Quotes about fire
page 14

“I must say that when my Southern Christian Leadership Conference began its work in Birmingham, we encountered numerous Negro church reactions that had to be overcome. Negro ministers were among other Negro leaders who felt they were being pulled into something that they had not helped to organize. This is almost always a problem. Negro community unity was the first requisite if our goals were to be realized. I talked with many groups, including one group of 200 ministers, my theme to them being that a minister cannot preach the glories of heaven while ignoring social conditions in his own community that cause men an earthly hell. I stressed that the Negro minister had particular freedom and independence to provide strong, firm leadership, and I asked how the Negro would ever gain freedom without his minister's guidance, support and inspiration. These ministers finally decided to entrust our movement with their support, and as a result, the role of the Negro church today, by and large, is a glorious example in the history of Christendom. For never in Christian history, within a Christian country, have Christian churches been on the receiving end of such naked brutality and violence as we are witnessing here in America today. Not since the days of the Christians in the catacombs has God's house, as a symbol, weathered such attack as the Negro churches.
I shall never forget the grief and bitterness I felt on that terrible September morning when a bomb blew out the lives of those four little, innocent girls sitting in their Sunday-school class in the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham. I think of how a woman cried out, crunching through broken glass, "My God, we're not even safe in church!" I think of how that explosion blew the face of Jesus Christ from a stained-glass window. It was symbolic of how sin and evil had blotted out the life of Christ. I can remember thinking that if men were this bestial, was it all worth it? Was there any hope? Was there any way out?… time has healed the wounds -- and buoyed me with the inspiration of another moment which I shall never forget: when I saw with my own eyes over 3000 young Negro boys and girls, totally unarmed, leave Birmingham's 16th Street Baptist Church to march to a prayer meeting -- ready to pit nothing but the power of their bodies and souls against Bull Connor's police dogs, clubs and fire hoses. When they refused Connor's bellowed order to turn back, he whirled and shouted to his men to turn on the hoses. It was one of the most fantastic events of the Birmingham story that these Negroes, many of them on their knees, stared, unafraid and unmoving, at Connor's men with the hose nozzles in their hands. Then, slowly the Negroes stood up and advanced, and Connor's men fell back as though hypnotized, as the Negroes marched on past to hold their prayer meeting. I saw there, I felt there, for the first time, the pride and the power of nonviolence.
Another time I will never forget was one Saturday night, late, when my brother telephoned me in Atlanta from Birmingham -- that city which some call "Bombingham" -- which I had just left. He told me that a bomb had wrecked his home, and that another bomb, positioned to exert its maximum force upon the motel room in which I had been staying, had injured several people. My brother described the terror in the streets as Negroes, furious at the bombings, fought whites. Then, behind his voice, I heard a rising chorus of beautiful singing: "We shall overcome."”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

Tears came into my eyes that at such a tragic moment, my race still could sing its hope and faith. Interview in Playboy (January 1965) https://web.archive.org/web/20080706183244/http://www.playboy.com/arts-entertainment/features/mlk/04.html 1960s

Life, Men, God, People

“Fire hath its force abated by water, not by wind; and anger must be allayed by cold words, and not by blustering threats.”

Anne Bradstreet (1612–1672) Anglo-American poet

43.
Meditations Divine and Moral (1664)

Water, Anger

“Well, you must now imagine my friend at my age or almost there. You must picture him growing gray, tired of life and convinced that he had at last discovered the secret of peace. At this time he met, while visiting some relatives in a country house, a mere girl of twenty, who was the image, the haunting image of her whom he had hoped to marry thirty years before. It was one of those strange resemblances which extend from the color of the eyes to the 'timbre' of the voice, from the smile to the thought, from the gestures to the finest feelings of the heart. I could not, in a few disjointed phrases describe to you the strange emotions of my friend. It would take pages and pages to make you understand the tenderness, both present and at the same time retrospective, for the dead through the living; the hypnotic condition of the soul which does not know where dreams and memories end and present feeling begins; the daily commingling of the most unreal thing in the world, the phantom of a lost love, with the freshest, the most actual, the most irresistibly naïve and spontaneous thing in it, a young girl. She comes, she goes, she laughs, she sings, you go about with her in the intimacy of country life, and at her side walks one long dead. After two weeks of almost careless abandon to the dangerous delights of this inward agitation imagine my friend entering by chance one morning one of the less frequented rooms of the house, a gallery, where, among other pictures, hung a portrait of himself, painted when he was twenty-five. He approaches the portrait abstractedly. There had been a fire in the room, so that a slight moisture dimmed the glass which protected the pastel, and on this glass, because of this moisture, he sees distinctly the trace of two lips which had been placed upon the eyes of the portrait, two small delicate lips, the sight of which makes his heart beat. He leaves the gallery, questions a servant, who tells him that no one but the young woman he has in mind has been in the room that morning.”

Paul Bourget (1852–1935) French writer

Pierre Fauchery, as quoted by the character "Jules Labarthe"
The Age for Love

Love, Life, Secret, Age

“Robert G. Ingersoll and Wendell Phillips were the two greatest orators of their time, and probably of all time. Their power sprang from their passion for freedom, for truth, for justice, for a world filled with light and with happy human beings. But for this divine passion neither would have scaled the sublime heights of immortal achievement. The sacred fire burned within them and when they were aroused it flashed from their eyes and rolled from their inspired lips in torrents of eloquence.”

Eugene V. Debs (1855–1926) American labor and political leader

The Secret of Efficient Expression (1911)

Happiness, Truth, World, Justice

“So I light the fire with the lighter and then I'm like, 'Now, how am I going to light the candles?' And I'm racing through the house, tearing open drawers and throwing things out of closets, looking for matches … and I had just lit the fire with the thing!!! And then I was like, 'How did I light the fire?”

Megan Mullally (1958) American actress

So then l took the thing and lit the candles.
Attributed

Tear, Light, Housing

“Children born of fairy stock
Never need for shirt or frock,
Never want for food or fire,
Always get their heart's desire…”

Robert Graves (1895–1985) English poet and novelist

"I'd Love To Be A Fairy's Child".
Fairies and Fusiliers (1917)

Children, Food, Heart

“Often, those who come into power quickly end up misusing that power … we should, but we don't put in place strong controls to prevent rather than punish this bad behavior. Even Steve Jobs was almost fired a second time from Apple and might have ended up in jail for abuse of power (in his case backdating his own options without board approval) and, without Jobs, Apple likely not only not been the most valuable company in the world, but it likely would have failed last decade.”

Rob Enderle (1954) American financial analyst

What the Fox News Bill O'Reilly fiasco teaches businesses http://cio.com/article/3193003/leadership-management/what-the-fox-news-bill-o-reilly-fiasco-teaches-businesses.html in CIO (28 April 2017)

World, Behavior, Strong, Time

“All are before me! I behold
The House, the Brotherhood austere!
— And what am I, that I am here? For rigorous teachers seized my youth,
And purged its faith, and trimm'd its fire,
Show'd me the high, white star of Truth,
There bade me gaze, and there aspire.
Even now their whispers pierce the gloom:
What dost thou in this living tomb?”

Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) English poet and cultural critic who worked as an inspector of schools

Stanzas from the Grande Chartreuse (1855)

Truth, Youth, Faith, Star

“Listen! what is life? It is a feather, it is the seed of the grass, blown hither and thither, sometimes multiplying itself and dying in the act, sometimes carried away into the heavens. But if that seed be good and heavy it may perchance travel a little way on the road it wills. It is well to try and journey one’s road and to fight with the air. Man must die. At the worst he can but die a little sooner…
Out of the dark we came, into the dark we go. Like a storm-driven bird at night we fly out of the Nowhere; for a moment our wings are seen in the light of the fire, and, lo! we are gone again into the Nowhere. Life is nothing. Life is all. It is the Hand with which we hold off Death. It is the glow-worm that shines in the night-time and is black in the morning; it is the white breath of the oxen in winter; it is the little shadow that runs across the grass and loses itself at sunset.”

H. Rider Haggard book King Solomon's Mines

Source: King Solomon's Mines (1885), Chapter 5, "Our March into the Desert"

Life, Death, Way, Travel

“There is no great invention, from fire to flying, which has not been hailed as an insult to some god.”

J. B. S. Haldane (1892–1964) Geneticist and evolutionary biologist

Daedalus or Science and the Future (1923)

God, Flying

“(on the plane crash) I saw Travis running and flailing, trying to put out fire on his body. He screamed, ‘What do I do?’ and I said, ‘Roll!’ He did, but the fire didn’t go out. He tried to rip his clothes off. I finally put the flames out by smothering him with my body. Some of my burns are from that. His sock was on fire – I burned my fingers taking it off.”

Adam Goldstein (1973–2009) American DJ

DJ AM opens up about the plane crash http://www.celebritysmackblog.com/2008/10/16/dj-am-opens-up-about-the-plane-crash-that-nearly-took-his-life/ People Magazine. October 10, 2008.

Clothes

“When we look over the rest of the world, in spite of all its devastation there is encouragement to believe it is on a firmer moral foundation than it was in 1914. Much of the old despotism has been swept away, While some of it comes creeping back disguised under new names, no one can doubt that the general admission of the right of the people to self-government has made tremendous progress in nearly every quarter of the globe. In spite of the staggering losses and the grievous burden of taxation, there is a new note of hope for the individual to be more secure in his rights, which is unmistakably clearer than ever before. With all the troubles that beset the Old World, the former cloud of fear is evidently not now so appalling. It is impossible to believe that any nation now feels that it could better itself by war, and it is apparent to me that there has been a very distinct advance in the policy of peaceful and honorable adjustment of international differences. War has become less probable; peace has become more secure. The price which has been paid to bring about this new condition is utterly beyond comprehension. We can not see why it should not have come in orderly and peaceful methods without the attendant shock of fire and sword and carnage. We only know that it is here. We believe that on the ruins of the old order a better civilization is being constructed.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, Toleration and Liberalism (1925)

War, People, World, Fear

“I remember a story my father used to tell. As he was coming home one day, he ran across a group of men who were firing on the troops from an ambush. During the excitement a daring onlooker went up to one of the snipers who seemed to be a poor marksman. He took the man's gun and brought down a soldier, then handed it back to its owner who motioned as if to say, 'No, go on. You're a better shot than I am.”

Edgar Degas (1834–1917) French artist

But the stranger said, 'No, I'm not interested in politics.'
Vollard, Degas and others were talking about the revolution of 1847. Somebody remarked to Degas that he must have been quite young at that time. Than Degas start to quote his father.
Source: posthumous quotes, Degas: An Intimate Portrait' (1927), p. 40

Men, Home

“The rigidity of forms impedes their transmission.
These words are so heavy that the flow fails to carry
them. Temperaments die before arriving at the goal
(firing blanks).
No word is capable of carrying the impulses one
wants to send with it.”

Isidore Isou (1925–2007) Romanian-born French poet, film critic and visual artist

Panic IV
Manifesto Of Letterist Poetry, 1942

“The burnt child dreads the fire.”

Ben Jonson (1572–1637) English writer

Act I, scene 2
The Devil Is an Ass (performed 1616; published 1631)

“I am interested in the creativity of the criminal attitude because I recognize in it the existence of a special condition of crazy creativity. A creativity without morals fired only by the energy of freedom and the rejection of all codes and laws. For freedom rejects the dictated roles of the law and of the imposed order and for this reason is isolated.”

Joseph Beuys (1921–1986) German visual artist

Quoted by Germano Celant, Beuys, tracce in Italia, Amelio, 1978
1970's

Law, Freedom

“Privatization: Disposing of public sector assets at low prices and high sales commissions to powerful groups and individuals who generously supported the ruling party’s last election campaign. It provides short-run cash windfalls to the government, while weakening its power and its cash flows in the years to come. In the Third World, a means of making valuable assets available to First World creditors and investors at fire sale prices in a situation of virtual state bankruptcy.”

Edward S. Herman (1925–2017) American journalist

Source: Beyond Hypocrisy, 1992, Doublespeak Dictionary (within Beyond Hypocrisy), p. 166.

World, Support

“Why, reader, truly, if they asked thee or me, Which way we meant to vote?—were it not our likeliest answer: Neither way! I, as a Tenpound Franchiser, will receive no bribe; but also I will not vote for either of these men. Neither Rigmarole nor Dolittle shall, by furtherance of mine, go and make laws for this country. I will have no hand in such a mission. How dare I! If other men cannot be got in England, a totally other sort of men, different as light is from dark, as star-fire is from street-mud, what is the use of votings, or of Parliaments in England?”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

1840s, Past and Present (1843)

Men, Law, Way, Star

“…nothing short of a world state will be really effective in preventing war. As long as you rely for security on a number of national armaments you will have the difficulty as to who shall bell the cat in case of need, while you will have general staffs in all countries planning future wars. I want us to come out boldly for a real long-range policy which will envisage the abolition of the conception of the individual sovereign state. … A united navy to police the seas of the world could be attained and would incidentally bring enormous pressure to bear on Japan. The next thing would be an international air force and an international air service. … The basis of such a move would have to be a frank recognition that all states must surrender a large degree of sovereignty and that the Peace Treaties must be revised. On this basis one must then proceed to build up a world structure politically and economically. … This may sound very visionary but I am convinced that unless we see the world we want it is vain to try to build a permanent habitation for Peace and that temporary structures will catch fire very soon if we wait any longer.”

Clement Attlee (1883–1967) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Letter to Tom Attlee (1 January 1933), quoted in W. Golant, 'The Emergence of C. R. Attlee as Leader of the Parliamentary Labour Party in 1935', The Historical Journal, Vol. 13, No. 2 (Jun., 1970), p. 323
Deputy Leader of the Opposition

War, World, Peace, Cats

“God has been always working, evolving, in His quiet power, from the seeming, the real, from the false, the true. Not for nothing blazed the martyr's fires — not for nothing toiled brave sufferers up successive hills of shame. God's purpose doth not languish. The torture and the trial of the past have been the stern ploughers in His service who never suspended their husbandry, and who have made long their furrows. Into those furrows the imperishable seed hath fallen. The heedless world hath trodden it in; tears and blood have watered it; the patient sun hath warmed and cheered it to its ripening; and it shall be ready soon.”

William Morley Punshon (1824–1881) English Nonconformist minister

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 216.

God, World, Tear, Suffering

“O tenderly the haughty day
Fills his blue urn with fire;
One morn is in the mighty heaven,
And one in our desire.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

Ode http://www.potw.org/archive/potw369.html, st. 1 1860s, May-Day and Other Pieces (1867)

“It's almost like the Reichstag fire, kind of reminds me of that. After the Reichstag was burned, they blamed the Communists for it and it put the leader of that country [Hitler] in a position where he could basically have authority to do whatever he wanted. The fact is that I'm not saying [Sept. 11] was a [U. S. ] plan, or anything like that because, you know, that's how they put you in the nut-ball box - dismiss you.”

Keith Ellison (1963) American politician and lawyer

Meeting with Atheists for Human Rights, July 08, 2007. http://web.archive.org/web/20070710224408/http://www.startribune.com/462/story/1291147.html

Country, Box

“His [Sarpi's] career soon revealed another cause of his return; he evidently felt the same impulse which stirred his contemporaries, Lord Bacon and Galileo, for he began devoting himself to the whole range of scientific and philosophical studies, especially to mathematics, physics, astronomy, anatomy, and physiology. In these he became known as an authority, and before long was recognized as such throughout Europe. It is claimed, and it is not improbable, that he anticipated Harvey in discovering the circulation of the blood, and that he was the forerunner of noted discoverers in magnetism. Unfortunately the loss of the great mass of his papers by the fire which destroyed his convent in 1769 forbids any full estimate of his work; but it is certain that among those who sought his opinion and advice were such great discoverers as Acquapendente, Galileo, Torricelli, and Gilbert of Colchester, and that every one of these referred to him as an equal, and indeed as a master.”

Andrew Dickson White (1832–1918) American politician

Source: Seven Great Statesmen in the Warfare of Humanity with Unreason (1915), p. 4-5

Mathematics, Study, Loss

“Wait, there is a light, there is a fire, illuminated attic. Fate or something better, I could care less, Just stay with me a while”

Brandon Boyd (1976) American rock singer, writer and visual artist

Lyrics, Light Grenades (2006)

Fate, Light, Waiting

“The story had held us, round the fire, sufficiently breathless, but except the obvious remark that it was gruesome, as, on Christmas Eve in an old house, a strange tale should essentially be.”

Henry James book The Turn of the Screw

Introduction.
The Turn of the Screw (1898)

Christmas, Housing

“The ideal Ireland that we would have, the Ireland that we dreamed of, would be the home of a people who valued material wealth only as a basis for right living, of a people who, satisfied with frugal comfort, devoted their leisure to the things of the spirit – a land whose countryside would be bright with cosy homesteads, whose fields and villages would be joyous with the sounds of industry, with the romping of sturdy children, the contest of athletic youths and the laughter of happy maidens, whose firesides would be forums for the wisdom of serene old age. The home, in short, of a people living the life that God desires that men should live. With the tidings that make such an Ireland possible, St. Patrick came to our ancestors fifteen hundred years ago promising happiness here no less than happiness hereafter. It was the pursuit of such an Ireland that later made our country worthy to be called the island of saints and scholars. It was the idea of such an Ireland - happy, vigorous, spiritual - that fired the imagination of our poets; that made successive generations of patriotic men give their lives to win religious and political liberty; and that will urge men in our own and future generations to die, if need be, so that these liberties may be preserved. One hundred years ago, the Young Irelanders, by holding up the vision of such an Ireland before the people, inspired and moved them spiritually as our people had hardly been moved since the Golden Age of Irish civilisation. Fifty years later, the founders of the Gaelic League similarly inspired and moved the people of their day. So, later, did the leaders of the Irish Volunteers. We of this time, if we have the will and active enthusiasm, have the opportunity to inspire and move our generation in like manner. We can do so by keeping this thought of a noble future for our country constantly before our eyes, ever seeking in action to bring that future into being, and ever remembering that it is for our nation as a whole that future must be sought.”

Éamon de Valera (1882–1975) 3rd President of Ireland

Radio broadcast http://www.rte.ie/archives/exhibitions/eamon-de-valera/719124-address-by-mr-de-valera/, "On Language & the Irish Nation" (17 March 1943), often called "The Ireland that we dreamed of" speech

Life, Wisdom, Men, God

“Overprotecting intellectual property is as harmful as underprotecting it. Creativity is impossible without a rich public domain. Nothing today, likely nothing since we tamed fire, is genuinely new: Culture, like science and technology, grows by accretion, each new creator building on the works of those who came before. Overprotection stifles the very creative forces it's supposed to nurture.”

Alex Kozinski (1950) American judge

Dissenting in the White v. Samsung Elec. Am., Inc., 989 F.2d 1512 (9th Cir. 1993) ruling. http://notabug.com/kozinski/whitedissent.

Science

“According to the orthodox creeds, Christianity came with the tidings that the human race was totally depraved, and that all men were in a lost condition, and that all who rejected or failed to believe the new religion, would be tormented in eternal fire. These were not “tidings of great joy.” If the passengers on some great ship were told that the ship was to be wrecked, that a few would be saved and that nearly all would go to the bottom, would they talk about “tidings of great joy”?”

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

A Christmas Sermon (1890)

Men, Religion, Joy

“You borrow my brain for 5 seconds, and just be like "Dude, can't handle it, unplug this bastard", because it fires in a way that is, I don't know, maybe not from this particular terrestrial realm.”

Charlie Sheen (1965) American film and television actor

On Good Morning America February 28, 2011

Way

“I'm always endlessly surprised about the people who come into my life, who I get to collaborate with. I feel really overwhelmed by those opportunities. But it's not like I fell off the turnip truck and suddenly became who I am. I really have worked hard for it, and I have to acknowledge that. I care about what I do, and I have a sense of pride in my work. And you can never be totally settled as an actor or artist or musician. You have to keep the fire under you, because that's what makes you better.”

Reese Witherspoon (1976) American film actress and producer

Face to Face with Reese Witherspoon http://www.rd.com/content/openContent.do?contentId=18040&pageIndex=3, Readers Digest (September 2005).

Life, People, Feeling, Sense

“We to a little ale-house on the Bankside, over against the Three Cranes, and there stayed till it was dark almost, and saw the fire grow; and, as it grew darker, appeared more and more, and in corners and upon steeples, and between churches and houses, as far as we could see up the hill of the City, in a most horrid malicious bloody flame, not like the fine flame of an ordinary fire. Barbary and her husband away before us. We stayed till, it being darkish, we saw the fire as only one entire arch of fire from this to the other side the bridge, and in a bow up the hill for an arch of above a mile long: it made me weep to see it.”

Samuel Pepys (1633–1703) English naval administrator and member of parliament

September 2, 1666
Of the Great Fire of London.
Diary

Appearance, Housing

“Monks throng like a kennel of pups
from disputing with the masters who instruct them
whether the run of the wind is one, or one the ocean's waters
or one the spark of fire - an illimitable clamour.”

Taliesin (534–599) Welsh bard

Book of Taliesin (c. 1275?), The Spoils of Annwn

Water

“I must here acknowledge that the best naturall philosophic that I ever coulde learn in this point, was neither out of Aristotle's Physicks, nor Velcurie's Naturall Philosophy, nor garseous meteors, nor out of any of the olde philosophicall fathers, that writ so many hundred years past; but that little which I have, I gathered it on the backside of Moore fieldes, where, by sundrie undoubted argument, I did heare it maintained, that all the elementes doo onely differ in attenuation and condensation: so as earth beeing attenuated becommeth water; and water condensate, becommeth earth; water attenuated becommeth aier, and aier condensate becommeth water; and so likewise aier attenuated becommeth fire, and fire condensate becommeth aier; and thus all of them spring from one roote, which being admitted is a manifeste proofe that there is a greate and neere affinity betweene the lande and the sea, wherein we shall finde salte water enough for our purpose.”

Hugh Plat (1552–1608) writer

As cited in: Robert Kemp Philp (1859, p. 74)
The Jewell House of Art and Nature, 1594

Spring, Learning, Water, Bee

“Strike—for your altars and your fires!
Strike—for the green graves of your sires!
God, and your native land!”

Fitz-Greene Halleck (1790–1867) American writer

Marco Bozzaris in memory of the Greek revolutionary hero Markos Botsaris.

God

“Great goddess, to whose throne in Cynthian fires,
This earthly altar endless fumes expires;
Therefore, in fumes of sighs and fires of grief,
To fearful chances thou send'st bold relief,
Happy, thrice happy type, and nurse of death,
Who, breathless, feeds on nothing but our breath,
In whom must virtue and her issue live,
Or die for ever.”

George Chapman (1559–1634) English dramatist, poet, and translator

Hymnus in noctem, line 1
The Shadow of Night (1594)

Death, Happiness, Fear, Chance

“Over the next 40 years, he rose to lead that department. Pop was the tall, strong, silent type, quiet and dignified, and passionate about the rule of law. Back during Prohibition, he heard that bootleggers were running beer through fire hoses between Yonkers and the Bronx.”

James Comey (1960) American lawyer and the seventh director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)

2010s, Hard Truths: Law Enforcement (2015)

Law, Beer, Strong, Passion

“We have endured a lot of harm from Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and his brothers, and we preferred to respond with as little as possible, out of our concern to extinguish the fire of sedition. But Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and his brothers did not leave us a choice, for they have demanded that all the mujahideen reject their confirmed pledges of allegiance, and to pledge allegiance to them for what they claim of a caliphate.”

Ayman al-Zawahiri (1951) Egyptian physician, Islamic theologian and leader of al-Qaeda

As quoted in "Al Qaeda 'declares war' on ISIS as 9/11 terror group boss blasts rival for declaring himself leader of all Muslims" http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/al-qaeda-declares-war-isis-6422015, The Mirror (11 September 2015)

“By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April's breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood,
And fired the shot heard round the world.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

Hymn sung at the Completion of the Battle Monument
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

World

“Fire is a part of the Australian experience.”

Tony Abbott (1957) Australian politician

Quoted in "UN official 'talking through her hat' on bushfires and climate change, says Tony Abbott" http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/un-official-talking-through-her-hat-on-bushfires-and-climate-change-says-tony-abbott-20131023-2w0mz.html in the Sydney Morning Herald, October 23, 2013. 2013

Parting

“I would like to clarify the answer published in my name in last month’s issue of Moment Magazine. First of all, the opinions published in my name are solely my own, and do not represent the official policy of any Jewish movement or organization. Additionally, my answer, as written, is misleading. It is obvious, I thought, that any neighbor of the Jewish people should be treated, as the Torah commands us, with respect and compassion. Fundamental to the Jewish faith is the concept that every human being was created in the image of G-d, and our sages instruct us to support the non-Jewish poor along with the poor of our own brethren. The sub-question I chose to address instead is: how should we act in time of war, when our neighbors attack us, using their women, children and religious holy places as shields. I attempted to briefly address some of the ethical issues related to forcing the military to withhold fire from certain people and places, at the unbearable cost of widespread bloodshed (on both sides!)—when one’s own family and nation is mercilessly targeted from those very people and places. Furthermore, some of the words I used in my brief comment were irresponsible, and I look forward to further clarifying them in a future issue. I apologize for any misunderstanding my words created.”

Manis Friedman (1946) American rabbi

Clarification of previous statement http://momentmagazine.wordpress.com/2009/06/03/a-statement-from-rabbi-friedman/ On the Israeli-Arab conflict

Women, War, Children, People

“All I've heard from you so far is a lot of hot air, so in the interests of climate change you're fired…”

Alan Sugar (1947) British business magnate, media personality, and political advisor

to Stuart Baggs in the boardroom
The Apprentice, Series 6

Change

“Between bad ideas of gender neutrality and even worse ideas of the innocence of pornography, we reach the world so vividly described by so many dissatisfied women today, one where men act like stereotypical women, and retreat from real relationships into a fantasy life via pornography (rather than Harlequin novels), and where women conversely act like stereotypical men, taking the lead in leaving their marriages and firing angry charges on the way, out of frustration and withheld sex.”

Mary Eberstadt American writer

Adam and Eve After the Pill: Paradoxes of the Sexual Revolution https://books.google.it/books?id=7z-hDQAAQBAJ&pg=PT0 (Ignatius Press, 2012), ch. 2.

Life, Women, Men, Marriage

“Jay gave me a co-sign like I was RocaWear, but be clear I'm not the air/heir
I'm the water, fire and the earth
That means I'm doing dirt, spitting flames and quenching thirst”

Lupe Fiasco (1982) rapper

"Popular Demand"
Mixtapes, Enemy of the State: A Love Story (2009)

Water

“If I was not assured by the best authority on earth that the world is to be destroyed by fire, I should conclude that the day of destruction is at hand, but brought on by means of an agent very opposite to that of heat.”

Charles Dodgson (bishop) Anglican bishop

Quoted in Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll (1898), p. 5

World

“What? Men dodging this way for single bullets? What will you do when they open fire along the whole line? I am ashamed of you. They couldn't hit an elephant at this distance.”

John Sedgwick (1813–1864) Union Army general

Allegedly these were among General John Sedgwick's final words. He was serving as a Union commander in the American Civil War, and was hit by a sharpshooter's fire a few minutes after saying them, at the battle of Spotsylvania to his men who were ducking for cover, on May 9, 1864. The words have often been portrayed as if they were absolutely his last statement, with the sentence being presented as if he did not even finish it, and altered into the form: "They couldn't hit an elephant at this dist..." . Though it may be a slightly more striking version of events, it is unlikely to be true. Civil War Home site: eye-witness account http://www.civilwarhome.com/sedgwickdeath.htm

Men, Way

“Love is a burnin' thing
And it makes a fiery ring
Bound by wild desire
I fell into a ring of fire I fell into a burnin' ring of fire
I went down, down, down
And the flames went higher
And it burns, burns, burns
The ring of fire, the ring of fire”

June Carter Cash (1929–2003) American singer, songwriter and actress

Ring of Fire (1963); co-written with Merle Kilgore · June Carter Cash performance https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyNf6sw8xaE · Anita Carter version (1963) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OlWGsaorj6U · Johnny Cash performance (1987) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEOdXU_JQPA · Johnny Cash performance (1994) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-zNQA5Xi4Q · Live performance by June (1999) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpRa6JbywTc

Love

“But it was drama, high drama: fires at night, the fires that burned people's houses away; bombs fell and left exotically shaped fragments in the form of shrapnel. And we collected it and traded it. As long as we were not hurt -- and I wasn't -- life seemed wonderful.”

Tom Baker (1934) English actor

Describing The Blitz

Life, People, Hurt, Housing

“In 1805, England had a problem. Napoléon had conquered big chunks of Europe and planned the invasion of England. But to cross the Channel, he needed to wrest control of the sea away from the English. Off the southwest coast of Spain, the French and Spanish combined fleet of thirty-three ships met the smaller British fleet of twenty-seven ships. The well-developed tactics of the day were for the two opposing fleets to each stay in line, firing broadsides at each other. But British admiral Lord Nelson had a strategic insight. He broke the British fleet into two columns and drove them at the Franco-Spanish fleet, hitting their line perpendicularly. The lead British ships took a great risk, but Nelson judged that the less-trained Franco-Spanish gunners would not be able to compensate for the heavy swell that day. At the end of the Battle of Trafalgar, the French and Spanish lost twenty-two ships, two-thirds of their fleet. The British lost none. Nelson was mortally wounded, becoming, in death, Britain’s greatest naval hero. Britain’s naval dominance was ensured and remained unsurpassed for a century and a half.”

Richard Rumelt (1942) American economist

Source: Good Strategy Bad Strategy, 2011, p. 1; Lead paragraph introduction

Death, Problem, Training, Sea

“Aware that the city was architecturally unworthy of her position as capital of the Roman Empire, besides being vulnerable to fire and river floods, Augustus so improved her appearance that he could justifiably boast: "I found Rome built of bricks; I leave her clothed in marble."”
Urbem neque pro maiestate imperii ornatam et inundationibus incendiisque obnoxiam excoluit adeo, ut iure sit gloriatus marmoream se relinquere, quam latericiam accepisset.

Sueton book The Twelve Caesars

Source: The Twelve Caesars, Augustus, Ch. 28

Appearance, Clothes

“It is not true that Kafka wanted Brod to burn his manuscripts after his death. Rather it is the case that Kafka was on fire to be published…rushed to the postbox day after day…ate with editors…intrigued for favorable notices…read the Writer’s Digest…consorted with critics…autographed napkins…made himself available to librarians…spoke on the radio…”

Donald Barthelme (1931–1989) American writer, editor, and professor

praragraph deleted from “Kierkegaard Unfair to Schlegel”, in Tracy Daugherty’s Hiding Man: A Biography of Donald Barthelme (2009), p. 335.

Death, Reading

“Is this the end? Is it to be merely a chapter in a cruel and senseless story? Will a new generation in their turn be immolated to square the black accounts of the Teuton and Gaul? Will our children bleed and gasp again in devastated lands? Or will there spring from the very fires of conflict that reconciliation of the three giant combatants, which would unite their genius and secure to each in safety and freedom a share in rebuilding the glory of Europe.”

Winston S. Churchill book The World Crisis

The World Crisis, 1916-1918 Part II : Chapter XXIII (Victory), Churchill, Butterworth (1927), p. 544.
Early career years (1898–1929)

Children, Spring, Freedom

“One would think that agents charged with protecting us from "dirty nukes" would enjoy the same discretionary search authority as partrolmen who make traffic stops. In fact, they have less. If a patrolman pulls you over for weaving between lanes, and smells bourbon on your breath, he does not need a warrant to give you a breath test. But if an FBI agent learns that you are a member of a known terrorist group, and that you behaved suspiciously at a flight school, he must jump through bureaucratic hoops of fire to search your laptop computer.”

Mark Riebling (1963) American writer

Uncuff the FBI: Congress Must Undo the Church Committe's Damage (2002)

School, Search, Thinking, Learning

“This war in Iraq makes millions of dollars for big corporations, either weapons manufacturers or those working in the reconstruction, such as Halliburton and its sister companies... It is crystal clear who benefits from igniting the fire of this war and this bloodshed: They are the merchants of war, the bloodsuckers who run the policy of the world from behind the scenes. President Bush and his ilk, the media giants, and the U. N... all are a fatal danger to the world, and the Zionist lobby is their most dangerous member. God willing, we will persist in fighting them...”

Osama bin Laden (1957–2011) founder of al-Qaeda

Reported in Strategic Culture and Violent Non-state Actors: Weapons of Mass Destruction and Asymmetrical Operations Concepts and Cases https://books.google.com/books?id=zUYhAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA33 by James M. Smith, Jerry Mark Long, Thomas H. Johnson, p. 33, USAF Institute for National Security Studies, 2008 2000s, 2004

God, War, World, Sister

“For with what eyes of the mind was your Plato able to see that workhouse of such stupendous toil, in which he makes the world to be modelled and built by God? What materials, what bars, what machines, what servants, were employed in so vast a work? How could the air, fire, water, and earth, pay obedience and submit to the will of the architect? From whence arose those five forms, of which the rest were composed, so aptly contributing to frame the mind and produce the senses? It is tedious to go through all, as they are of such a sort that they look more like things to be desired than to be discovered.”
Quibus enim oculis animi intueri potuit vester Plato fabricam illam tanti operis, qua construi a deo atque aedificari mundum facit; quae molitio, quae ferramenta, qui vectes, quae machinae, qui ministri tanti muneris fuerunt; quem ad modum autem oboedire et parere voluntati architecti aer, ignis, aqua, terra potuerunt; unde vero ortae illae quinque formae, ex quibus reliqua formantur, apte cadentes ad animum afficiendum pariendosque sensus? Longum est ad omnia, quae talia sunt, ut optata magis quam inventa videantur.

Marcus Tullius Cicero (-106–-43 BC) Roman philosopher and statesman

Book I, section 19
De Natura Deorum – On the Nature of the Gods (45 BC)

God, World, Sense, Water

“Some starlit garden grey with dew,
Some chamber flushed with wine and fire,
What matters where, so I and you
Are worthy our desire?”

William Ernest Henley (1849–1903) English poet, critic and editor

Source: Poems (1898), Rhymes And Rhythms, XII

Wine

“Dryden's genius was of that sort which catches fire by its own motion; his chariot wheels get hot by driving fast.”

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) English poet, literary critic and philosopher

1 November 1833
Table Talk (1821–1834)

“Five elements, earth, water, fire, wind, [[ether are in essence the five satis. This the wise know as Ahalya, Draupadi, Kunti, Tara and Mandodari Five virgins…Ahalya personifies water, Draupadi represents fire, Kunti symbolises mother earth, Tara personifies wind and Mandodari ether. Draupadi’s personality personifies fire, while Sita (whom she incongruously includes in the group instead of Kunti) is the daughter of the earth.”

Kunti character from Indian epic Mahabharata

Pradip Bhattacharya in: Living by Their Own Norms Unique Powers of the Panchkanyas http://www.manushi-india.org/pdfs_issues/PDF%20145/Panchkayana%2030-37.pdf, manushi-india.org

Water, Personality, Daughters

“I do have some early role models. I recall wanting to be a real-life version of the fictional "Sandor Arbitration Intelligence at the Zoo" (from Vernor Vinge's novel A Fire Upon the Deep) who in the story is known for consistently writing the clearest and most insightful posts on the Net. And then there was Hal Finney who probably came closest to an actual real-life version of Sandor at the Zoo, and Tim May who besides inspiring me with his vision of cryptoanarchy was also a role model for doing early retirement from the tech industry and working on his own interests/causes.”

Wei Dai Cryptocurrency pioneer and computer scientist

In response http://lesswrong.com/lw/jgz/aalwa_ask_any_lesswronger_anything/ap84 to the question "Do you have any role models?", March 2014

Life, Intelligence

“Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seamed with scars; martyrs have put on their coronation robes glittering with fire; and through their tears have the sorrowful first seen the gate of heaven.”

Edwin Hubbell Chapin (1814–1880) American priest

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers, P. 567.

Soul, Tear, Suffering

“We have been threatened by a local conservative group who said they will picket the show unless I am fired and taken off the bill and replaced by someone else. Sorry. I am now more excited than ever to meet y'all. Personally, if you are going to picket a show, fine, but the fact that you are picketing my show, means you are stepping up to me, which means some very bad things could possibly happen to you.”

Margaret Cho (1968) American stand-up comedian

From Her Weblog

Personality

“Had Ingersoll and Phillips devoted their lives to the practice of law for pay the divine fire within them would have burned to ashes and they would have died in mediocrity.”

Eugene V. Debs (1855–1926) American labor and political leader

The Secret of Efficient Expression (1911)

Law

“In Hong Kong
They strike a gong
And fire off a noonday gun
To reprimand
Each inmate
Who's in late.”

Noel Coward (1899–1973) English playwright, composer, director, actor and singer

Mad Dogs and Englishmen (1930)

“In the whole of recorded modern history, this was, I believe, the one occasion when one man, with one soaring imagination, with one fire burning in him, and with one unrivalled capacity for conveying it to others, won a crucial victory not only for the forces (for there were many heroes in those days) but for the very spirit of human freedom. And so, on this great day, we thank him, and we thank God for him.”

Robert Menzies (1894–1978) Australian politician, 12th Prime Minister of Australia

Second Term as Prime Minister (1949-1966)

God, Imagination, History, Freedom

“Fire made Joey powerful. He could cause ordinary, boring people to wake in fright. He made the alarms sound. Made the fire trucks race down the road, sirens wailing. And right behind them stampeded the television cameras and reporters. All of them eager to look upon his handiwork…. Without fire, Joey was nothing.”

Lis Wiehl (1961) American legal scholar

Source: Heart of Ice A Triple Threat Novel with April Henry (Thomas Nelson), pp. 1, 2

People

“As, when one torch has been fired, flame is transmitted to all the neighbouring candlesticks, without either the first light being lessened or blazing with unequal brilliance on the other points where it has been caught; so the saintliness of a life is transmitted from him who has achieved it, to those who come within his circle.”

Gregory of Nyssa (335–395) bishop of Nyssa

On Virginity, Chapter 24

Life, Light

“!-- I come from the Arts Lab. Most of the writing I used to do was used for performance, so consequently I learnt that when you are reading a poem it has to read properly, which is to do with syllables and stresses. What takes me the longest with my fine writing, like say Voice of the Fire, is reading it through and finding the bits where it clunks, where it’s one syllable too long, and once you find that rhythm – the reader probably won’t be aware of it, consciously, but there is a tidal wave embedded in the prose that the reader is responding to. In the last chapter of Voice in the Fire, where it is actually me talking in my own voice, I don’t use the word ‘I’ or ‘me’ or ‘mine’. I don’t know why – perhaps I had been reading that Private Eye column where it is all ‘I’ ‘I’ ‘I’ and started to feel a bit self-conscious about it – but --> I thought if I can still be the central voice but without having an ‘I’ there, and by not having it there, it makes it easier for the reader to slip into the consciousness of the narrator. If you remove the letter ‘I’ it becomes a universal I. Everybody is the author walking down those streets while they are in the prose.”

Alan Moore (1953) English writer primarily known for his work in comic books

De Abaitua interview (1998)

Art, Feeling, Universe, Reading

“Neither love nor fire can subsist without perpetual motion; both cease to live so soon as they cease to hope, or to fear.”

François de La Rochefoucauld book Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims

L'amour aussi bien que le feu ne peut subsister sans un mouvement continuel; et il cesse de vivre dès qu'il cesse d'espérer ou de craindre.
Maxim 75.
Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims (1665–1678)

Love, Fear, Hope

“Reading lots of Dickens. Barnaby Rudge: the last Catholic pogrom - No Popery, the Gordon Riots in London - 1780, twenty years before Newman was born. He must have known people who had set fire to the houses, or taken in victims and refugees. Lord George Gordon who led the mob (obviously a religious maniac) died as late as 1793. Old Curiosity Shop, Nicholas Nickleby - this too, is part of Newman's background, this gallery of living gargoyles, ghouls and monsters. Might account, perhaps, even for some of Newman's pessimism about the world and human nature, which some attribute merely to his own melancholy disposition? That nineteenth century!!”

Ida Friederike Görres (1901–1971) Austrian writer and noble

Broken Lights Diaries 1955-57.

People, World, Nature, Reading

“No, there is nothing on the face of the earth that can, for a moment, bear a comparison with Christianity as a religion for man. Upon this the hope of the race hangs. From the very first, it took its position, as the pillar of fire, to lead the race onward. The intelligence and power of the race are with those who have embraced it; and now, if this, instead of proving indeed a pillar of fire from God, should be found but a delusive meteor, then nothing will be left to the race but to go back to a darkness that may be felt, and to a worse than Egyptian bondage.”

Mark Hopkins (educator) (1802–1887) American educationalist and theologian

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 133.

God, Religion, Hope, Intelligence

“We live in an age of science and abounding accumulation of material things. These did not create the Declaration. Our Declaration created them. The things of the spirit come first. Unless we cling to that, all of our material prosperity, overwhelming though it may appear, will turn to a barren scepter in our grasp. If we are to maintain the great heritage bequeathed to us, we must be like minded as the Founders who created. We must not sink into a pagan materialism. We must cultivate the reverence which they had and for the things that are holy. We must follow the spiritual and moral leadership which they showed. We must keep replenished, that they may glow with a more compelling flame, the altar fires before which they worshipped.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, Speech on the Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence (1926)

Age, Appearance, Science

“Mercury on its axis turns like the Moon:
One side has lasting day, the other night;
One side in everlasting fire doth swoon;
While th'other hides forever from the light.”

Giovanni Schiaparelli (1835–1910) Italian astronomer and science historian

Originally in Latin; translated by Agnes Mary Clerke (1842–1907)
Quoted in Sky and Telescope, March 2011, p. 33

Light, Night

“The best thing about writing fiction is that moment where the story catches fire and comes to life on the page, and suddenly it all makes sense and you know what it's about and why you're doing it and what these people are saying and doing, and you get to feel like both the creator and the audience. Everything is suddenly both obvious and surprising ("but of course that's why he was doing that, and that means that…") and it's magic and wonderful and strange.”

Neil Gaiman (1960) English fantasy writer

Neil Gaiman's Journal (15 October 2007)

Life, People, Feeling, Sense

“Each gleaming point of light is like a seed
Dilating swiftly to coiling fires.
Each cloud becomes a rapidly dimming face,
Each hurrying face records its strange desires.”

Conrad Aiken (1889–1973) American novelist and poet

The House of Dust (1916 - 1917)

Light

“But then I got fired from so many jobs, I ended up retiring and being supported by my parents.”

Jonathan Mitchell (1955) American writer and activist

Shortage Of Brain Tissue Hinders Autism Research

Support, Parent

“We now have the opportunity to hold Westminster’s feet to the fire on the “vow” that they have made to devolve further meaningful power to Scotland. This places Scotland in a very strong position.”

Alex Salmond (1954) Scottish National Party politician and former First Minister of Scotland

Strong

“I wanna say this to every man that has a mind, to all the intelligent life forms that exist on this planet Earth. I wish the British would say this to the Scottish Rites and the Masons and all the people with minds who have degrees of knowledge, and who are aware of courts, laws, United Nations, governments.
In the 40s, we had a war, and all of our economies went towards this war effort. The war ended on one level, but we wouldn't let it end on the other levels. We kept buying and selling this war. I'm not locked in the penitentiary for crimes, I'm locked in the Second World War. I'm locked in the Second World War with this decision to bring to the World Court - there must be a One World Court, or we're all gonna be devoured by crime.
Crime, and the definition of crime comes from Nuremberg, when the judges decided that they wanted to call Second World War a crime. Honor and war is not a crime. Crime is bad. When you go to war and you're a soldier, and you fight for your God and your country, that's not criminal. That's honorable. That's what you must do to be a man. If you don't fight for your God and your country, you're not worth anything. If you have no honor, then you're not worth petty's pigs.
Truth is, we've got to overturn this decision that you made in the Second World War, or the Second World War will never end. Degrees of the war was written in Switzerland, in Geneva, at conferences that were made by the men at the tables, clearly stated that anyone in uniform would be given the respect of their rank and their uniforms. Then when the United States and got all the Germans in handcuffs, they started breaking their own rules. And they've been breaking their own rules ever since. War is not a crime, but if you judge war as a crime in a court room, then turn around: If 2 + 3 = 5, and 3 + 2 = 5; if you say war is a crime, then crime becomes your war. I am, by all standards, a prisoner of war.
I've been a prisoner of war since 1944 in Juvenile Hall, for setting a school building on fire in Indianapolis, Indiana. I've been locked up 45 years trying to figure out why I got to be a criminal. It matters not whether I want to be; you've got to keep criminals going to keep the war going because that's your economy, your whole economy is based on the war. You've got to get your dollar bills off the war, you've got your silver market sterling off of the war, you've got to take your gold and your diamonds off of the war - You've got to overturn that decision, that hung 6000 men by the neck.
You killed 6000 soldiers for obeying orders. It's wrong. And the world has got to accept that's wrong. When you accept you're wrong, and you say you're sorry for all the things you've done, then that will be a note on that court, and we'll have some harmony going on this planet Earth, now.”

Charles Manson (1934–2017) American criminal and musician

Interview with Bill Murphy (1994) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAjh_wOByoY

Life, Men, God, War

“I have no joy in strife,
Peace is my great desire;
Yet God forbid I lose my life
Through fear to face the fire.

A peaceful man must fight
For that which peace demands,—
Freedom and faith, honor and right,
Defend with heart and hands.”

Henry Van Dyke (1852–1933) American diplomat

The Peaceful Warrior, st. 1-2 (May 1918).

Life, God, Fear, Peace

“January 13, 1887 (Dec. 20, 1886, lunar calendar)
Sah, sah, because Tsukihi exists, the world exists. Because the world exists, things exist. Because things exist, your bodies exist. Because your bodies exist, law exists. Although the law exists, to resolve your minds is primary.
Sah, sah, where there is sincerity, you shall receive sincerity. You may not know what My sincerity is. It is My providence—fire, water, and wind.
Sah, sah, you are to purchase My sincerity. Purchase My sincerity with your own sincerity.”

Nakayama Miki (1798–1887) Founder of Tenrikyo

An Anthology of Osashizu Translations, p. 15
Osashizu

World, Law, Water, Sincerity

“Give me an adventure. I’m not talking about some massive adventure. Just something that would make getting fired seem small. Something that I might remember when I’m old.”
“I can’t predict the future,” I said, “but based on what little I know so far, I’m afraid it has to be a massive adventure or nothing.”
“Great!”
“Probably the kind of adventure that ends in a mass burial.”

Neal Stephenson book Anathem

Cord and Erasmas, Part 6, "Peregrin"
Anathem (2008)

Future

“Then they died.
And other men came after them. Wars flamed up and burned out; the howling peoples dwelt in smashed cities and kindled their fires with books.”

Poul Anderson book The Enemy Stars

Prologue (p. 1)
The Enemy Stars (1959)

Men, War, People, Books

“But you were in the restaurant business before?? Marco-Pierre White or something…. The Titanic – well here's another bloody disaster you're in now! (To Syed before Alexa is fired after the infamous catering task when the Invicta team lose because they bought an excessive number of chickens to make pizzas).”

Alan Sugar (1947) British business magnate, media personality, and political advisor

The Apprentice, Series 2

Business

“The setting up of a new, invisible and all powerful government in this country, within the last twenty years, in open violation of fundamental and statutory law, could not have been accomplished under the steady fire of a free and independent press.”

Robert M. La Follette Sr. (1855–1925) American politician

"Fooling the People as a Fine Art", La Follette's Magazine (April 1918)

Law, Country

“Surely the recitation of the Qur’an is an atonement for the sins, a covering (protection) from the Hell Fire, and a safety from the punishment. Mercy will descend upon the reciter, the Angels will seek forgiveness for him, Heaven will long for that person, and his Master (Allah) will be pleased with him.”

Muhammad (570–632) Arabian religious leader and the founder of Islam

Biharul Anwar, Volume 93, Page 17
Shi'ite Hadith

Angels, Forgiveness, Hell, Personality

“Now I alone sit by the fire,
And one remains of three;
For two have got their heart's desire
And left their grief to me.”

Enoch Powell (1912–1998) British politician

Source: Collected Poems (1990), p. 71

Heart

“We cannot predict the new forces, powers, and discoveries that will be disclosed to us when we reach the other planets and set up new laboratories in space. They are as much beyond our vision today as fire or electricity would be beyond the imagination of a fish.”

Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) British science fiction writer, science writer, inventor, undersea explorer, and television series host

Space and the Spirit of Man (1965)

Imagination, Fish

“To pull the chestnuts out of the fire with the cat's paw.”

Molière (1622–1673) French playwright and actor

Tirer les marrons du feu avec la patte du chat.
L'Étourdi (1655), Act III, sc. v

Cats

“Yesterday we fought a great battle and gained a great victory, for which all the glory is due to God alone. Although under a heavy fire for several continuous hours I received only one wound, the breaking of the longest finger of my left hand; but the doctor says the finger may be saved. It was broken about midway between the hand and knuckle, the ball passing on the side next to the forefinger. Had it struck the centre, I should have lost the finger. My horse was wounded, but not killed. Your coat got an ugly wound near the hip, but my servant, who is very handy, has so far repaired it that it doesn't show very much. My preservation was entirely due, as was the glorious victory, to our God, to whom be all the honor, praise, and glory. The battle was the hardest that I have ever been in, but not near so hot in its fire.”

Thomas Jackson (1824–1863) Confederate general

Letter to his wife after the First Battle of Bull Run (22 July 1861); as quoted in Memoirs of Stonewall Jackson by His Widow Mary Anna Jackson (1895) http://books.google.com/books?id=bG2vg5cH004C, Ch. XI : The First Battle of Manassas, p. 178

God, Victory, Horse

“Ramp hawkers were peddling “methods,” low priced sure-fire theories guaranteed to predict bottle twitches and beat the whole Minimax game. The hawkers were ignored by the hurrying throngs of people; anybody with a genuine system of prediction would be using it, not selling it.”

Philip K. Dick book Solar Lottery

Source: Solar Lottery (1955), Chapter 1 (p. 4)

People, Game

“I said I could to get the part. It made me go slightly mad, because my brain would be spinning all night. But after my big fight scene, where it was just kick, kick, kick, turn, in a freezing graveyard at 5am, I remember coming home on fire, because my brain hadn't kicked in once. Which was really, really a relief.”

Sienna Guillory (1975) British actress

FILM: Beauty and the Beasts Article http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_20040312/ai_n12769890/pg_1. The London Independent. March 12, 2004. Guillory speaks about Resident Evil: Apocalypse.

Home, Fight, Parting, Madness

“Our trouble is sore indeed when you turn away and will not comfort us. How long the dawn seems coming when we cannot sleep! Oh! those hideous nights when we toss and turn in fever and pain, when we lie, like living men among the dead, staring out into the dark hours that drift so slowly between us and the light. And oh! those still more hideous nights when we sit by another in pain, when the low fire startles us every now and then with a falling cinder, and the tick of the clock seems a hammer beating out the life that we are watching.”

Jerome K. Jerome book Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow

Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow (1886)

Life, Men, Pain, Lie

“Souls made of fire, and children of the sun,
With whom revenge is virtue.”

Edward Young (1683–1765) English poet

The Revenge, Act V, sc. ii.

Children, Soul, Revenge, Sun

“Virginia's Ring is a triumph and a tour de force. Lynn Seldon has written one of the best books about a military college ever written. With the publication of Virginia's Ring, he joins the distinguished ranks of our military academy graduates who have written about the life changing, fire tested tribe. It reminded me of James Webb's A Sense of Honor about the Naval Academy and Lucian Truscott's Dress Gray about West Point. But Mr. Seldon makes Virginia Military Institute a great test of the human spirit and one of the best places on earth to earn a college degree.”

Pat Conroy (1945–2016) American novelist

Conroy's advance praise for the novel Virginia's Ring (2014), written and published by Virginia Military Institute, Class of 1983 graduate Lynn Seldon, printed on the first page in the book.

Life, Books, Sense, Change

“In these days he promoted a bramin, by name Seeva Dew Bhut, to the office of prime minister, who embracing the Mahomedan faith, became such a persecutor of Hindoos that he induced Sikundur to issue orders proscribing the residence of any other than Mahomedans in Kashmeer; and he required that no man should wear the mark on his forehead, or any woman be permitted to burn with her husband's corpse. Lastly, he insisted on all golden and silver images being broken and melted down, and the metal coined into money. Many of the bramins, rather than abandon their religion or their country, poisoned themselves; some emigrated from their native homes, while a few escaped the evil of banishment by becoming Mahomedans. After the emigration of the bramins, Sikundur ordered all the temples in Kashmeer to be thrown down; among which was one dedicated to Maha Dew, in the district of Punjhuzara, which they were unable to destroy, in consequence of its foundation being below the surface of the neighbouring water. But the temple dedicated to Jug Dew was levelled with the ground; and on digging into its foundation the earth emitted volumes of fire and smoke which the infidels declared to be the emblem of the wrath of the Deity; but Sikundur, who witnessed the phenomenon, did not desist till the building was entirely razed to the ground, and its foundations dug up….”

Sikandar Butshikan

Tarikh-i-Firishta, translated by John Briggs under the title History of the Rise of the Mahomedan Power in India, first published in 1829, New Delhi Reprint 1981, Vol. III p.268-69

Money, Faith, Religion, Home