Quotes about clasp

A collection of quotes on the topic of clasp, hand, handful, likeness.

Quotes about clasp

George Orwell photo
Franz Kafka photo

“Nïx clasped her hands over her chest,
sighing, “He gave you his heart. That’s so romantic.
So much better than a candy heart.
Those get stuck in the fangs, you know.”

Kresley Cole American writer

Variant: Nïx clasped her hands over her chest, sighing, “He gave you his heart. That’s so romantic. So much better than a candy heart. Those get stuck in the fangs, you know.
Source: Lothaire

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow photo
Nixon Waterman photo
Charlie Chaplin photo
Rabindranath Tagore photo

“In its efforts to clasp in its own arms that which is for all, it hurts others and is hurt in its turn, and cries, "Lead me across". But as soon as it is able to say, "All my work is thine," everything remains the same, only it is taken across.”

Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) Bengali polymath

Sādhanā : The Realisation of Life http://www.spiritualbee.com/spiritual-book-by-tagore/ (1916)
Context: This "I" of mine toils hard, day and night, for a home which it knows as its own. Alas, there will be no end of its sufferings so long as it is not able to call this home thine. Till then it will struggle on, and its heart will ever cry, "Ferryman, lead me across." When this home of mine is made thine, that very moment is it taken across, even while its old walls enclose it. This "I" is restless. It is working for a gain which can never be assimilated with its spirit, which it never can hold and retain. In its efforts to clasp in its own arms that which is for all, it hurts others and is hurt in its turn, and cries, "Lead me across". But as soon as it is able to say, "All my work is thine," everything remains the same, only it is taken across.
Where can I meet thee unless in this mine home made thine? Where can I join thee unless in this my work transformed into thy work? If I leave my home I shall not reach thy home; if I cease my work I can never join thee in thy work. For thou dwellest in me and I in thee. Thou without me or I without thee are nothing.

Henri Barbusse photo

“The child would grow up, a saviour, to give life to everything again. Starting at the dark bottom he would ascend the ladder and begin life over again, life, the only paradise there is, the bouquet of nature. He would make beauty beautiful. He would make eternity over again with his voice and his song. And clasping the new-born infant close, she looked at all the sunlight she had given the world.”

Henri Barbusse (1873–1935) French novelist

The Inferno (1917), Ch. XVI
Context: The woman from the depths of her rags, a waif, a martyr — smiled. She must have a divine heart to be so tired and yet smile. She loved the sky, the light, which the unformed little being would love some day. She loved the chilly dawn, the sultry noontime, the dreamy evening. The child would grow up, a saviour, to give life to everything again. Starting at the dark bottom he would ascend the ladder and begin life over again, life, the only paradise there is, the bouquet of nature. He would make beauty beautiful. He would make eternity over again with his voice and his song. And clasping the new-born infant close, she looked at all the sunlight she had given the world. Her arms quivered like wings. She dreamed in words of fondling. She fascinated all the passersby that looked at her. And the setting sun bathed her neck and head in a rosy reflection. She was like a great rose that opens its heart to the whole world.

Percy Bysshe Shelley photo
Joanne Harris photo
Cassandra Clare photo
Karl Barth photo
Laurell K. Hamilton photo
George Bernard Shaw photo

“His wedding gift, clasped round my throat. A choker of rubies, two inches wide, like an extraordinarily precious slit throat.”

Angela Carter (1940–1992) English novelist

Source: The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories

Cassandra Clare photo
Nicholas Sparks photo
Richelle Mead photo
Tim Powers photo

“He thought about crossing his fingers, but clasped her hand instead.”

Epilogue (p. 535)
Last Call (1992)

Eino Leino photo

“Outbursts blossom in Lapland rapidly
. in earth, in barley, grass, dwarf birches too.
This I have pondered very frequently
when people’s daily lives there I review.

Oh why are all our beautiful ones dying
and why do great ones rot in disarray?
Oh why among us many minds are losing?
Oh why so few the kantele now play?

Oh why here everywhere a man soon crashes
like hay when scythed – ambitious man indeed,
a man of honour, sense – it all soon smashes,
or breaks apart one day in life of need?

Elsewhere, a fire still glints in greying tresses,
in old ones glows still spirit of the sun.
But here our new-born infants death possesses
and youth will grave’s dull earth soon press upon.

And what of me? Why ponder I so sadly?
An early sign, be sure, of grim old age.
Oh why the blood-spent rule keep I not gladly,
but sigh instead at people’s mortal wage?

One answer is there only: Lapland’s summer.
In thinking then my mind is soon distressed.
In Lapland birdsong, joy are short – a glimmer –
as flowers’ blooms and gladness wilt and rest.

But winter’s wrath is only long. Dear moment
when resting thoughts delay and don’t take flight,
in search of lands where blazing sun is potent
and take their leave of Lapland’s icy bite.

Oh, great white birds, you guests of summer Lapland,
with noble thoughts we’ll greet you, when you’re here!
Oh, tarry here among us, build your nests and
a while delay your southern journey near!

Oh, from the swan now learn a lesson wholesome!
They leave in autumn, come back in the spring.
It’s our own peaceful shore that us-wards pulls them,
Our sloping fell’s kind shelter will them bring.

Batter the air with whooping wings and leave us!
Wonders perform, enlighten other lands!
But when you see that winter’s gone relieve us –
I beg, beseech, re-clasp our weary hands!”

Eino Leino (1878–1926) Finnish poet and journalist
Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo
Dinah Craik photo
Elaine Goodale Eastman photo

“The seal and guerdon of wealth untold
We clasp in the wild marsh marigold.”

Elaine Goodale Eastman (1863–1953) American novelist, poet

Nature's Coinage; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 495.

Kunti photo
Anne Lynch Botta photo

“A drunkard clasp his teeth and not undo 'em,
To suffer wet damnation to run through 'em.”

Cyril Tourneur (1575–1626) English dramatist

The Revenger's Tragedy (1607), Act III. Sc. 1. Compare: "Distilled damnation", Robert Hall (in Gregory's Life of Hall).

Joanna Newsom photo
Horace Greeley photo

“The masses of our countrymen, North and South, are eager to clasp hands across the bloody chasm which has so long divided them.”

Horace Greeley (1811–1872) American politician and publisher

Acceptance of Liberal Republican nomination as President (29 May 1872)
1870s

Tibullus photo

“May I look on thee when my last hour comes; may I hold thy hand, as I sink, in my dying clasp.”
Te spectem, suprema mihi cum venerit hora,<br/>Et teneam moriens deficiente manu.

Tibullus (-50–-19 BC) poet and writer (0054-0019)

Te spectem, suprema mihi cum venerit hora,
Et teneam moriens deficiente manu.
Bk. 1, no. 1, line 59.
Variant translation: May I be looking at you when my last hour has come, and dying may I hold you with my weakening hand.
Elegies

Rod Serling photo
William Cullen Bryant photo

“The rugged trees are mingling
Their flowery sprays in love;
The ivy climbs the laurel
To clasp the boughs above.”

William Cullen Bryant (1794–1878) American romantic poet and journalist

The Serenade http://www.gutenberg.org/files/16341/16341-h/16341-h.htm#page189, St. 14

Elizabeth Barrett Browning photo

“And Chaucer, with his infantine
Familiar clasp of things divine.”

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861) English poet, author

A Vision of Poets (1844)

Omar Bradley photo
Adam Roberts photo
Percy Bysshe Shelley photo
Thomas Hood photo

“She stood breast-high amid the corn
Clasped by the golden light of morn,
Like the sweetheart of the sun,
Who many a glowing kiss had won.”

Ruth; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
20th century

Eugene V. Debs photo
Homér photo
John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester photo

“At break of day I feel as if I'm clasping a bouquet of smiling flowers
But the wind of time does not cease blowing
And the hours wilt like falling petals.”

Xuân Diệu (1916–1985) Vietnamese poet

As quoted in "Shattered Identities and Contested Images: Reflections of Poetry and History in 20th-Century Vietnam" by Neil Jamieson, in Crossroads: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, Vol. 7, No. 2, 1992, p. 86

Richard Fuller (minister) photo
Honoré de Balzac photo
Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo
Bayard Taylor photo
Louis Brandeis photo
Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo

“What was our parting?—one wild kiss,
How wild I may not say,
One long and breathless clasp, and then
As life were past away.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

(29th March 1823) Song - What was our parting ?—one wild kiss,
The London Literary Gazette, 1823

Robert G. Ingersoll photo

“Religion can never reform mankind because religion is slavery. It is far better to be free, to leave the forts and barricades of fear, to stand erect and face the future with a smile. It is far better to give yourself sometimes to negligence, to drift with wave and tide, with the blind force of the world, to think and dream, to forget the chains and limitations of the breathing life, to forget purpose and object, to lounge in the picture gallery of the brain, to feel once more the clasps and kisses of the past, to bring life's morning back, to see again the forms and faces of the dead, to paint fair pictures for the coming years, to forget all Gods, their promises and threats, to feel within your veins life's joyous stream and hear the martial music, the rhythmic beating of your fearless heart. And then to rouse yourself to do all useful things, to reach with thought and deed the ideal in your brain, to give your fancies wing, that they, like chemist bees, may find art's nectar in the weeds of common things, to look with trained and steady eyes for facts, to find the subtle threads that join the distant with the now, to increase knowledge, to take burdens from the weak, to develop the brain, to defend the right, to make a palace for the soul. This is real religion. This is real worship.”

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer

What Is Religion? (1899) is Ingersoll's last public address, delivered before the American Free Religious association, Boston, June 2, 1899. Source: The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Dresden Memorial Edition Volume IV, pages 477-508, edited by Cliff Walker. http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/ingwhatrel.htm

Ben Croshaw photo
Bawa Muhaiyaddeen photo
Robert Penn Warren photo
George William Curtis photo

“Come! Come! Brothers of my race, whether at the north or south, these things which we all execrate and abhor were the work of men of our own color. Let us clasp hands in speechless shame, and confess that manhood in America is to be measured not by the color of the skin, but by the quality of the soul”

George William Curtis (1824–1892) American writer

1860s, The Good Fight (1865)
Context: Inferior race? Was it they who carved the skulls of our boys into drinking-cups and their bones into trinkets? Was it they who starved and froze our brothers into idiocy and madness at Andersonville and Belle-Isle? Was it they who hunted our darlings with bloodhounds, or hung faithful Union men before the very eyes of their wives and children? Come! Come! Brothers of my race, whether at the north or south, these things which we all execrate and abhor were the work of men of our own color. Let us clasp hands in speechless shame, and confess that manhood in America is to be measured not by the color of the skin, but by the quality of the soul.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson photo

“He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ring'd with the azure world, he stands”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892) British poet laureate

" The Eagle http://home.att.net/%7ETennysonPoetry/eagle.htm" (1851)
Context: p>He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ring'd with the azure world, he stands.The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt he falls.</p

Stanley Baldwin photo

“I would say: "England! Steady! Look where you are going! Human hands were given us to clasp, and not to be raised against one another in fratricidal strife."”

Stanley Baldwin (1867–1947) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech in Birmingham (5 March 1925), quoted in On England, and Other Addresses (1926), pp 33-34, p. 40.
1925
Context: I want a truce of God in this country, that we may compose our differences, that we may join all our strengths together to see if we cannot pull the country into a better and happier condition. It is little that a Government can do; these reforms, these revolutions must come from the people themselves. The organisations of employers and men, if they take their coats off to it, are far more able to work out the solutions of their troubles than the politicians... So let those who represent labour and capital get down to it, and seek and pursue peace through every alley and every corner of this country... And if I have a message to-night for you and the people of this country, it is just this. I would say: "England! Steady! Look where you are going! Human hands were given us to clasp, and not to be raised against one another in fratricidal strife."

Tony Kushner photo
Alfred, Lord Tennyson photo