Quotes about fire (2443 quotes, page 19)

“While I usually came back from meeting Gandhiji elated and inspired but always a bit sceptical, and from talks with Jawaharlal, fired with emotional zeal but often confused and unconvinced, meetings with Vallabhbhai were a joy from which I returned with renewed confidence in the future of our country. I have often thought that if fate had decreed that he, instead of Jawaharlal, would be the younger of the two, India would have followed a very different path and would be in better economic shape that it is today.”

J. R. D. Tata (1904–1993) Indian businessman

Keynote: Excerpts from his speeches and chairman's statements to shareholders

Fate , Confidence , Future , Joy

“Through the constant revolution of the fifth element, with all contained therein, the four elements are forced to move and to change their respective positions, so that fire and air are driven into the water, and again these three elements enter the depth of the earth. Thus are the elements mixed together; and when they return to their respective places, parts of the earth, in quitting their places, move together with the water, the air and the fire. In this whole process the elements act and react upon each other. The elements intermixed, are then combined, and form at first various kinds of vapours; afterwards the several kinds of minerals, every species of plants, and many species of living beings, according to the relative proportion of the constituent parts. All transient beings have their origin in the elements, into which again they resolve when their existence comes to an end. The elements themselves are subject to being transformed from one into another; for although one substance is common to all, substance without form is in reality impossible, just as the physical form of these transient beings cannot exist without substance.”

Maimónides book The Guide for the Perplexed

Source: Guide for the Perplexed (c. 1190), Part I, pp.294-295 (1881) Tr. Friedlander

Reality , Water , Change , Parting

“Gie me ae spark o' Nature's fire,
That's a' the learning I desire.”

Robert Burns (1759–1796) Scottish poet and lyricist

First Epistle to J. Lapraik, st. 13 (1786)

Nature , Learning

“O black and unknown bards of long ago,
How came your lips to touch the sacred fire?
How, in your darkness, did you come to know
The power and beauty of the minstrels' lyre?”

James Weldon Johnson (1871–1938) writer and activist

O Black and Unknown Bards, st. 1.
Fifty Years and Other Poems (1917)

Beauty

“… and they watched the fire which does contain within it something of men themselves inasmuch as they are less without it and are divided from their origins and are exiles. For each fire is all fires, the first fire and the last ever to be.”

Cormac McCarthy book Blood Meridian

Blood Meridian (1985)

Men

“Now Matthew, you are an awkward character - I'm sorry to say that to you but you are an awkward character. It seems you can't help yourself… you need confrontation! That worries me, that worries me a lot! (To Matthew Palmer, shortly before his firing).”

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

The Apprentice, Series 1

Help

“On that arid square, that fragment nipped off from hot
Africa, soldered so crudely to inventive Europe;
On that tableland scored by rivers,
Our thoughts have bodies; the menacing shapes of our feverAre precise and alive. For the fears which made us respond
To the medicine ad and the brochure of winter cruises
Have become invading battalions;
And our faces, the institute-face, the chain-store, the ruinAre projecting their greed as the firing squad and the bomb.
Madrid is the heart. Our moments of tenderness blossom
As the ambulance and the sandbag;
Our hours of friendship into a people's army.”

W. H. Auden book Spain

Source: Spain (1937), Lines 65–76

Friendship , People , Fear , Winter

“Naked she lay, clasped in my longing arms,
I filled with love, and she all over charms;
Both equally inspired with eager fire,
Melting through kindness, flaming in desire.
With arms, legs, lips close clinging to embrace.”

John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester (1647–1680) English poet, and peer of the realm

The Imperfect Enjoyment (published 1680).
Other

Love

“People usually say that after a fire it is water damage that is the worst. We are still trying to dry out Windsor Castle.”

Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (1921) member of the British Royal Family, consort to Queen Elizabeth II

Said on a visit to Lockerbie in 1993 to a man who lived in a road where eleven people had been killed by wreckage from the Pan Am jumbo jet, as quoted in "Prince Philip's gaffes" http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/416992.stm, BBC News (10 August 1999)
1990s

People , Water

“A soul so pitiably forlorn,
If such do on this earth abide,
May season apathy with scorn,
May turn indifference to pride;
And still be not unblest—compared
With him who grovels, self-debarred
From all that lies within the scope
Of holy faith and christian hope;
Or, shipwrecked, kindles on the coast
False fires, that others may be lost.”

William Wordsworth (1770–1850) English Romantic poet

To the Lady Fleming, st. 7 (1823).

Faith , Hope , Soul , Falseness

“There is but one means to extenuate the effects of enemy fire: it is to develop a more violent fire oneself.”

Ferdinand Foch (1851–1929) French soldier and military theorist

Source: Precepts and Judgments (1919), p. 110

“The information age is an age of permanently getting stuck. Greater and greater speed is demanded. New software, new hardware, new structures, new cultural techniques. Life-long learning? Yes. But the company can't fire the secretary every six months, just because she can't cope with the new version of Excel. They can count their keystrokes, measure their productivity … but! They will never be able to sanction their inability! Because that is immanent.”

Johannes Grenzfurthner (1975) Austrian artist, writer, curator, and theatre and film director

Minus 24x http://www.monochrom.at/minus24x/index-eng.htm, 2001

Life , Age , Learning , Speed

“If nature has made you a bat, you shouldn't try and be an ostrich. You consider yourself odd at times, you accuse yourself of taking a road different from most people. You have to unlearn that! Gaze into the fire, the clouds and as soon as the inner voices begin to speak - surrender to them. Don't ask first whether it is permitted or would please your teachers or your father or some God. You will ruin yourself if you do that. That way you will become earth bound, a vegetable.”

Hermann Hesse book Demian

Source: Demian (1919), p. 180

God , People , Way , Nature

“That learning process has been likened to the challenge of having someone open a fire hydrant and expect you to swallow it all.”

Ben Carson (1951) 17th and current United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; American neurosurgeon

Source: Take The Risk (2008), p. 94

Learning

“[Pelsaert laments] “the utter subjection and poverty of the common people-poverty so great and miserable that the life of the people can be depicted or accurately described only as the home of stark want and the dwelling place of bitter woe.” He continues: “There are three classes of people who are indeed nominally free, but whose status differs very little from voluntary slavery-workmen, peons or servants and shopkeepers. For the workmen there are two scourges, the first of which is low wages. Goldsmiths, painters (of cloth or chintz), embroiderers, carpet makers, cotton or silk weavers, black-smiths, copper-smiths, tailors, masons, builders, stone-cutters, a hundred crafts in all-any of these working from morning to night can earn only 5 or 6 tackas (tankahs), that is 4 or 5 strivers in wages. The second (scourge) is (the oppression of) the Governor, the nobles, the Diwan, the Kotwal, the Bakshi, and other royal officers. If any of these wants a workman, the man is not asked if he is willing to come, but is seized in the house or in the street, well beaten if he should dare to raise any objection, and in the evening paid half his wages, or nothing at all. From these facts the nature of their food can be easily inferred… For their monotonous daily food they have nothing but a little khichri… in the day time, they munch a little parched pulse or other grain, which they say suffices for their lean stomachs… Their houses are built of mud with thatched roofs. Furniture there is little or none, except some earthenware pots to hold water and for cooking… Their bedclothes are scanty, merely a sheet or perhaps two… this is sufficient in the hot weather, but the bitter cold nights are miserable indeed, and they try to keep warm over little cowdung fires… the smoke from these fires all over the city is so great that the eyes run, and the throat seems to be choked.””

Francisco Pelsaert (1591–1630) Dutch merchant, commander of the ship Batavia

Quoted from Lal, K. S. (1992). The legacy of Muslim rule in India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 7
Jahangir’s India

Life , People , Food , Home

“For fire flames but in the heart of a colder fire.
All voice is but echo caught from a sound-less voice.
Height is not deprivation of valley, nor defect of desire.
But defines, for the fortunate, that joy in
which all joys should rejoice.”

Robert Penn Warren (1905–1989) American poet, novelist, and literary critic

"To a Little Girl, One Year Old, in a Ruined Fortress" (1956)

Heart , Joy

“Opposite my studio a huge factory — its black walls scarred with red stigmas of mysterious battles — was towering with the gloom of a prison. At night fires gave to innumerable windows menacing blazing looks of demons — while at other times vivid blue-green lights rang sharply in harmony with the radiant yellow-green alertness of cats enjewelling the obscurity around.”

Joseph Stella (1877–1946) American artist

Source: "The Brooklyn Bridge (A page of my life)," 1929, p. 87

Cats , Light , Time , Night

“The atelier was under the roof. Inhabiting this space was forbidden due to fire code restrictions, but staying and working there was allowed. We therefore had to avoid the impression that these were our living quarters. The most necessary furniture had to disappear into the attic during the day. And so the place was decorated purely with curtains. A curtain hung in front of the entrance door, a second one in front of the oven heating.... an adjoining room was hidden by a curtain with abstractedly patterned batik.”

Karl Schmidt-Rottluff (1884–1976) German artist

In addition to defying societal standards, die Brücke artists defied housing laws: the ateliers in Dresden that they worked and lived in were forbidden to be used as homes
Source: Brücke und Berlin: 100 Jahre Expressionismus, Anita Beloubek-Hammer, ed.; Berlin: Nicolaische Verlagsbuchhandlung, Berlin 2005, p. 312 (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/272168564 translation, Claire Louise Albiez]

“The individual living in America as it was meant to be would be free to run his business as he wishes, associate with those he likes, dissociate from those he dislikes or disapproves; hire, fire, rent to or evict from, invest and disinvest, speak and misspeak at will. This hypothetical free man is at liberty to bruise as many feelings as he likes, so long as his mitts stop at the next man's face. So long as he harms nobody's person or property, our mythic man may live as he wishes to live.”

Ilana Mercer South African writer

“Get off your knees, Gov. Pence!” http://www.targetliberty.com/2015/04/get-off-your-knees-gov-pence.html Target Liberty, April 5, 2015.
2010s, 2015

Feeling , Business , Personality

“As long as society tells men to be the salespersons of sex, it is sexist for society to put only men in jail if they sell well. We don’t put other salespersons in jail for buying clients drinks and successfully transforming a “no” into a “maybe” into a “yes.” If the client makes a choice to drink too much and the “yes” turns out to be a bad decision, it is the client who gets fired, not the salesperson.”

Warren Farrell book The Myth of Male Power

Source: The Myth of Male Power (1993), Part III: Government as substitute husband, p. 321.

Men , Sex , Drink , Decision

“For the poet, the biblical sense of 'know' is as much part of nature as the heat of fire, and in the cognative sense as much a given phenomonen as the brightness itself.”

John Hollander (1929–2013) American poet

Nature , Sense , Parting

“The essence and significance of our devotions here today are not to be found in the fact that the men whose remains fill these graves were brave in battle. If we met simply to show our sense of bravery, we should find enough on both sides to kindle admiration. In the raging storm of fire and blood, in the fierce torrent of shot and shell, of sword and bayonet, whether on foot or on horse, unflinching courage marked the rebel not less than the loyal soldier.”

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

1870s, The Unknown Loyal Dead (1871)

Men , Courage , Sense , Rage

“The Mosaic dispensation was better adapted to prevent the commission of sin than the Christian system. Under that dispensation, if you committed a sin, you had to bring a sacrifice—dove, sheep, or bullock, now, when a sin is committed, the Christian says, “Charge it,” “Put it on the slate, If I don’t pay it the Savior will.” In this way, rascality is sold on a credit, and the credit system of religion breeds extravagance in sin. The Mosaic dispensation was based upon far better business principles. The debt had to be paid, and by the man who owed it. We are told that the sinner is in debt to God, and that the obligation is discharged by the Savior. The best that can be said of such a transaction is that the debt is transferred, not paid. As a matter of fact, the sinner is in debt to the person he has injured. If you injure a man, it is not enough to get the forgiveness of God—you must get the man’s forgiveness, you must get your own. If a man puts his hand in the fire and God forgives him, his hand will smart just as badly.”

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

Some Reasons Why (1881)

God , Religion , Way , Forgiveness

“Love hangs herself with the bedsheets in her cell
Threw myself on fires for you
Ten good reasons to stay alive
Ten good reasons that I can't find”

Courtney Love (1964) American punk singer-songwriter, musician, actress, and artist

"Reasons to be Beautiful"
Song lyrics, Celebrity Skin (1998)

Love

“I've said consistently that no employer ever really accepts a union. They tolerate the unions. The very minute they can get a pool of unemployment they'll challenge the unions and try to get back what they call managements prerogatives, meaning hire, fire, pay what you want.”

Jimmy Hoffa (1913–1982) American labor leader

Source: Hoffa The Real Story (1975), Chapter 13, Outside Again, p. 213

“The youth, who pants to gain the amorous prize,
Forgets that Heaven with all-discerning eyes
Surveys the secret heart; and when desire
Has, in possession, quenched its short-lived fire,
The devious winds aside each promise bear,
And scatter all his solemn vows in air!”

John Hoole (1727–1803) British translator

Book X, line 24
Translations, Orlando Furioso of Ludovico Ariosto (1773)

Secret , Youth , Heart , Forgetting

“The trodden worms, which had so long writhed under the iron heel of the oppressor, were turning at last. The smouldering fire of discontent was shooting out tongues of flame here and there. The sore stricken, who had brooded in sullen anger over their wrongs, were rising to strike in their turn.”

Joseph Arch (1826–1919) British politician

Source: The Story of his Life Told by Himself (1898), p. 62

Anger

“On a burning bridge, your options are minimal at best Depending on where you're standing And how much breath is in your chest If it came down to it Would you high-tail home and hide? Or dance on fire and enjoy the ride?”

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

Lyrics, Light Grenades (2006)

Home , Dance , Dependency

“This I (still) believe:
Fire is not necessarily your friend. Neither are dogs. Things with lit fuses should not be held onto. Beware the savage croquet ball. If it is -30 out, put on a coat before you leave the house. Just because the snow keeps you from seeing other objects the objects do not cease to exist. Clotheslines are the enemy of the bicyclist. If you don't remember how you got on the ground or where the blood came from, don't get up right away. Gym teachers think it's funny to commit assault with a baseball so don't day-dream during PE even if they have you so far in the outfield there are DEW line posts on either side of you. All guns are loaded. So are many bows. Trebuchets are for outside use only…”

James Nicoll (1961) Canadian fiction reviewer

Facebook post (2014) https://www.facebook.com/james.nicoll.927/posts/10152710405547985
2010s

Dogs , Dreams , Thinking , Teachers

“And now, from somewhere in the bowels of the earth, from the smoky stronghold where they slept, the pair of bulls appeared, breathing flames of fire. The Argonauts were terrified at the sight. But Jason planting his feet apart stood to receive them… He held his shield in front of him, and the two bulls, bellowing loudly, charged and butted it with their strong horns…”

Apollonius of Rhodes book Argonautica

Source: Argonautica (3rd century BC), Book III. Jason and Medea, Lines 1289–1294 and 1296–1297

Strong , Appearance

“Philip Kaufman's Twisted walks like a thriller and talks like a thriller, but it squawks like a turkey.
But back to deus ex machina. This is a phrase you will want to study and master, not merely to amaze friends during long bus journeys but because it so perfectly describes what otherwise might take you thousands of words. Imagine a play on a stage. The hero is in a fix. The dragon is breathing fire, his sword is broken, his leg is broken, his spirit is broken, and the playwright's imagination is broken. Suddenly there is the offstage noise of the grinding of gears, and invisible machinery lowers a god onto the stage, who slays the dragon, heals the hero, and fires the playwright. He is the "god from the machine."”

Roger Ebert (1942–2013) American film critic, author, journalist, and TV presenter

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/twisted-2004 of Twisted (27 February 2004)
Reviews, Two star reviews

God , Imagination , Study

“Painting is the magic art, the fire set alight on the windows of the rich dwelling, as on those of the humble hovel, from the last rays of the setting sun, it is the long mark, the humid mark, the fluent and still mark that the dying wave etches on the hot sand, it is the darting of the immortal lizard on the rock burnt by the midday heat, it is the rainbow of conciliation, on sad May afternoons, after the storm has passed, down there, making a dark backdrop to the almond trees in flower, to the gardens with their washed colours, to the ploughmen's huts, smiling and tranquil, it is the livid cloud chased by the vehement blowing of Aeolus enraged, it is the nebulous disk of the fleeting moon behind the ripped-open funereal curtain of a disturbed sky in the deep of night, it is the blood of the bull stabbed in the arena, of the warrior fallen in the heat of battle, of Adonis' immaculate thigh wounded by the obstinate boar's curved tusk, it is the sail swollen with the winds of distant seas, it is the centuries-old tree browned in the autumn..”

Giorgio de Chirico (1888–1978) Italian artist

Quote from the first lines in De Cirico's essay 'Painting', 1938; from http://www.fondazionedechirico.org/wp-content/uploads/211_Painting_1938_Metaphysical_Art.pdf 'Painting', 1938 - G. de Chirico, presentation to the catalogue of his solo exhibition Mostra personale del pittore Giorgio de Chirico, Galleria Rotta, Genoa, May 1938], p. 211
1920s and later

Sadness , Smile , Art , Flowers

“I really remember John Lennon's Imagine. I guess I'm twelve; that's one of my first albums. That really set fire to me. It was like he was whispering in your ear — his ideas of what's possible. Different ways of seeing the world.”

Bono (1960) Irish rock musician, singer of U2

Rolling Stone interview (2005)

World , Way , Imagination , Idea

“Distortive or even totally false reporting on communally sensitive issues is a well-entrenched feature of Indian journalism. There is no self-corrective mechanism in place to remedy this endemic culture of disinformation. No reporter or columnist or editor ever gets fired or formally reprimanded or even just criticized by his peers for smearing Hindus. This way, a partisan economy with the truth has become a habit hard to relinquish. And foreign correspondents used to trusting their Indian secularist sources have likewise developed a habit of swallowing and relaying highly distorted news stories. Usually, the creation of a false impression of the Indian communal situation is achieved without outright lies, relying rather on the silent treatment for inconvenient facts and a screaming overemphasis on convenient ones. (…) So, moral of the story: feel free to write lies about the Hindus. Even if you are found out, most of the public will never hear of it, and you will not be made to bear any consequences.(…) These days, noisy secularists lie in waiting for communal riots and elatedly jump at them when and where they erupt. They exploit the anti-Hindu propaganda value of riots to the hilt, making up fictional stories as they go along to compensate for any defects in the true account. John Dayal is welcomed to Congressional committees in Washington DC as a crown witness to canards such as how Hindus are raping Catholic nuns in Jhabua, an allegation long refuted in a report by the Congress state government of Madhya Pradesh and more recently in the court verdict on the matter. Arundhati Roy goes lyrical about the torture of a Muslim politician's two daughters by Hindus during the Gujarat riots of 2002, even when the man had only one daughter, who came forward to clarify that she happened to be in the US at the time of the “facts.””

Koenraad Elst (1959) orientalist, writer

Harsh Mander has already been condemned by the Press Council of India for spreading false rumours about alleged Hindu atrocities in his famous column Hindustan Hamara. Teesta Setalwad has reportedly pressured eyewitnesses to give the desired incriminating testimony against Hindus in the Gujarat riots.
K. Elst: Religious Cleansing of Hindus, 2004, Agni conference in The Hague, in The Problem with Secularism (2007)
2000s, The Problem with Secularism (2007)

Truth , Lie , Way , Feeling

“Such was the man who was sent on an embassy to Ajmir, in order that the Rai (Pithaura) of that country might see the right way without the intervention of the sword, and that he might incline from the track of opposition into the path of propriety, leaving his airy follies for the institutes of the knowledge of Allah, and acknowledging the expediency of uttering the words of martyrdom and repeating the precepts of the law, and might abstain from infidelity and darkness, which entails the loss of this world and that to come, and might place in his ear the ring of slavery to the sublime Court (may Allah exalt it!) which is the centre of justice and mercy, and the pivot of the Sultans of the worldand by these means and modes might cleanse the fords of good life from the sins of impurity'…'The army of Islam was completely victorious, and 'an hundred thousand grovelling Hindus swiftly departed to the fire of hell'… After this great victory, the army of Islam marched forward to Ajmir, where it arrived at a fortunate moment and under an auspicious bird, and obtained so much booty and wealth, that you might have said that the secret depositories of the seas and hills had been revealed….'While the Sultan remained at Ajmir, he destroyed the pillars and foundations of the idol temples, and built in their stead mosques and colleges, and the precepts of Islam, and the customs of the law were divulged and established”

Muhammad of Ghor (1160–1206) Ghurid Sultan

About the conquest of Ajmer (Rajasthan) Hasan Nizami: Taju’l-Ma’sir, in Elliot and Dowson, Vol. II : Elliot and Dowson, History of India as told by its own Historians, 8 Volumes, Allahabad Reprint, 1964. pp. 213-216. Also quoted (in part) in Jain, Meenakshi (2011). The India they saw: Foreign accounts.

Life , Secret , World , Justice

“He burned six mounds (1 mound is 37 kilos) of sacred threads worn by Hindus after massacring them (Hasan, Tarikh-i-Kashmir). He killed the Hindus who put a tilak-mark on their forehead ( Hasan, Tarikh-i-Kashmir). He burnt many of the books of the Hindus. Srivara wrote: "Sikander burnt all books the same wise as fire burns hay". Srivara also recorded: "All the scintillating works faced destruction in the same manner that lotus flowers face with the onset of frosty winter." (Srivara, Zaina Rajtarangini). Sikandar drowned many Hindus in the Dal Lake (Jonraj, Kings of Kashmir). According to some sources only eleven families of Brahmins were left in Kashmir due to Sikandar's policies.”

Sikandar Butshikan

Cambridge History of India, III, p.281

Books , Family , Flowers , Winter

“The Cheyennes do not fight at all this side of the Arkansas, but north some young warriors were fired upon and then the fight began.”

Black Kettle (1803–1868) Leader of the Southern Cheyenne

Source: Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee (1970), p. 94

Fight

“I don’t think revenge is enough to fuel the fire it takes to go to an Olympic Games and be successful.”

Scott Moir (1987) Canadian figure skater

Interview with Kristina Rutherford for Sportsnet.ca (January 2018)

Game , Revenge , Thinking , Success

“Some of the acting is better than the film deserves. Make that all of the acting. Actually, the film stock itself is better than the film deserves. You know when sometimes a film catches fire inside a projector? If it happened with this one, I suspect the audience might cheer.”

Roger Ebert (1942–2013) American film critic, author, journalist, and TV presenter

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/revolver-2007 of Revolver (7 December 2007)
Reviews, Half-star reviews

“On the 26th of Mohurrum, in the year AH 861 (AD Dec. 23, 1465), the King again proceeded to Mundulgur; and after a vigorous siege occupied the lower fort, wherein many Rajpoots were put to the sword, but the hill-fort still held out; to reduce which might have been a work of time but the reservoirs of water failing in consequence of the firing of the cannon, the garrison was obliged to capitulate, and Rana Koombho stipulated to pay ten lacks of tunkas. This event happened on the 20th of Zeehuj of the same year AH 861 (AD Nov. 8, 1457), exactly eleven months after the King’s leaving Mando. On the following day the King caused all the temples to be destroyed, and musjids to be erected in their stead, appointing the necessary officers of religion to perform daily worship…”

Firishta (1560–1620) Indian historian

Sultãn Mahmûd Khaljî of Malwa (AD 1435-1469) Mandalgadh (Rajasthan)
Tãrîkh-i-Firishta

Religion , Water , Time

“With respect to the effect of "friendly fire" hitting among troops. however, it is to be observed that if the circumstances leave any room for doubt as to the source, the men will jump to the conclusion that they are being victimized by their own guns.”

S.L.A. Marshall (1900–1977) United States Army general and Military historian

Men Under Fire. p. 193.
Men Against Fire: The Problem of Battle Command (1947)

Men

“[…] The image superimposed on Ricci's field of view by his visor display showed a pair of guards in hooded parkas, goggles, and wool scarves taking relaxed strides along their patrol of the building's north side. Their shoulder-slung FN P90 assault weapons fired the same ammunition as his FN Five-seveN pistol: small rounds, big punch. […]”

Tom Clancy (1947–2013) American author

With Jerome Preisler and Martin H. Greenberg; Bio-Strike (2000), p. 405
2000s

“Hey Nikita is it cold
In your little corner of the world?
You could roll around the globe
And never find a warmer soul to know.Oh I saw you by the wall,
Ten of your tin soldiers in a row.
With eyes that looked like ice on fire,
The human heart a captive in the snow.”

Elton John (1947) English rock singer-songwriter, composer and pianist

Nikita
Song lyrics, Ice on Fire (1985)

World , Soul , Heart

“To me this question whether liberty is a good or a bad thing appears as irrational as the question whether fire is a good or a bad thing. It is both good and bad according to time, place, and circumstance, and a complete answer to the question, In what cases is liberty good and in what cases is it bad? would involve not merely a universal history of mankind, but a complete solution of the problems which such a history would offer.”

James Fitzjames Stephen (1829–1894) Indian judge

Source: Liberty, Equality, Fraternity (1873-1874), Ch. 2

History , Question , Problem , Universe

“Clyde: Then the animals lit fires to keep us away.”

Jack Benny (1894–1974) comedian, vaudeville performer, and radio, television, and film actor

The Jack Benny Program (Radio: 1932-1955), The Jack Benny Program (Television: 1950-1965)

Animals

“When you've tried all the salves in the world and they don't work, you start thinking about fire”

Stephen R. Donaldson The Wounded Land

Thomas Covenant, The Wounded Land

World , Thinking

“The Bible has come under fire for making woman the fall guy in man's cosmic drama. But in casting a male conspirator, the serpent, as God's enemy, Genesis hedges and does not take its misogyny far enough. The Bible defensively swerves from God's true opponent, chthonian nature. The serpent is not outside Eve but in her. She is the garden and the serpent.”

Camille Paglia (1947) American writer

Source: Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson (1990), p. 11

God , Guy , Nature

“906. Silkes and satins put out the fire in the chimney.”

George Herbert (1593–1633) Welsh-born English poet, orator and Anglican priest

Jacula Prudentum (1651)

“According to some of the pious writers of antiquity, they made large fires, which might be seen at a great distance, upon the vigil of this saint [John], in token that he was said in holy writ to be "a shining light." Others, agreeing with this, add also, these fires were made to drive away the dragons and evil spirits hovering in the air; and one of them gravely says, in some countries they burned bones, which was called a bone-fire; for "the dragons hattyd nothyng mor than the styncke of brenyng bonys." This, says another, habent ex gentilibus, they have from the heathens. The author last cited laments the abuses committed upon thes occasions. "this vigil," says he, "ought to be held with cheerfulness and piety, but not with such merriment as is shewn by the profane lovers of this world, who make great fires in the streets, and indulge themselves with filthy and unlawful games, to which they add glotony and drunkenness, and the commission of many other shameful indecencies."”

Joseph Strutt (1749–1802) British engraver, artist, antiquary and writer

pg. 360
The Sports and Pastimes of the People of England (1801), Bonfires

World , Game , Lovers , Light

“For the first [his very first time in Paris], I went to a little hotel, where I spent the night in a sort of nightmare, in which I saw my home, full of melancholy, with my mother, grandmother, and sister spinning in the evening, weeping and thinking of me, praying that I should escape the perdition of Paris. Then the evil demon drove me on before wonderful pictures, which seemed so beautiful, so brilliant, that it appeared to me they took fire and vanished in a heavenly cloud... Finally, without knowing how, I found myself [during one of his his first days in Paris] on the Pont Neuf, from which I saw a magnificent building which I thought must be the Louvre, from the descriptions I had heard of it. I went to it, and mounted the great stairway with a beating heart. At last one great object of my life was attained. I had imagined correctly what I should see. It seemed to me that I was in a world of friends [the paintings of the old masters], in a family where all that I beheld was the reality of my dreams.”

Jean-François Millet (1814–1875) French painter

Source: Jean-Francois Millet – Peasant and Painter, 1881, p. 46-49

Life , World , Family , Beauty

“Might have been the moonlight,
Caught up in the sparkle in your eyes.
So wicked and I know I should go slow but it's not in me to wait.Cause I'm alive and I'm on fire.
Shot like a starburst into the sky.
And the fury of desire it burns so bright electrifies
You light me up, you take me higher.”

Sarah McLachlan (1968) Canadian musician, singer, and songwriter

Loving You Is Easy
Song lyrics, Laws of Illusion (2010)

Light

“It [the frenzy of Odin] coursed through the thronged warriors; it seemed a tangible thing, communicating itself from one to another; it was almost as though one could see it, but one could not see it, only its effects. I could trace its passage. It seemed first a ghastly infection, a plague; then it seemed like a fire, invisible and consuming; then it seemed like the touching of these men by the hands of gods, but no gods I knew, none to whom a woman or child might dare pray, but the gods of men, and of the men of Torvaldsland, the dread, harsh divinities of the cruel north, the gods of Torvaldsland.”

John Norman (1931) philosophy professor, author of Gor novel series

Men , God , Communication

“Statistical methods had taken fire in America around 1942, following a series of ten-day intensive courses for engineers, initiated by Stanford University on a suggestion from this author. The war department also gave courses at factories of suppliers. Brilliant applications attracted much attention, but the flare of statistical methods by themselves, in an atmosphere in which management did not know their responsibilities, burned, sputtered, fizzled and died out.”

W. Edwards Deming (1900–1993) American professor, author, and consultant

Source: Quality, Productivity and Competitive Position, (1982), p. 101

War , Universe

“Don't fire until you see the whites of their eyes.”

William Prescott (1726–1795) Continental army soldier

These are instructions often attributed to Prescott at the Battle of Bunker Hill, but though little doubt exists that he declared them, many reports indicate they originated with Major General Israel Putnam, and even earlier instances of similar instructions have been attributed to others.
Don't fire until I tell you; don't fire until you see the whites of their eyes.
Prescott, as quoted in The New England Magazine Vo. XI (September 1894 - February 1895), p. 367
Powder is scarce and must not be wasted. Do not fire until you see the whites of their eyes. Then aim low. Aim at their waistbands, aim at the handsome coats; pick off the officers.
Instructions of Israel Putnam as quoted in "Revolutionary Heroes — No. I" in National Magazine (February 1858). p. 104. In An Essay on the Life of the Honourable Major General Israel Putnam (1818) by David Humphreys, it is indicated that these instructions were first given by Putnam and then reiterated by veteran officers Prescott, Pomeroy, John Stark, and others.
Men, you are all marksmen — don't one of you fire until you see the whites of their eyes.
Philip Johnson of Newburyport is quoted as having distinctly heard Putnam say this in the History of the Siege of Boston (1873) by Richard Frothingham, p. 140. This work also indicates such instructions were repeated by many of the officers.
By push of bayonets — no firing till you see the whites of their eyes!
Attributed to Frederick the Great in the Battle of Prague (6 May 1757), in A Popular History of the United States (1879) by William Cullen Bryant and Sydney Howard Gay, Vol. III, p. 403
Silent until you see the whites of their eyes.
Attributed to a Prince Charles against the Austrian army at Jägendorf (22 May 1745) in A Popular History of the United States (1879) by William Cullen Bryant and Sydney Howard Gay, Vol. III, p. 403
Dinna fire till ye see the whites o' their e'en!
Attributed to Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Andrew Agnew of Lochnaw, as instructions to the Royal Scots Fusiliers at the Battle of Dettingen (27 June 1743), in The Agnews of Lochnaw : A History of the Hereditary Sheriffs of Galloway (1864) by Andrew Agnew, Ch. 33 : The twelfth Hereditary Sheriff, p. 543
Misattributed

“The demons are not our ancestors—we are theirs. The greeds and lusts, the wealth of horrors here, are not the archetypes of our own—they are the derivatives, the dreadful perfectings of all the evil that men have spawned and nourished. Call Man a great, roasting beast, spitted and turning above the fire of his own unending cruelty. The things of this world then, and of those yet farther down, are the drippings of the tortured giant, Man.”

Michael Shea book Nifft the Lean

Part 3, Chapter 12 (p. 181)
Nifft the Lean (1982)

Men , World , Evil , Perfection

“But one problem remains. How can the conspiracy-minded Modern Democratic Party Women be assured that the switch was made? It is true that not many people would see the new bills and so some doubt might arise among the Democratic sisterhood about whether Wilson was really removed and then replaced on the bill by the three ladies named above. There is only one sure-fire means of relieving the Modern Democratic Party Women of their doubts before the whining starts. That means is to have the Democratic National Committee direct its current icon, Hilary Clinton, to publicly report on who appears on the $100,000 note each time she and her husband receive a packet of those bills from one or another of the foreign governments for which they are apparently selling out American interests. After all, if you cannot trust America’s graft-taker-in-chief, who can you trust?”

Michael Scheuer (1952) American counterterrorism analyst

As quoted in Michael Scheuer's Non-Intervention http://non-intervention.com/1689/democrats-scourge-the-south-after-the-battle-flag-it%e2%80%99s-on-to-old-hickory/ (9 July 2015), by M. Scheuer.
2010s

Women , People , Problem , Appearance

“Unfortunately, the opinion has gone forth that no politician dares to be the advocate of peace when the question of war is mooted. That will be an evil hour — the sand of our republic will be nearly run — when it shall be in the power of any demagogue, or fanatic, to raise a war-clamor, and control the legislation of the country. The evils of war must fall upon the people, and with them the war-feeling should originate. We, their representatives, are but a mirror to reflect the light, and never should become a torch to fire the pile.”

Jefferson Davis (1808–1889) President of the Confederate States of America

Speech in Congress, 1846.
1840s

War , People , Peace , Feeling

“We’re really good friends, we go back to ’86, ’87. Most of my successful and best fights were at Trump’s hotels. He didn’t manage me, though. He was just helping me with my court case. We’re the same guy, a thrust for power, a drive for power. Whatever field we’re in, we need power in that field. That’s just who we are. Balls of energy. We’re not even who we think we are. We’re fire. We’re made of this crap—water, motion, dirt, diamonds, emeralds. We’re made out of that stuff, can you believe it?”

Mike Tyson (1966) American boxer

On Donald Trump

Guy , Thinking , Water , Success

“The fire put an end to the typically bustling business activities in downtown Beijing. But its psychological impact was much stronger than the financial losses. It left the Beijing residents in a constant state of terror and fear…Most missionary properties, residences of the foreign teachers at the Imperial University and the Eastern and the Southern Cathedrals were reduced to aches. Many Chinese priests and christian converts perished together in the roaring flames.”

Xiang Lanxin (1956)

The Origins of the Boxer War: A Multinational Study (作者)) http://books.google.com/books?id=lAxresT12ogC&dq=yangcun+dong+fuxiang&q=sheng+jia#v=onepage&q=magic%20power%20may%20, page 275.

Fear , Business , Teachers , Universe

“So soon as Squire Cass's standing dishes diminished in plenty and freshness, his guests had nothing to do but to walk a little higher up the village to Mr. Osgood's, at the Orchards, and they found hams and chines uncut, pork-pies with the scent of the fire in them, spun butter in all its freshness — everything, in fact, that appetites at leisure could desire, in perhaps greater perfection, though not in greater abundance, than at Squire Cass's.”

George Eliot (1819–1880) English novelist, journalist and translator

Source: Silas Marner: The Weaver of Raveloe (1861), Chapter 3 (at page 24)

Perfection

“Undue emphasis on conservation is as great a danger to fire power as is an excess expenditure of ammunition.”

S.L.A. Marshall (1900–1977) United States Army general and Military historian

Fire as the Cure. p. 81.
Men Against Fire: The Problem of Battle Command (1947)

“I went to hide little Hareton, and to take the shot out of the master’s fowling-piece, which he was fond of playing with in his insane excitement, to the hazard of the lives of any who provoked, or even attracted his notice too much; and I had hit upon the plan of removing it, that he might do less mischief if he did go the length of firing the gun.”

Emily Brontë book Wuthering Heights

Nelly Dean (Ch. VIII).
Wuthering Heights (1847)

“Eastern Prussia was a battlefield during World War I years. And right from here, on September 1, 1939, began the spark of fire for the coming of the second world war. And in 1941, Eastern Prussia invaded Soviet soil with a powerful military onslaught, unleashing a grip of heavy burden, tragedy, and torture into the Soviet pre-Baltic and also the inhabitants of Leningrad, Pskov, and the Novgorod regions. Right from the very first days of the second world war, Eastern Prussia was completely transformed into a diabolic system of concentration camp strongholds for captured military people, and became a cruel prison for the young and females, who were brought from many European countries. In the first place, from the Soviet Union. And, aha! Now, after the winter of 1945, Soviet forces captured the descendants of these royal hounds in their very own doghouse!”

Hovhannes Bagramyan (1897–1982) Soviet military commander

The Germans are being referred to as dogs in the end of this famous quote. Quoted in "I. C. Bagramyan: A Photo Album About A Soviet Marshal" - Yerevan - 1987

War , People , World , Winter

“And the clergy said, 'Certainly, you're quite right; the disease is awful. Therefore, the only way is to let it alone. Amen. A contribution will now be taken up to extend Gospel privileges to the Philippine Islands'. The abolitionists retorted by declaring that you might as well let fire alone, by telling the free States that they were bound to thrust back fugitives, and were, therefore, themselves the mere bloodhounds and slaves of slavery, which could only live by expansion, and only wanted to be let alone to become impregnable.”

George William Curtis (1824–1892) American writer

1850s, The Present Aspect of the Slavery Question (1859)

Disease , Way

“There are too many ironies in the fire!”

John Leonard (1939–2008) American critic, writer, and commentator

This Pen For Hire (Doubleday, 1973, ISBN 0-385-03923-9), p. 6
Not Enough Blood, Not Enough Gore, The New York Times, 7 July 1970 http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/03/01/home/vidal-sisters.html

“Use both bribery and threats to exterminate every Cossack to a man if they set fire to the oil in Guriev.”

Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) Russian politician, led the October Revolution

As quoted in Richard Pipes, The Unknown Lenin: From the Secret Archive (1996), p. 69.
Attributions

“In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?”

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

St. 2
1790s, The Tyger (1794)

Distant

“Steno conceded, as Fabio Colonna had done before him, that all marine fossils might have been transported into their present situation at the time of the Noachian deluge. He maintained that fossil vegetables had been once living plants, and he hinted that they might, in some instances, indicate the distinction between fluvial and marine deposits. He also inferred that the present mountains had not existed ever since the origin of things, suggesting that many strata of submarine origin had been accumulated in the interval between the creation and deluge. Here he displayed his great anxiety to reconcile his theory with the Scriptures; for he at the same time advanced an opinion, which does not seem very consistent with such a doctrine, viz., that there was a wide distinction between the shelly, and nearly horizontal beds at the foot of the Apennines, and the older mountains of highly inclined stratification. Both, he observed, were of sedimentary origin; and a considerable interval of time must have separated their formation. Tuscany, according to him, had successively passed through six different states; and to explain these mighty changes, he called in the agency of inundations, earthquakes, and subterranean fires.”

Charles Lyell book Principles of Geology

Chpt.3, p. 32
Principles of Geology (1832), Vol. 1

Mountain , Change , Time , Success

“The Emperor ordered Jumdat-ul-Mulk to write to the Mutsaddis of all the subahs (provinces) of the empire that display of fire-works (atishbazi) is being forbidden. Also, Faulad Khan was ordered to arrange for announcement in the city by the beat of a drum that no one is to indulge in atishbazi.”

Aurangzeb (1618–1707) Sixth Mughal Emperor

Akhbarat-i-Darbar-i-Mu‘alla, Julus 10, Shawwal 24 / April 9th 1667.
Quotes from late medieval histories, 1660s

“Real truth was out there in the shattered outhabs of Vervun hive. Real truth was waiting and silence, courage and stealth. Real truth was the ability to function in extremes. To fire a cannon and miss and try again. To fix a silver blade to the end of a las-weapon and leap from safety into a shroud of smoke, prepared as you did so to really use that makeshift spear. Real truth was a tiny hole in a man's forehead.”

Dan Abnett (1965) British comic book writer, novelist

In Remembrance (2005)

Truth , Courage , Silence , Waiting

“Oh this heart's on fire.
Right from the start it's been burnin' for you.
Oh this heart's on fire.
One thing honey - this heart's true.”

Bryan Adams (1959) Canadian singer-songwriter

Hearts on Fire, Written by Bryan Adams and Jim Vallance
Song lyrics, Into the Fire (1987)

Heart

“In heaven His throne is made of gold,
Where the ark of His testament is stowed,
A throne from which I'm told all history does unfold,
Down here it's made of wood and wire,
And my body is on fire,
And God is never far away.”

Nick Cave (1957) Australian musician

Song lyrics, Tender Prey (1988), The Mercy Seat

God , History

“There was such a wonderful setting of the moon this morning, the yellow moon against little pink clouds, and the mountains a pure deep blue [viewed from his Swiss farmhouse], quite glorious, I would so have liked to paint. But it was cold, even my window was frozen, although I had kept the fire in all night.”

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880–1938) German painter, sculptor, engraver and printmaker

In a letter from Frauenkirch, Jan. 1919; as quoted in Expressionism, de:Wolf-Dieter Dube; Praeger Publishers, New York, 1973, p. 48
Some time later Kirchner would made a colored wood-cut: 'Moonlit Winter Night' https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/25/Kirchner_-_Wintermondnacht.jpg
1916 - 1919

Mountain , Painting , Night

“The so-called ‘psychotically depressed’ person who tries to kill herself doesn't do so out of quote ‘hopelessness’ or any abstract conviction that life's assets and debits do not square. And surely not because death seems suddenly appealing. The person in whom Its invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill herself the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high-rise. Make no mistake about people who leap from burning windows. Their terror of falling from a great height is still just as great as it would be for you or me standing speculatively at the same window just checking out the view; i. e. the fear of falling remains a constant. The variable here is the other terror, the fire's flames: when the flames get close enough, falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors. It's not desiring the fall; it's terror of the flames. Yet nobody down on the sidewalk, looking up and yelling ‘Don‘t!’ and ‘Hang on!’, can understand the jump. Not really. You'd have to have personally been trapped and felt flames to really understand a terror way beyond falling.”

David Foster Wallace book Infinite Jest

Infinite Jest (1996)

Life , Death , People , Fear

“The Lamb is, indeed, the emblem of love; but what so terrible as the wrath of the Lamb? The depth of the mercy despised is the measure of the punishment of him that despiseth. No more fearful words than those of the Saviour. The threat- enings of the law were temporal, those of the gospel are eternal. It is Christ who reveals the never-dying worm, the unquenchable fire, and He who contrasts with the eternal joys of the redeemed the everlasting woes of the lost. His loving arms would enfold the whole human race, but not while impenitent or unbelieving; the benefits of His redemption are conditional.”

Edward Thomson (1810–1870) American bishop

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 311.

Love , Fear , Law , Joy

“Boor, bond of thy herd,
Tonight stretch full by the fire!”

James Joyce book Pomes Penyeach

Tilly, p. 9
Pomes Penyeach (1927)

“Therefore it was the discovery of fire that originally gave rise to the coming together of men, to the deliberate assembly, and to social intercourse.”

Vitruvius book De architectura

Source: De architectura (The Ten Books On Architecture) (~ 15BC), Book II, Chapter I, Sec. 2

Men

“The fire of hell is called eternal, only because it never ends. Still, there is change in the pains of the lost…Hence in hell true eternity does not exist, but rather time.”

Thomas Aquinas book Summa Theologica

I, q. 10, art. 3, ad 2
Summa Theologica (1265–1274)

Pain , Hell , Change , Time

“The 'Cercle et Carré' group owes its existence to my encounter with the Uruguayan painter Torrès-Gracia in 1929… However difficult our relationship, his obstinacy matching my patience, this unholy team of fire and water was bound to produce something. Towards the end of the year, after consulting sundry artists, including Arp, Mondrian, and Van Doesburg, we drew up the program for a new group and launched a magazine which was be called 'Cercle et Carré.”

Michel Seuphor (1901–1999) designer, draughtsman, painter

Source: Abstract Painting (1964), pp. 97-98:

Water , Patience

“We here have… an architectural discovery which may prove of inestimable value to future art. …Like fire, it is a good servant but a bad master. The danger is that it may lead to a cramped and mechanical design. One may easily become a slave to the module, and do things because of it which his taste or reason would not otherwise commend. …How can the danger be avoided and the benefits secured?”

Ernest Flagg (1857–1947) American architect

Small Houses: Their Economic Design and Construction (1922)

Art , Future

“He was waiting to choke you on a marble, to smother you with a dry-cleaning bag, to sizzle you into eternity with a fast and lethal boogie of electricity- Available At Your Nearest Switch plate Or Vacant Light Socket Right Now. There was death in a quarter bag of peanuts, an aspirated piece of steak, the next pack of cigarettes. He was around all the time, he monitored all the checkpoints between the mortal and the eternal. Dirty needles, poison beetles, downed live wires, forest fires. Whirling roller skates that shot nerdy little kids into busy intersections. When you got into the bathtub to take a shower, Oz got right in there too- Shower With A Friend. When you got on an airplane, Oz took your boarding pass. He was in the water you drank, the food you ate. Who's out there? you howled in the dark when you were all frightened and all alone, and it was his answer that came back: Don't be afraid, it's just me. Hi, howaya? You got cancer of the bowel, what a bummer, so solly, Cholly! Septicemia! Leukemia! Atherosclerosis! Coronary thrombosis! Encephalitis! Osteomyelitis! Hey-ho, let's go! Junkie in a doorway with a knife. Phone call in the middle of the night. Blood cooking in battery acid on some exit ramp in North Carolina. Big handfuls of pills, munch em up. That peculiar cast of the fingernails following asphyxiation- in its final grim struggle to survive the brain takes all oxygen that is left, even that in those living cells under the nails. Hi, folks, my name's Oz the Gweat and Tewwible, but you can call me Oz if you want- hell, we're old friends by now. Just stopped by to whop you with a little congestive heart failure or a cranial blood clot or something; can't stay, got to see a woman about a breech birth, then I've got a little smoke-inhalation job to do in Omaha.”

Stephen King book Pet Sematary

Pet Sematary (1983)

Death , Food , Birth , Failure

“In that strange island Iceland,—burst up, the geologists say, by fire from the bottom of the sea; a wild land of barrenness and lava; swallowed many months of every year in black tempests, yet with a wild gleaming beauty in summertime; towering up there, stern and grim, in the North Ocean with its snow jokuls, roaring geysers, sulphur-pools and horrid volcanic chasms, like the waste chaotic battle-field of Frost and Fire;—where of all places we least looked for Literature or written memorials, the record of these things was written down.”

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

1840s, Heroes and Hero-Worship (1840), The Hero as Divinity

Beauty , Literature , Memory , Sea

“In the machine for a new use of gunpowder, which is described in the 'Acta Eruditorum' for the month of September, 1688, the first desideratum was, that the gunpowder fired in the bottom of the tube AA should fill the whole cavity with flame, so that the air might be entirely expelled from it, and the tube remain a perfect vacuum beneath the piston BB. But there it was mentioned, that the desired effect could not be sufficiently attained… But hitherto such attempts have been in vain; and always, after the flame of the gunpowder is extinguished, about a fifth part of the air remains in the tube AA.”

Denis Papin (1647–1713) French physicist, mathematician and inventor

"A New Method of Obtaining Very Great Moving Powers at Small Cost" (1690)

Parting , Perfection

“We are introduced to Iraq, "a sovereign nation"…In this peaceable kingdom, according to Moore's flabbergasting choice of film shots, children are flying little kites, shoppers are smiling in the sunshine, and the gentle rhythms of life are undisturbed. Then—wham! From the night sky come the terror weapons of American imperialism. Watching the clips Moore uses, and recalling them well, I can recognize various Saddam palaces and military and police centers getting the treatment. But these sites are not identified as such. In fact, I don't think Al Jazeera would, on a bad day, have transmitted anything so utterly propagandistic. You would also be led to think that the term "civilian casualty" had not even been in the Iraqi vocabulary until March 2003…the "insurgent" side is presented in this film as justifiably outraged, whereas the 30-year record of Baathist war crimes and repression and aggression is not mentioned once.That this—his pro-American moment—was the worst Moore could possibly say of Saddam's depravity is further suggested by some astonishing falsifications. Moore asserts that Iraq under Saddam had never attacked or killed or even threatened (his words) any American. I never quite know whether Moore is as ignorant as he looks, or even if that would be humanly possible…Baghdad was the safe house for the man whose "operation" murdered Leon Klinghoffer…In 1991, a large number of Western hostages were taken by the hideous Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and held in terrible conditions for a long time. After that same invasion was repelled—Saddam having killed quite a few Americans and Egyptians and Syrians and Brits in the meantime and having threatened to kill many more—the Iraqi secret police were caught trying to murder former President Bush during his visit to Kuwait. Never mind whether his son should take that personally…Iraqi forces fired, every day, for 10 years, on the aircraft that patrolled the no-fly zones and staved off further genocide in the north and south of the country…And it was after, and not before, the 9/11 attacks that Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi moved from Afghanistan to Baghdad and began to plan his now very open and lethal design for a holy and ethnic civil war.”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

2004-06-21
Unfairenheit 9/11
Slate
1091-2339
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/fighting_words/2004/06/unfairenheit_911.html: On Michael Moore
2000s, 2004

Life , War , Children , Secret