“She's mad, but she's magic. There's no lie in her fire.”
Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer
Variant: she’s mad, but she’s magic.
Quotes about fire
A collection of quotes on the topic of fire, likeness, use, doing.
Quotes about fire
“Wordless,
Infinite —
You.
You intensify
everything.
You are
fire
burning
all that
is left
of my
heart.”
Frida Kahlo (1907–1954) Mexican painter
“If they're on fire and you have water, then you can sell it to them.”
Jordan Peterson (1962) Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology
Personality Lectures
“Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire.”
Gustav Mahler (1860–1911) late-Romantic Austrian composer
“Music should strike fire from the heart of man, and bring tears from the eyes of woman.”
Ludwig Van Beethoven (1770–1827) German Romantic composer
Shams-i Tabrizi (1185–1248) 1185-1248, spiritual instructor of Mewlānā Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Balkhi.
you
Me & Rumi (2004)
Claude Monet (1840–1926) French impressionist painter
in a letter to Frédéric Bazille: as cited by K.E. Sullivan. Monet: Discovering Art, Brockhampton press, London (2004), p. 22
1850 - 1870
Napoleon Hill (1883–1970) American author
Source: Think and Grow Rich: The Landmark Bestseller - Now Revised and Updated for the 21st Century
“Fire will attract more attention than any other cry for help.”
Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960–1988) American artist
“Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.”
W.B. Yeats (1865–1939) Irish poet and playwright
Greta Thunberg book No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference
2019, World Economic Forum (January 2019) <br class="br">Source: Greta Thunberg, 16, urges leaders to act on climate, The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jan/25/our-house-is-on-fire-greta-thunberg16-urges-leaders-to-act-on-climate (25 January 2019)<br>Cited in ', Penguin Books, 2019, pages 19-24 (ISBN 9780141991740).
John Chrysostom (349–407) important Early Church Father
St. John Chrysostom, Homily 24 on the Epistle to the Romans [PG 60:626-27] https://www.patheos.com/blogs/davearmstrong/2017/10/contraception-early-church-teaching-william-klimon.html
Eddie Izzard (1962) British stand-up comedian, actor and writer
Dress to Kill (1998)
Source: Eddie Izzard: Dress to Kill
Context: I had to chat up girls, and I'd only tagged them before. I didn't have the verbal power to be able to say, "Susan, I saw you in the classroom today. As the sun came from behind the clouds, a burst of brilliant light caught your hair, it was haloed in front of me. You turned, your eyes flashed fire into my soul, I immediately read the words of Dostoevsky and Karl Marx, and in the words of Albert Schweitzer, 'I fancy you.' " But no! At 13, you're just going, " 'Ello, Sue. I saw you in the room... I've got legs, have you? Oh yeah... Do you like bread? I've got a French loaf. [mimes smacking her with the loaf and dashing off] Bye! (I love you!)"
“Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul.”
Vladimir Nabokov book Lolita
Opening lines.
Source: Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta. She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita. Did she have a precursor? She did, indeed she did. In point of fact, there might have been no Lolita at all had I not loved, one summer, an initial girl-child. In a princedom by the sea. Oh when? About as many years before Lolita was born as my age was that summer. You can always count on a murderer for fancy prose style. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, exhibit number one is what the seraphs, the misinformed, simple, noble-winged seraphs, envied. Look at this tangle of thorns.
“Books have the same enemies as people: fire, humidity, animals, weather, and their own content.”
Paul Valéry (1871–1945) French poet, essayist, and philosopher
“In my mind's eye my thoughts light fires in your cities.”
Charles Manson (1934–2017) American criminal and musician
“To learn to read is to light a fire; every syllable that is spelled out is a spark.”
Victor Hugo (1802–1885) French poet, novelist, and dramatist
“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)
Ali book Nahj al-Balagha
Nahj al-Balagha
“Man is so made that when anything fires his soul, impossibilities vanish.”
Jean De La Fontaine (1621–1695) French poet, fabulist and writer.
L'homme est ainsi bâti: Quand un sujet l'enflamme
L'impossibilité disparaît à son âme.
Book VIII (1678-1679), fable 25.
Fables (1668–1679)
Samuel Beckett book Malone Dies
Malone Dies (1951)
Context: Let me say before I go any further that I forgive nobody. I wish them all an atrocious life and then the fires and ice of hell and in the execrable generations to come an honoured name.
“We cannot tear a single page from our life, but we can throw the whole book into the fire.”
George Sand book Mauprat
Nous ne pouvons arracher une seule page de notre vie, mais nous pouvons jeter le livre au feu.
Source: Mauprat, ch. 11 (1837); Matilda M. Hays (trans.) Mauprat (London: E. Churton, 1847) p. 121
Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author
Source: Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch
Variant: Doubt thou the stars are fire
Doubt thou the sun doth move
Doubt truth to be a liar
But never doubt I love
Source: Hamlet
Stephen Hawking book A Brief History of Time
Source: A Brief History of Time (1988), Ch. 12
Context: Even if there is only one possible unified theory, it is just a set of rules and equations. What is it that breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe? The usual approach of science of constructing a mathematical model cannot answer the questions of why there should be a universe for the model to describe. Why does the universe go to all the bother of existing?
George Orwell book Inside the Whale and Other Essays
Inside the Whale (1940) http://orwell.ru/library/essays/whale/english/e_itw <br class="br">Source: Inside the Whale and Other Essays
“Without reading, we are all without light in the dark, without fire in the cold.”
Tamora Pierce (1954) American writer of fantasy novels for children
Source: Tortall and Other Lands: A Collection of Tales
Dallas Willard (1935–2013) American philosopher
Life Life to the Full, Christian Herald (UK), 14 April 2001
Source: The Great Omission: Reclaiming Jesus's Essential Teachings on Discipleship
“The fire that warms us can also consume us; it is not the fault of the fire.”
Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) Indian Hindu monk and phylosopher
Tennessee Williams The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore
Christopher
Source: The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore (1963)
“Suicide is man's way of telling God, 'You can't fire me - I quit!”
Bill Maher (1956) American stand-up comedian
“a small spark can start a great fire”
Emmet Fox (1886–1951) American New Thought writer
Haidakhan Babaji teacher in northern India
The Great God
About Himself
Source: Gaura Devi. (1990). Babaji’s Teachings. P.7.
Dante Alighieri book Purgatorio
Canto VI, lines 37–39 (tr. Longfellow).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Purgatorio
Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America
2011, UN speech to General Assembly (September 2011)
“Pride, Envy, and Avarice are
the three sparks that have set these hearts on fire.”
Dante Alighieri book Inferno
Canto VI, lines 74–75 (tr. Sinclair).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Inferno
“Oh, tenderly the haughty day
Fills his blue urn with fire.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet
Ode, Concord, July 4, 1857
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
Elliot Rodger (1991–2014) American spree killer
My Twisted World (2014), 19-22, UC Santa Barbara, Building to Violence
Paul Klee (1879–1940) German Swiss painter
Quote (1908), # 816, in The Diaries of Paul Klee; University of California Press, 1964; as quoted by Francesco Mazzaferro, in 'The Diaries of Paul Klee - Part Three' : Klee as a Secessionist and a Neo-Impressionist Artist http://letteraturaartistica.blogspot.nl/2015/05/paul-klee-ev.html <br class="br">1903 - 1910
Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation
To the Christian Nobility of the German States (1520), translated by Charles M. Jacobs, reported in rev. James Atkinson, The Christian in Society, I (Luther's Works, ed. James Atkinson, vol. 44), p. 207 (1966)
Sheikh Mujibur Rahman (1920–1975) Bengali revolutionary, founder ("father") of Bangladesh
Quote, This time the struggle is for our freedom (1971)
John Green book The Fault in Our Stars
A desert blessing, an ocean curse. What else? She is so beautiful. You don’t get tired of looking at her. You never worry if she is smarter than you: You know she is. She is funny without ever being mean. I love her. I am so lucky to love her, Van Houten. You don’t get to choose if you get hurt in this world, old man, but you do have some say in who hurts you. I like my choices. I hope she likes hers."
Augustus "Gus" Waters, p. 310-313
The Fault in Our Stars (2012)
Al Gore (1948) 45th Vice President of the United States
Testimony before Congress (21 March 2007), as quoted in "Gore Implores Congress To Save The Planet" at CBS Evening News (21 March 2007) http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/03/21/politics/main2591104.shtml?source=RSSattr=HOME_2591104
Marguerite de Navarre book Heptaméron
Fifth Day, Novel XLVIII (trans. W. K. Kelly)
L'Heptaméron (1558)
“The only one who really knows about the Reichstag is I, because I set it on fire!”
Hermann Göring (1893–1946) German politician and military leader
Statement at a luncheon on 20 April 1942, as recounted by General Franz Halder, about the Reichstag Fire, which the Nazis had blamed on "Communist instigators" in securing many of their dictatorial powers. In a way that might indicate Göring was simply joking, Halder testified: "At a luncheon on the birthday of Hitler in 1942 the conversation turned to the topic of the Reichstag building and its artistic value. I heard with my own ears when Göring interrupted the conversation and shouted: 'The only one who really knows about the Reichstag is I, because I set it on fire!' With that he slapped his thigh with the flat of his hand." Göring later testified: "I had nothing to do with it. I deny this absolutely. I can tell you in all honesty, that the Reichstag fire proved very inconvenient to us. After the fire I had to use the Kroll Opera House as the new Reichstag and the opera seemed to me much more important than the Reichstag. I must repeat that no pretext was needed for taking measures against the Communists. I already had a number of perfectly good reasons in the forms of murders, etc."
Kim Jong-un (1984) 3rd Supreme Leader of North Korea
Official statement from September 22, 2017, as quoted in Washington Post https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/09/21/north-korean-leader-to-trump-i-will-surely-and-definitely-tame-the-mentally-deranged-u-s-dotard-with-fire/
“How long in woman lasts the fire of love,
If eye or touch do not relight it often.”
Dante Alighieri book Purgatorio
Canto VIII, lines 77–78 (tr. Longfellow).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Purgatorio
Empedocles book On Nature
from fr. 17
Variant translations:
But come! but hear my words! For knowledge gained/Makes strong thy soul. For as before I spake/Naming the utter goal of these my words/I will report a twofold truth. Now grows/The One from Many into being, now/Even from one disparting come the Many--/Fire, Water, Earth, and awful heights of Air;/And shut from them apart, the deadly Strife/In equipoise, and Love within their midst/In all her being in length and breadth the same/Behold her now with mind, and sit not there/With eyes astonished, for 'tis she inborn/Abides established in the limbs of men/Through her they cherish thoughts of love, through her/Perfect the works of concord, calling her/By name Delight, or Aphrodite clear.
tr. William E. Leonard
On Nature
Context: But come, hear my words, since indeed learning improves the spirit. Now as I said before, setting out the bounds of my words, I shall speak twice over. As upon a time One came to be alone out of many, so at another time it divided to be many out of One: fire and water and earth and the limitless vault of air, and wretched Strife apart from these, in equal measure to everything, and Love among them, equal in length and breadth. Consider [Love] in mind, you, and don't sit there with eyes glazing over. It is a thing considered inborn in mortals, to their very bones; through it they form affections and accomplish peaceful acts, calling it Joy or Aphrodite by name.
George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist
§ 6
"Looking Back on the Spanish War" (1943)
Context: The outcome of the Spanish war was settled in London, Paris, Rome, Berlin — at any rate not in Spain. After the summer of 1937 those with eyes in their heads realized that the Government could not win the war unless there were some profound change in the international set-up, and in deciding to fight on Negrin and the others may have been partly influenced by the expectation that the world war which actually broke out in 1939 was coming in 1938. The much-publicized disunity on the Government side was not a main cause of defeat. The Government militias were hurriedly raised, ill-armed and unimaginative in their military outlook, but they would have been the same if complete political agreement had existed from the start. At the outbreak of war the average Spanish factory-worker did not even know how to fire a rifle (there had never been universal conscription in Spain), and the traditional pacifism of the Left was a great handicap. The thousands of foreigners who served in Spain made good infantry, but there were very few experts of any kind among them. The Trotskyist thesis that the war could have been won if the revolution had not been sabotaged was probably false. To nationalize factories, demolish churches, and issue revolutionary manifestoes would not have made the armies more efficient. The Fascists won because they were the stronger; they had modern arms and the others hadn't. No political strategy could offset that.
The most baffling thing in the Spanish war was the behaviour of the great powers. The war was actually won for Franco by the Germans and Italians, whose motives were obvious enough. The motives of France and Britain are less easy to understand. In 1936 it was clear to everyone that if Britain would only help the Spanish Government, even to the extent of a few million pounds’ worth of arms, Franco would collapse and German strategy would be severely dislocated. By that time one did not need to be a clairvoyant to foresee that war between Britain and Germany was coming; one could even foretell within a year or two when it would come. Yet in the most mean, cowardly, hypocritical way the British ruling class did all they could to hand Spain over to Franco and the Nazis. Why? Because they were pro-Fascist, was the obvious answer. Undoubtedly they were, and yet when it came to the final showdown they chose to stand up to Germany. It is still very uncertain what plan they acted on in backing Franco, and they may have had no clear plan at all. Whether the British ruling class are wicked or merely stupid is one of the most difficult questions of our time, and at certain moments a very important question.
Kanye West (1977) American rapper, singer and songwriter
Through the Wire
Lyrics, The College Dropout (2004)
Emily Dickinson (1830–1886) American poet
Letter to Thomas Wentworth Higginson (1870), letter #342a of The Letters of Emily Dickinson (1958), edited by Thomas H. Johnson, associate editor Theodora Ward, page 474
Source: Selected Letters
Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) American politician, 28th president of the United States (in office from 1913 to 1921)
As quoted by Thomas A. Bruno in Take your dreams and Run (South Plainfield: Bridge, 1984), p. 2-3. Source: Dr. Preston Williams (2002): By the Way - A Snapshot Diagnosis of the Inner-City Dilemma, p. 38-39. Xulun Press, Fairfax, Virginia http://books.google.de/books?id=Xn9jxqatFecC&pg=PA38&lpg=PA38&dq=woodrow+wilson+We+Grow+Great+By+Dreams%27&source=bl&ots=TtioQ-yO0-&sig=qHWPj4-8g3hSjcV-qJTbzNg6nuI&hl=de&sa=X&ei=1QZ0U4DBOaf80QWSqYDQAw&ved=0CHYQ6AEwCQ#v=onepage&q=woodrow%20wilson%20We%20Grow%20Great%20By%20Dreams'&f=false <br class="br">1880s
Terry Pratchett book Jingo
Variant: Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set fire to him and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Source: Jingo
“I am drowning, my dear, in seas of fire.”
Virginia Woolf book To the Lighthouse
Source: To the Lighthouse
“When one burns one's bridges, what a very nice fire it makes.”
Dylan Thomas (1914–1953) Welsh poet and writer
“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
Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969) American general and politician, 34th president of the United States (in office from 1953 to 1961)
1950s, The Chance for Peace (1953)
Context: Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people. This is, I repeat, the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking. This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron. … Is there no other way the world may live?
Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926) Austrian poet and writer
Source: Rilke's Book of Hours: Love Poems to God
Patrick Rothfuss book The Name of the Wind
Source: The Name of the Wind (2007), Chapter 86, “The Fire Itself” (pp. 672-673)
