years and a half ago— that 'the people of England will not endure it'.”

Enoch Powell (1912–1998) British politician

Speech to the Carshalton and Banstead Young Conservatives at Carshalton Hall (15 February 1971), from Still to Decide (Eliot Right Way Books, 1972), pp. 202-203.
1970s

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