Quotes about fire
page 22
Hartley to Kuntz, February 2, 1940, as quoted in Marsden Hartley, by Gail R. Scott, Abbeville Publishers, Cross River Press, 1988, New York p. 147
1931 - 1943
Mukesh who followed his father’s principles quoted in page=56
Mukesh Dhirajlal Ambani, Anil Dhirajlal Ambani
Source: The Yiddish Policemen’s Union (2007), Chapter 39
Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/battle-los-angeles-2011 of Battle: Los Angeles (9 March 2011)
Reviews, Half-star reviews
Source: A Stranger in Olondria (2013), Chapter 3, “Doorways” (p. 19; the first sentence is echoed on p. 273)
“…but every lyar
Must have his portion in the lake
That burns with brimstone and with fire.”
Song 15: "Against Lying".
1710s, Divine Songs Attempted in the Easy Language of Children (1715)
Given by Trenchard in 1946. As listed on Skygod.com - Great Aviation Quotes http://www.skygod.com/quotes/airpower.html
“Out of the frying pan into the fire.”
De calcaria in carbonarium.
De Carne Christi, 6; "The Roman version of the proverb is more literally translated "Out of the lime-kiln into the coal-furnace."
Preface to King Arthur http://d.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/text/blackmore-king-arthur-I (1697)
Amors sanz crieme et sans peor
Est feus sanz flame et sanz chalor,
Jorz sanz soloil, bresche sanz miel,
Estez sans flor, iverz sanz giel,
Ciaus sanz lune, livres sanz letre.
Cligès, line 3893.
Opening words, p. 1.
The Unknown Soldier
Source: Julian Comstock: A Story of 22nd-Century America (2009), p. 109
There Will Be War (1983)
Assorted
“I think execution by firing squad is even an honorable thing to certain people.”
Referring to the then-president Fernando Henrique Cardoso. "Eu defendo a tortura" https://web.archive.org/web/20000526120540/http://www.terra.com.br/istoegente/28/reportagens/entrev_jair.htm. IstoÉ Gente (14 February 2000).
The Pittsburgh Press (3 August 1986) "Gadhafi, the man the world loves to hate" by Marie Colvin (UPI)
The Conspiracy of Kings (1792)
Context: Think not, ye knaves, whom meanness styles the Great,
Drones of the Church and harpies of the State, —
Ye, whose curst sires, for blood and plunder fam'd,
Sultans or kings or czars or emp'rors nam'd,
Taught the deluded world their claims to own,
And raise the crested reptiles to a throne, —
Ye, who pretend to your dark host was given
The lamp of life, the mystic keys of heaven;
Whose impious arts with magic spells began
When shades of ign'rance veil'd the race of man;
Who change, from age to age, the sly deceit
As Science beams, and Virtue learns the cheat;
Tyrants of double powers, the soul that blind,
To rob, to scourge, and brutalize mankind,
Think not I come to croak with omen'd yell
The dire damnations of your future hell,
To bend a bigot or reform a knave,
By op'ning all the scenes beyond the grave.
I know your crusted souls: while one defies
In sceptic scorn the vengeance of the skies,
The other boasts, — “I ken thee, Power divine,
“But fear thee not; th' avenging bolt is mine." No! 'tis the present world that prompts the song,
The world we see, the world that feels the wrong,
The world of men, whose arguments ye know,
Of men, long curb'd to servitude and wo,
Men, rous'd from sloth, by indignation stung,
Their strong hands loos'd, and found their fearless tongue;
Whose voice of fire, whose deep-descending steel
Shall speak to souls, and teach dull nerves to feel.
1850s, The Present Aspect of the Slavery Question (1859)
Context: Mister Douglas in his speech at Memphis expressly says, 'Whenever a territory has a climate, soil, and productions making it the interest of the inhabitants to encourage slave property, they will pass a slave-code and give it encouragement'. He adds that they have a right to do it, and in his late speech at Columbus he declares that there must be no interference with any action of any state, insisting, according to the report, amid great laughter at the exquisite humor of the witticism, 'If you go over to Virginia to steal her Negroes, I trust she will catch you and put you in jail with other thieves'. Ah, Mr. Douglas! Mr. Douglas! if the little child just born to you were stolen from your arms and sold into slavery, and you went through fire and water to rescue her, would you say so airily, so jauntily, with such pleasant humor, that if you went to steal her you trust you would be caught and put in jail with other thieves? And yet not more do you love that child hanging at this moment upon her mother's bosom, than an old slave mother whom I know in the hospital across the river loved the child who forty years ago was torn from her breast and sold, and of whose fate for forty years that silent, sorrowing Rachel has not heard?
Source: Hawthorn and Lavender (1901), XXI
Context: Love, which is lust, is the Lamp in the Tomb.
Love, which is lust, is the Call from the Gloom.
Love, which is lust, is the Main of Desire.
Love, which is lust, is the Centric Fire.
So man and woman will keep their trust,
Till the very Springs of the Sea run dust.
Yea, each with the other will lose and win,
Till the very Sides of the Grave fall in.
For the strife of Love's the abysmal strife,
And the word of Love is the Word of Life.
And they that go with the Word unsaid,
Though they seem of the living, are damned and dead.
Source: War in Heaven (1998), p. 599
Context: The memory of all things is in all things, Danlo remembered. Nothing is ever truly lost.
"The true Elder Eddas," he said "are universal memories. The One memory is just the memory of the universe itself. The way the universe evolves in conscioiusness of itself and causes itself to be. We are just this blessed consciousness, nothing more, nothing less. We are the light inside light that fuses into the atoms of our bodies; we are the fire that whirls across the stellar deeps and dances all things into being."
"Now you are speaking mystically again, Little Fellow."
"About some things there is no other way to speak."
As quoted in Contemporary Authors New Revision Series: A Bio-Bibliographical Guide to Current Writers in Fiction, General Non-Fiction, Poetry, Journalism, Drama, Motion Pictures, Television, & Other Fields (1982) by Ann Evory
Context: I talk about the things people have always talked about in stories: pain, hate, truth, courage, destiny, friendship, responsibility, growing old, growing up, falling in love, all of these things. What I try to write about are the darkest things in the soul, the mortal dreads. I try to go into those places in me that contain the cauldrous. I want to dip up the fire, and I want to put it on paper. The closer I get to the burning core of my being, the things which are most painful to me, the better is my work. … It is a love/hate relationship I have with the human race. I am an elitist, and I feel that my responsibility is to drag the human race along with me — that I will never pander to, or speak down to, or play the safe game. Because my immortal soul will be lost.
Lecture XXVIL: On Habit - Part II, in “Elementary Sketches of Moral Philosophy”, delivered at The Royal Institution in the years 1804, 1805, and 1806 by the late Rev. Sydney Smith, M.A. (Spottiswoodes and Shaw (London: 1849)) http://www.archive.org/stream/elementarysketc03smitgoog#page/n438/mode/2up, p. 423-424
Another Variant: The history of the world shows us that men are not to be counted by their numbers, but by the fire and vigour of their passions; by their deep sense of injury; by their memory of past glory; by their eagerness for fresh fame; by their clear and steady resolution of ceasing to live, or of achieving a particular object, which, when it is once formed, strikes off a load of manacles and chains, and gives free space to all heavenly and heroic feelings. All great and extraordinary actions come from the heart. There are seasons in human affairs when qualities, fit enough to conduct the common business of life, are feeble and useless, when men must trust to emotion for that safety which reason at such times can never give. These are the feelings which led the ten thousand over the Carduchian mountains; these are the feelings by which a handful of Greeks broke in pieces the power of Persia; and in the fens of the Dutch, and on the mountains of the Swiss, defended the happiness and revenged the oppressions of man! God calls all the passions out in their keenness and vigour for the present safety of mankind, anger and revenge, and the heroic mind, and a readiness to suffer—all the secret strength, all the invisible array of the feelings—all that nature has reserved for the great scenes of the world. When the usual hopes and the common aids of man are all gone, nothing remains under God but those passions which have often proved the best ministers of His purpose and the surest protectors of the world.
Quoted by Theodore Roosevelt in his " Brotherhood and the Heroic Virtues http://www.theodore-roosevelt.com/images/research/txtspeeches/668.pdf" Address at the Veterans' Reunion, Burlington, Vermont, September 5, 1901 and published in Theodore Roosevelt's "The Strenuous Life: Essays and Addresses" by Dover Publications (April 23, 2009) in its Dover Thrift Editions (ISBN: 978-0486472294), p. 126-127
Elementary Sketches of Moral Philosophy (1849)
Context: The history of the world shows us that men are not to be counted by their numbers, but by the fire and vigour of their passions; by their deep sense of injury; by their memory of past glory; by their eagerness for fresh fame; by their clear and steady resolution of ceasing to live, or of achieving a particular object, which, when it is once formed, strikes off a load of manacles and chains, and gives free space to all heavenly and heroic feelings. All great and extraordinary actions come from the heart. There are seasons in human affairs, when qualities fit enough to conduct the common business of life, are feeble and useless; and when men must trust to emotion, for that safety which reason at such times can never give. These are the feelings which led the ten thousand over the Carduchian mountans; these are the feelings by which a handful of Greeks broke in pieces the power of Persia: they have, by turns, humbled Austria, reduced Spain; and in the fens of the Dutch, and on the mountains of the Swiss, defended the happiness, and revenged the oppressions, of man! God calls all the passions out in their keenness and vigour, for the present safety of mankind. Anger, and revenge, and the heroic mind, and a readiness to suffer;— all the secret strength, all the invisible array, of the feelings,— all that nature has reserved for the great scenes of the world. For the usual hopes, and the common aids of man, are all gone! Kings have perished, armies are subdued, nations mouldered away! Nothing remains, under God, but those passions which have often proved the best ministers of His vengeance, and the surest protectors of the world.
“The new fire is laid, but the particular kind of match is missing.”
Vision of the Future Through Eyes of Science, News of the World, 31 October 1937
Reproduced in The Collected Essays of Sir Winston Churchill, Vol IV, Churchill at Large, Centenary Edition (1976), Library of Imperial History, p. 414.
The 1930s
Context: Three hundred years ago it would have seemed absurd to say that this black mineral, this sea-coal, which could be used as a substitute for wood to burn in one's grate, could be applied to revolutionize human affairs. Today we know that there is another source of energy a million times greater. We have not yet learned how to harness it or apply it, but it is there. Occasionally in complicated processes in the laboratory a scientist observes transmutations, re-arrangements in the core of the atom, which is known as the nucleus, which generate power at a rate hundreds of thousands of times greater than is produced when coal is burned and when, as the scientists put it, a carbon atom satisfied its affinity for an oxygen molecule. It can scarcely be doubted that a way to induce and control these effects can be found. The new fire is laid, but the particular kind of match is missing.
"Memorial Day"; this poem was later published in The Army and Navy Hymnal (1920)
Trees and Other Poems (1914)
Context: The bugle echoes shrill and sweet,
But not of war it sings to-day.
The road is rhythmic with the feet
Of men-at-arms who come to pray. The roses blossom white and red
On tombs where weary soldiers lie;
Flags wave above the honored dead
And martial music cleaves the sky. Above their wreath-strewn graves we kneel,
They kept the faith and fought the fight.
Through flying lead and crimson steel
They plunged for Freedom and the Right. May we, their grateful children, learn
Their strength, who lie beneath this sod,
Who went through fire and death to earn
At last the accolade of God.In shining rank on rank arrayed
They march, the legions of the Lord;
He is their Captain unafraid,
The Prince of Peace... Who brought a sword.</p
Writing about Gregorius Richter, chief pastor of Görlitz, who had condemned his writings (2 April 1624), as quoted in Concerning the Three Principles of the Divine Essence (1910), edited by Paul Deussen, Introduction
Context: I must tell you, sir, that yesterday the pharisaical devil was let loose, cursed me and my little book, and condemned the book to the fire. He charged me with shocking vices; with being a scorner of both Church and Sacraments, and with getting drunk daily on brandy, wine, and beer; all of which is untrue; while he himself is a drunken man.
Exsurge Domine (1520)
Context: Give heed to the cause of the holy Roman Church, mother of all churches and teacher of the faith, whom you by the order of God, have consecrated by your blood. Against the Roman Church, you warned, lying teachers are rising, introducing ruinous sects, and drawing upon themselves speedy doom. Their tongues are fire, a restless evil, full of deadly poison. They have bitter zeal, contention in their hearts, and boast and lie against the truth.
An Essay on the Beautiful
Context: The sensitive eye can never be able to survey, the orb of the sun, unless strongly endued with solar fire, and participating largely of the vivid ray. Everyone therefore must become divine, and of godlike beauty, before he can gaze upon a god and the beautiful itself. Thus proceeding in the right way of beauty he will first ascend into the region of intellect, contemplating every fair species, the beauty of which he will perceive to be no other than ideas themselves; for all things are beautiful by the supervening irradiations of these, because they are the offspring and essence of intellect. But that which is superior to these is no other than the fountain of good, everywhere widely diffusing around the streams of beauty, and hence in discourse called the beautiful itself because beauty is its immediate offspring. But if you accurately distinguish the intelligible objects you will call the beautiful the receptacle of ideas; but the good itself, which is superior, the fountain and principle of the beautiful; or, you may place the first beautiful and the good in the same principle, independent of the beauty which there subsists.
“You are lighting a fire beneath the open sky, while your own family in your own house is freezing.”
Bildung, 1890. Alle Verk, xii. 20ff. S. Liptzin. Peretz. Yivo, 1947, pp. 334–8.
Context: [About loyalty to Judaism] Don't assume, Jewish intellectuals, that you are doing your duty by working... for so-called Humanity.... You are lighting a fire beneath the open sky, while your own family in your own house is freezing.
Source: De architectura (The Ten Books On Architecture) (~ 15BC), Book II, Chapter IX, Sec. 14
Context: The larch... is not only preserved from decay and the worm by the great bitterness of its sap, but also it cannot be kindled with fire nor ignite of itself, unless like stone in a limekiln it is burned with other wood.... This is because there is a very small proportion of the elements of fire and air in its composition, which is a dense and solid mass of moisture and the earthy, so that it has no open pores through which fire can find its way... Further, its weight will not let it float in water.
Source: The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus (c.1565), Ch. XXIX, ¶ 16-17
Context: I saw an angel close by me, on my left side, in bodily form. This I am not accustomed to see, unless very rarely. Though I have visions of angels frequently, yet I see them only by an intellectual vision, such as I have spoken of before. It was our Lord's will that in this vision I should see the angel in this wise. He was not large, but small of stature, and most beautiful — his face burning, as if he were one of the highest angels, who seem to be all of fire: they must be those whom we call cherubim. Their names they never tell me; but I see very well that there is in heaven so great a difference between one angel and another, and between these and the others, that I cannot explain it.I saw in his hand a long spear of gold, and at the iron's point there seemed to be a little fire. He appeared to me to be thrusting it at times into my heart, and to pierce my very entrails; when he drew it out, he seemed to draw them out also, and to leave me all on fire with a great love of God. The pain was so great, that it made me moan; and yet so surpassing was the sweetness of this excessive pain, that I could not wish to be rid of it. The soul is satisfied now with nothing less than God. The pain is not bodily, but spiritual; though the body has its share in it, even a large one. It is a caressing of love so sweet which now takes place between the soul and God, that I pray God of His goodness to make him experience it who may think that I am lying.</p
Part II, chapter 2.
Proverbs (1546), Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
"The Battle of New Orleans" (1936)
Context: p>Ole Hickory said we could take 'em by surprise,
If we didn't fire our muskets 'til we looked 'em in the eyes.
We held our fire 'til we seed their faces well,
Then we opened up our squirrel guns an' really gave 'em... well! Yeah, they ran through the briars an' they ran through the brambles
An' they ran through the bushes where the rabbits couldn't go.
They ran so fast that the hounds couldn't catch 'em
Down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico.</p
Source: The Occult: A History (1971), p. 280
Context: The real importance of Swedenborg lies in the doctrines he taught, which are the reverse of the gloom and hell-fire of other breakaway sects. He rejects the notion that Jesus died on the cross to atone for the sin of Adam, declaring that God is neither vindictive nor petty-minded, and that since he is God, he doesn't need atonement. It is remarkable that this common-sense view had never struck earlier theologians. God is Divine Goodness, and Jesus is Divine Wisdom, and Goodness has to be approached through Wisdom. Whatever one thinks about the extraordinary claims of its founder, it must be acknowledged that there is something very beautiful and healthy about the Swedenborgian religion. Its founder may have not been a great occultist, but he was a great man.
Speech to the Virginia Convention (1861)
Context: The majority according to the Northern idea, which will then be the all-pervading, all powerful one, have the right to control. It will be in keeping particularly with the principles of the abolitionists that the majority, no matter of what, shall rule. Is it to be supposed that the white race will stand that? It is not a supposable case. Although not half so numerous, we may readily assume that war will break out everywhere like hidden fire from the earth, and it is probable that the white race, being superior in every respect, may push the other back. They will then call upon the authorities at Washington, to aid them in putting down servile insurrection, and they will send a standing army down upon us, and the volunteers and Wide-Awakes will come in thousands, and we will be overpowered and our men will be compelled to wander like vagabonds all over the earth; and as for our women, the horrors of their state we cannot contemplate in imagination. That is the fate which Abolition will bring upon the white race.
Attributed to Rodin in: Southwestern Art Vol. 6 (1977). p. 20; Partly cited in: A Toolbox for Humanity: More Than 9000 Years of Thought (2004) by Lloyd Albert Johnson, p. 7
1950s-1990s
Context: The artist must learn the difference between the appearance of an object and the interpretation of this object through his medium. The artist must create a spark before he can make a fire and before art is born, the artist must be ready to be consumed by the fire of his own creation.
Discussing the result of an experiment where about 1 out of 8000 alpha particles were scattered backwards when fired at a thin sheet of metal foil, which led to the discovery of the atomic nucleus, as quoted in Rutherford and the Nature of the Atom (1964) by E. N. da C. Andrade, p. 111, and in Nobel Laureates in chemistry, 1901-1992 http://books.google.com/books?id=jEy67gEvIuMC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA57#v=onepage&q&f=false by Laylin K. James, p. 57
Context: It was quite the most incredible event that has ever happened to me in my life. It was almost as incredible as if you fired a 15-inch shell at a piece of tissue paper and it came back and hit you.
The Lost Son and Other Poems (1948)
“We cannot kindle when we will
The fire that in the heart resides”
"Morality" (1852), st. 1
Context: We cannot kindle when we will
The fire that in the heart resides,
The spirit bloweth and is still,
In mystery our soul abides; —
But tasks, in hours of insight willed,
Can be through hours of gloom fulfilled.
“The old-timers thought, Well, fire's bad; we'll get rid of it. That was certainly a mistake.”
On the errors of trying to completely eliminate forest fires, because of the disruption of growth cycles that make those that do occur more destructive and harder to control.
Interview interview (1995)
Context: The old-timers thought, Well, fire's bad; we'll get rid of it. That was certainly a mistake. We have to get it back into the system somehow, in safe, controlled ways. That's what I'm into now.
“Love is a fire that burns unseen”
Rimas, Sonnet 81 (as translated by Richard Zenith)<!-- http://portugal.poetryinternationalweb.org/piw_cms/cms/cms_module/index.php?obj_id=8436-->
Lyric poetry, Não pode tirar-me as esperanças, Amor é fogo que arde sem se ver
Context: Love is a fire that burns unseen,
A wound that aches yet isn't felt,
An always discontent contentment,
A pain that rages without hurting,A longing for nothing but to long,
A loneliness in the midst of people,
A never feeling pleased when pleased,
A passion that gains when lost in thought.It's being enslaved of your own free will;
It's counting your defeat a victory;
It's staying loyal to your killer.But if it's so self-contradictory,
How can Love, when Love chooses,
Bring human hearts into sympathy?
Schenck v. United States, 249 U.S. 47, 52 (3 March 1919).
1910s
Speech in the House of Commons, July 8, 1920 "Amritsar" http://lachlan.bluehaze.com.au/churchill/am-text.htm
Early career years (1898–1929)
Context: Let me marshal the facts. The crowd was unarmed, except with bludgeons. It was not attacking anybody or anything. It was holding a seditious meeting. When fire had been opened upon it to disperse it, it tried to run away. Pinned up in a narrow place considerably smaller than Trafalgar Square, with hardly any exits, and packed together so that one bullet would drive through three or four bodies, the people ran madly this way and the other. When the fire was directed upon the centre, they ran to the sides. The fire was then directed to the sides. Many threw themselves down on the ground, and the fire was then directed on the ground. This was continued for 8 or 10 minutes... [i]f the road had not been so narrow, the machine guns and the armoured cars would have joined in. Finally, when the ammunition had reached the point that only enough remained to allow for the safe return of the troops, and after 379 persons … had been killed, and when most certainly 1,200 or more had been wounded, the troops, at whom not even a stone had been thrown, swung round and marched away. … We have to make it absolutely clear … that this is not the British way of doing business. … Our reign, in India or anywhere else, has never stood on the basis of physical force alone, and it would be fatal to the British Empire if we were to try to base ourselves only upon it.
Go Rin No Sho (1645)
Context: Third is the Fire book. This book is about fighting. The spirit of fire is fierce, whether the fire be small or big; and so it is with battles. The Way of battles is the same for man to man fights and for ten thousand a side battles. You must appreciate that spirit can become big or small. What is big is easy to perceive: what is small is difficult to perceive. In short, it is difficult for large numbers of men to change position, so their movements can be easily predicted. An individual can easily change his mind, so his movements are difficult to predict. You must appreciate this. The essence of this book is that you must train day and night in order to make quick decisions.
Wartime Prayers
Song lyrics, Surprise (2006)
Context: Prayers offered in times of peace are silent conversations,
Appeals for love, or love's release, in private invocationsBut all that is changed now.
Gone like a memory from the day before the fires.
People hungry for the voice of God
Hear lunatics and liars.Wartime prayers. Wartime prayers
In every language spoken.
For every family scattered and broken.
Source: Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions (1884), PART II: OTHER WORLDS, Chapter 22. How I Then Tried to Diffuse the Theory of Three Dimensions by Other Means, and of the Result
Context: My brother is one of the best of Squares, just, sensible, cheerful, and not without fraternal affection; yet I confess that my weekly interviews, at least in one respect, cause me the bitterest pain. He was present when the Sphere manifested himself in the Council Chamber; he saw the Sphere's changing sections; he heard the explanation of the phenomena then given to the Circles. Since that time, scarcely a week has passed during seven whole years, without his hearing from me a repetition of the part I played in that manifestation, together with ample descriptions of all the phenomena in Spaceland, and the arguments for the existence of Solid things derivable from Analogy. Yet — I take shame to be forced to confess it — my brother has not yet grasped the nature of the Third Dimension, and frankly avows his disbelief in the existence of a Sphere.Hence I am absolutely destitute of converts, and, for aught that I can see, the millennial Revelation has been made to me for nothing. Prometheus up in Spaceland was bound for bringing down fire for mortals, but I — poor Flatland Prometheus — lie here in prison for bringing down nothing to my countrymen. Yet I exist in the hope that these memoirs, in some manner, I know not how, may find their way to the minds of humanity in Some Dimension, and may stir up a race of rebels who shall refuse to be confined to limited Dimensionality.That is the hope of my brighter moments. Alas, it is not always so. Heavily weighs on me at times the burdensome reflection that I cannot honestly say I am confident as to the exact shape of the once-seen, oft-regretted Cube; and in my nightly visions the mysterious precept, "Upward, not Northward", haunts me like a soul-devouring Sphinx. It is part of the martyrdom which I endure for the cause of the Truth that there are seasons of mental weakness, when Cubes and Spheres flit away into the background of scarce-possible existences; when the Land of Three Dimensions seems almost as visionary as the Land of One or None; nay, when even this hard wall that bars me from my freedom, these very tablets on which I am writing, and all the substantial realities of Flatland itself, appear no better than the offspring of a diseased imagination, or the baseless fabric of a dream.
“The sirens are screaming and the fires are howling
Way down in the valley tonight.”
Bat out of Hell (1977), Bat out of Hell (song)
Context: The sirens are screaming and the fires are howling
Way down in the valley tonight.
There's a man in the shadows with a gun in his eye
And a blade shining oh so bright.
There's evil in the air
And there's thunder in the sky
And a killer's on the bloodshot streets.
2014, "Narendra Modi on the Role of NDTV during the 2002 Riots", 2014
Context: In a second incident in Anjar, she played up the news that a Hanuman mandir [temple] had been broken and vandalized. I told her, "What are you up to? You are in Kutch which is a border district. There you are showing the attack and destruction of a mandir. Do you realize the implications of broadcasting such news? We haven’t yet recovered from the earthquake. Have you actually done proper investigation into the riots? Why are you lighting fires for us? Your news takes a few minutes to broadcast that such and such place is unprotected or a mandir has been vandalized. But it takes for me a few hours to move the police from one disturbed location to another since these incidents are breaking out in the most unexpected places."
“That was to cry, Fire, Fire, in Noah's Flood.”
Source: A Century of Bank Rate (1938), Chapter IV, "Bank Rate and Deflation, 1934-32" p.144-145
Context: Once the gold standard was suspended, there could be no doubt of the purpose of that step. In face of the exchange risk the high rate could not possibly attract foreign money. It could only be intended as a safeguard against inflation. Fantastic fears of inflation were expressed. That was to cry, Fire, Fire, in Noah's Flood. It is after depression and unemployment have subsided that inflation becomes dangerous.
“Love and anger are a single fire of the Spirit.”
Source: Our Christ : The Revolt of the Mystical Genius (1921), p. 169
Context: Great, strong, spiritual love — which is always at the same time a genuine, unsentimental love of man — cannot be without wrath. … Anger can no more be separated from love than flame and heat can from fire. Love and anger are a single fire of the Spirit.
Book II, Ch. IV, pp. 113-115.
Physics
1960s, Guidelines for a Constructive Church (1966)
Context: When the church is true to its guidelines, it sets out to preach deliverance to them that are captive. This is the role of the church: to free people. This merely means to free those who are slaves. Now if you notice some churches, they never read this part. Some churches aren't concerned about freeing anybody. Some white churches face the fact Sunday after Sunday that their members are slaves to prejudice, slaves to fear. You got a third of them, or a half of them or more, slaves to their prejudices. And the preacher does nothing to free them from their prejudice so often. Then you have another group sitting up there who would really like to do something about racial injustice, but they are afraid of social, political, and economic reprisals, so they end up silent. And the preacher never says anything to lift their souls and free them from that fear. And so they end up captive. You know this often happens in the Negro church. You know, there are some Negro preachers that have never opened their mouths about the freedom movement. And not only have they not opened their mouths, they haven’t done anything about it. And every now and then you get a few members: "They talk too much about civil rights in that church." I was talking with a preacher the other day and he said a few of his members were saying that. I said, "Don't pay any attention to them. Because number one, the members didn't anoint you to preach. And any preacher who allows members to tell him what to preach isn't much of a preacher."
For the guidelines made it very clear that God anointed. No member of Ebenezer Baptist Church called me to the ministry. You called me to Ebenezer, and you may turn me out of here, but you can’t turn me out of the ministry, because I got my guidelines and my anointment from God Almighty. And anything I want to say, I'm going to say it from this pulpit. It may hurt somebody, I don’t know about that; somebody may not agree with it. But when God speaks, who can but prophesy? The word of God is upon me like fire shut up in my bones, and when God’s word gets upon me, I've got to say it, I’ve got to tell it all over everywhere. And God has called me to deliver those that are in captivity.
Some people are suffering. Some people are hungry this morning. Some people are still living with segregation and discrimination this morning. I'm going to preach about it. I’m going to fight for them. I’ll die for them if necessary, because I got my guidelines clear. And the God that I serve and the God that called me to preach told me that every now and then I'll have to go to jail for them. Every now and then I’ll have to agonize and suffer for the freedom of his children. I even may have to die for it. But if that’s necessary, I'd rather follow the guidelines of God than to follow the guidelines of men. The church is called to set free those that are captive, to set free those that are victims of the slavery of segregation and discrimination, those who are caught up in the slavery of fear and prejudice.
"The Battle of New Orleans" (1936)
Context: We fired our cannon 'til the barrel melted down,
So we grabbed an alligator an' we fought another round.
We filled his head with cannon balls an' powdered his behind,
An' when they touched the powder off, the 'gator lost his mind.
His official report on the Battle of Little Round Top, as published in the U.S. Congressional Record
Context: The enemy seemed to have gathered all their energies for their final assault. We had gotten our thin line into as good a shape as possible, when a strong force emerged from the scrub wood in the valley, as well as I could judge, in two lines in echelon by the right, and, opening a heavy fire, the first line came on as if they meant to sweep everything before them. We opened on them as well as we could with our scanty ammunition snatched from the field.
It did not seem possible to withstand another shock like this now coming on. Our loss had been severe. One-half of my left wing had fallen, and a third of my regiment lay just behind us, dead or badly wounded. At this moment my anxietv was increased by a great roar of musketry in my rear, on the farther or northerly slope of Little Round Top, apparently on the flank of the regular brigade, which was in support of Hazlett's battery on the crest behind us. The bullets from this attack struck into my left rear, and I feared that the enemy might have nearly surrounded the Little Round Top, and only a desperate chance was left for us. My ammunition was soon exhausted. My men were firing their last shot and getting ready to "club" their muskets.
It was imperative to strike before we were struck by this overwhelming force in a hand-to-hand fight, which we could not probably have withstood or survived. At that crisis, I ordered the bayonet. The word was enough. It ran like fire along the line, from man to man; and rose into a shout, with which they sprang forward upon the enemy, now not 30 yards away. The effect was surprising; many of the enemy's first line threw down their arms and surrendered. An officer fired his pistol at my head with one hand, while he handed me his sword with the other. Holding fast by our right, and swinging forward our left, we made an extended " right wheel," before which the enemy's second line broke and fell back, fighting from tree to tree, many being captured, until we had swept the valley and cleared the front of nearly our entire brigade.
“Eloquence may set fire to reason.”
Gitlow v. People of New York, 268 U.S. 652 (1925) (dissenting).
1920s
Speech in Chippenham (12 June 1926) on the General Strike, quoted in Our Inheritance (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1938), pp. 167-168.
1926
Context: It may have been a magnificent demonstration of the solidarity of labour, but it was at the same time a most pathetic evidence of the failure of all of us to live and work together for the good of all. I recognize the courage that it took on the part of the leaders who had taken a false step to recede from that position unconditionally... It took a great deal more courage than it takes their critics now, who are blaming them for not going straight on, whatever happened. But if that strike showed solidarity, sympathy with the miners— whatever you like— it showed something else far greater. It proved the stability of the whole fabric of our own country, and to the amazement of the world not a shot was fired. We were saved by common sense and the good temper of our own people.
“But the next time… IT WILL BE BY FIRE!”
Chick tracts, " There Go The Dinosaurs https://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/1038/1038_01.asp" (2007)
Context: Those dinosaurs that were in the ark were "fruitful and multiplied" like other animals. But now the dinosaurs had a big problem... THE AIR HAD CHANGED! Remember those trillions of destroyed plants? They made the air rich with oxygen. And big animals need lots of it to survive. In the thinner air it was harder to breathe - they got slower and easier to catch. Now you know how the dinosaurs really died. Because of sin, the Lord destroyed the earth by water. But the next time... IT WILL BE BY FIRE!
“4702. The Passions are like Fire and Water; good Servants, but bad Masters.”
Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727), Gnomologia (1732)
"Boadicea" (1782).
Context: "Regions Caesar never knew
Thy posterity shall sway;
Where his eagles never flew,
None invincible as they."Such the bard's prophetic words, Pregnant with celestial fire, Bending as he swept the chords Of his sweet but awful lyre.
Ode to Memory (1830)
Context: Thou who stealest fire,
From the fountains of the past,
To glorify the present; oh, haste,
Visit my low desire!
Strengthen me, enlighten me!
I faint in this obscurity,
Thou dewy dawn of memory.
Chpt.2, p. 9
Principles of Geology (1832), Vol. 1
Context: It is probable that the doctrine of successive destructions and renovations of the world merely received corroboration from such proofs; and that it was originally handed down, like the religious dogmas of most nations, from a ruder state of society. The true source of the system must be sought for in the exaggerated traditions of those partial, but often dreadful catastrophes, which are sometimes occasioned by various combinations of natural causes. Floods and volcanic eruptions, the agency of water and fire, are the chief instruments of devastation on our globe.... it scarcely requires the passion for the marvelous, so characteristic of rude and half-civilized nations, still less the exuberant imagination of eastern writers, to augment them into general cataclysms and conflagrations.
Remembrance Rock (1948), Ch. 2, p. 7
Context: A baby is God's opinion that life should go on. A book that does nothing to you is dead. A baby, whether it does anything to you, represents life. If a bad fire should break out in this house and I had my choice of saving the library or the babies, I would save what is alive. Never will a time come when the most marvelous recent invention is as marvelous as a newborn baby. The finest of our precision watches, the most super-colossal of our supercargo plants, don't compare with a newborn baby in the number and ingenuity of coils and springs, in the flow and change of chemical solutions, in timing devices and interrelated parts that are irreplaceable. A baby is very modern. Yet it is also the oldest of the ancients. A baby doesn't know he is a hoary and venerable antique — but he is. Before man learned how to make an alphabet, how to make a wheel, how to make a fire, he knew how to make a baby — with the great help of woman, and his God and Maker.
“I like being able to fire people who provide services to me.”
Speech to Chamber of Commerce in Nashua, New Hampshire, , quoted in
2012
Context: I want individuals to have their own insurance. That means the insurance company will have an incentive to keep you healthy. It also means if you don't like what they do, you can fire them. I like being able to fire people who provide services to me. You know, if someone doesn't give me a good service that I need, I want to say I'm going to go get someone else to provide that service to me.
“They had pride. And they had the precious ability to fire platoon volleys.”
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Escape (2003)
Context: They were thieves and murderers and fools and rapists and drunkards. Not one had joined for love of country, and certainly not for love of their King [... ] They were paid pitifully, fined for every item they lost, and the few pennies they managed to keep they usually gambled away. They were feckless rogues, as violent as hounds and as coarse as swine, but they had two things. They had pride. And they had the precious ability to fire platoon volleys. They could fire those half company volleys faster than any other army in the world. Stand in front of these recoats and the balls came thick as hail. It was death to be in their way and seven French battlions were now in death's forecourt and the South Essex was tearing them to ribbons.
Narrator, p. 101
On the consecration in Singapore of two conservative American bishops as an act of protest, in a Pastoral letter (28 May 2000), as published in Religious Documents North America Annual (2000), p. 70
Context: Bishops are not intercontinental ballistic missiles, manufactured on one continent and fired into another as an act of aggression.
The recent irregular ordination in Singapore is, in my opinion, an open and premeditated assault on Anglican tradition, catholic order and Christian charity.
I ask for the prayers of the whole church for the Primates' Meeting that it may contribute to deeper comprehension, mutual trust, and godly quietness among its members and throughout the Communion.
A brief account of the attack that left him scarred from a spearhead that entered one side of his face and exited the other, in "Narrative of a Trip to Harar" (11 June 1855); published in The Journal of the Royal Geographical Society <!-- Vol. 25, pp.136-150 --> (June 1855)
Context: Presently our fire being exhausted, and the enemy pressing on with spear and javelin, the position became untenable; the tent was nearly battered down by clubs, and had we been entangled in its folds, we should have been killed without the power of resistance. I gave the word for a rush, and sallied out with my sabre, closely followed by Lieut. Herne, with Lieut. Speke in the rear. The former was allowed to pass through the enemy with no severer injury than a few hard blows with a war club. The latter was thrown down by a stone hurled at his chest and taken prisoner, a circumstance which we did not learn till afterwards. On leaving the tent I thought that I perceived the figure of the late Lieut. Stroyan lying upon the ground close to the camels. I was surrounded at the time by about a dozen of the enemy, whose clubs rattled upon me without mercy, and the strokes of my sabre were rendered uncertain by the energetic pushes of an attendant who thus hoped to save me. The blade was raised to cut him down: he cried out in dismay, and at that moment a Somali stepped forward, threw his spear so as to pierce my face, and retired before he could be punished. I then fell back for assistance, and the enemy feared pursuing us into the darkness. Many of our Somalis and servants were lurking about 100 yards from the fray, but nothing would persuade them to advance. The loss of blood causing me to feel faint, I was obliged to lie down, and, as dawn approached, the craft from Aynterad was seen apparently making sail out of the harbour.
Addendum to the account of 8 October 1918.
Diary of Alvin York
Context: After the Armistice was signed, I was ordered to go back to the scene of my fight with the machine guns. General Lindsey and some other generals went with me.
We went over the ground carefully. The officers spent a right smart amount of time examining the hill and the trenches where the machine guns were, and measuring and discussing everything.
And then General Lindsey asked me to describe the fight to him. And I did. And then he asked me to march him out just like I marched the German major out, over the same ground and back to the American lines.
Our general was very popular. He was a natural born fighter and he could swear just as awful as he could fight. He could swear most awful bad.
And when I marched him back to our old lines he said to me, "York, how did you do it?" And I answered him, "Sir, it is not man power. A higher power than man power guided and watched over me and told me what to do." And the general bowed his head and put his hand on my shoulder and solemnly said, "York, you are right."
There can be no doubt in the world of the fact of the divine power being in that. No other power under heaven could bring a man out of a place like that. Men were killed on both sides of me; and I was the biggest and the most exposed of all. Over thirty machine guns were maintaining rapid fire at me, point-blank from a range of about twenty-five yards.
The Purpose of Life is Religious Discovery
Start your own Religion (1967)
Address to the Society for Psychical Research (1897)
Context: The clock runs down. I lift the weight by exerting the proper amount of energy, and in this action the law of conservation of energy is strictly obeyed. But now I have the choice of either letting the weight fall free in a fraction of a second, or, constrained by the wheelwork, in twenty-four hours. I can do which I like, and whichever way I decide, no more energy is developed in the fall of the weight. I strike a match; I can use it to light a cigarette or to set fire to a house. I write a telegram; it may be simply to say I shall be late for dinner, or it may produce fluctuations on the stock exchange that will ruin thousands. In these cases the actual force required in striking the match or in writing the telegram is governed by the law or conservation of energy; but the vastly more momentous part, which determines the words I use or the material I ignite, is beyond such a law. It is probable that no expenditure of energy need be used in the determination of direction one way more than another. Intelligence and free will here come into play, and these mystic forces are outside the law of conservation of energy as understood by physicists.
New Rule: Float Like Obama, Sting Like Ali (2009)
Context: What got Van Jones fired was they caught him on tape saying that Republicans are assholes. And they call it "news." And Obama didn't say a word in defense of Jones and basically fired him when Glenn Beck told him to. Just like we dropped "end of life counseling" from health care reform because Sarah Palin said it meant "death panels" on her Facebook page.
Crazy evil morons make up things for Obama to do, and he does it.
The Conspiracy of Kings (1792)
Context: In every clime, thy visage greets my eyes,
In every tongue thy kindred accents rise;
The thought expanding swells my heart with glee,
It finds a friend, and loves itself in thee. Say then, fraternal family divine,
Whom mutual wants and mutual aids combine,
Say from what source the dire delusion rose,
That souls like ours were ever made for foes;
Why earth's maternal bosom, where we tread,
To rear our mansions and receive our bread,
Should blush so often for the face she bore,
So long be drench'd with floods of filial gore;
Why to small realms for ever rest confin'd
Our great affections, meant for all mankind.
Though climes divide us; shall the stream or sea,
That forms a barrier 'twixt my friend and me,
Inspire the wish his peaceful state to mar,
And meet his falchion in the ranks of war? Not seas, nor climes, nor wild ambition's fire
In nations' minds could e'er the wish inspire;
Where equal rights each sober voice should guide,
No blood would stain them, and no war divide.
'Tis dark deception, 'tis the glare of state,
Man sunk in titles, lost in Small and Great;
'Tis Rank, Distinction, all the hell that springs
From those prolific monsters, Courts and Kings.
On the Completion of the Bunker Hill Monument (1843)
Context: Spain stooped on South America, like a vulture on its prey. Every thing was force. Territories were acquired by fire and sword. Cities were destroyed by fire and sword. Hundreds of thousands of human beings fell by fire and sword. Even conversion to Christianity was attempted by fire and sword.
"Calmly We Walk Through This April's Day" ( full text online http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/calmly-we-walk-through-this-april-s-day/); this poem has also been printed under the title "For Rhoda"
Selected Poems: Summer Knowledge (1959)
Context: Each minute bursts in the burning room,
The great globe reels in the solar fire,
Spinning the trivial and unique away.
(How all things flash! How all things flare!)
What am I now that I was then?
May memory restore again and again
The smallest color of the smallest day:
Time is the school in which we learn,
Time is the fire in which we burn.
The Truth (1896)
Context: They put a monster—a master—a tyrant in the sky, and seek to enslave their fellow-men. They teach the cringing virtues of serfs. They abhor the courage of manly men. They hate the man who thinks. They long for revenge. They warm their hands at the imaginary fires of hell. I show them that hell does not exist and they denounce me for destroying their consolation.
Source: Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry (1871), Ch. II : The Fellow-Craft, p. 43
Context: Remember, that though life is short, Thought and the influences of what we do or say, are immortal; and that no calculus has yet pretended to ascertain the law of proportion between cause and effect. The hammer of an English blacksmith, smiting down an insolent official, led to a rebellion which came near being a revolution. The word well spoken, the deed fitly done, even by the feeblest or humblest, cannot help but have their effect. More or less, the effect is inevitable and eternal. The echoes of the greatest deeds may die away like the echoes of a cry among the cliffs, and what has been done seem to the human judgment to have been without result. The unconsidered act of the poorest of men may fire the train that leads to the subterranean mine, and an empire be rent by the explosion.
“When the young die I am reminded of a strong flame extinguished by a torrent; but when old men die it is as if a fire had gone out without the use of force and of its own accord, after the fuel had been consumed”
Itaque adulescentes mihi mori sic videntur, ut cum aquae multitudine flammae vis opprimitur, senes autem sic, ut cum sua sponte nulla adhibita vi consumptus ignis exstinguitur; et quasi poma ex arboribus, cruda si sunt, vix evelluntur, si matura et cocta, decidunt, sic vitam adulescentibus vis aufert, senibus maturitas; quae quidem mihi tam iucunda est, ut, quo propius ad mortem accedam, quasi terram videre videar aliquandoque in portum ex longa navigatione esse venturus.
section 71 http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A2007.01.0039%3Asection%3D71
Cato Maior de Senectute – On Old Age (44 BC)
Context: When the young die I am reminded of a strong flame extinguished by a torrent; but when old men die it is as if a fire had gone out without the use of force and of its own accord, after the fuel had been consumed; and, just as apples when they are green are with difficulty plucked from the tree, but when ripe and mellow fall of themselves, so, with the young, death comes as a result of force, while with the old it is the result of ripeness. To me, indeed, the thought of this "ripeness" for death is so pleasant, that the nearer I approach death the more I feel like one who is in sight of land at last and is about to anchor in his home port after a long voyage.
"Rivers Grow Small" (1963), trans. Czesław Miłosz
Bobo's Metamorphosis (1965)
Orthodoxy (1884)
Context: The church must not abandon its belief in devils. Orthodoxy cannot afford to put out the fires of hell. Throw away a belief in the devil, and most of the miracles of the New Testament become impossible, even if we admit the supernatural. If there is no devil, who was the original tempter in the garden of Eden? If there is no hell, from what are we saved; to what purpose is the atonement? Upon the obverse of the Christian shield is God, upon the reverse, the devil. No devil, no hell. No hell, no atonement. No atonement, no preaching, no gospel.
“And yet I strove — and I was fire
And ice — and fire and ice were one
In one vast hunger of desire.”
Young Adventure (1918), The Quality of Courage
Context: p>The iron ice stung like a goad,
Slashing the torn shoes from my feet,
And all the air was bitter sleet. And all the land was cramped with snow,
Steel-strong and fierce and glimmering wan,
Like pale plains of obsidian.
— And yet I strove — and I was fire
And ice — and fire and ice were one
In one vast hunger of desire.</p
answers the ingenuous soul, with visions of the envy of surrounding flunkies dawning on him; and in very many cases decides that he will contract himself into beaverism, and with such a horse-draught of gold, emblem of a never-imagined success in beaver heroism, strike the surrounding flunkies yellow. This is our common course; this is in some sort open to every creature, what we call the beaver career; perhaps more open in England, taking in America too, than it ever was in any country before. And, truly, good consequences follow out of it: who can be blind to them? Half of a most excellent and opulent result is realized to us in this way; baleful only when it sets up (as too often now) for being the whole result.
1850s, Latter-Day Pamphlets (1850), Stump Orator (May 1, 1850)
Diary of Alvin York, Account of 8 October 1918.
Context: I don't know whether it was the German major, but one yelled something out in German that we couldn't understand. And then the machine guns on top swung around and opened fire on us. There were about thirty of them. They were commanding us from a hillside less than thirty yards away. They couldn't miss. And they didn't!
They killed all of Savage's squad; they got all of mine but two; they wounded Cutting and killed two of his squad; and Early's squad was well back in the brush on the extreme right and not yet under the direct fire of the machine guns, and so they escaped. All except Early. He went down with three bullets in his body. That left me in command. I was right out there in the open.
And those machine guns were spitting fire and cutting down the undergrowth all around me something awful. And the Germans were yelling orders. You never heard such a racket in all of your life. I didn't have time to dodge behind a tree or dive into the brush, I didn't even have time to kneel or lie down.
I don't know what the other boys were doing. They claim They didn't fire a shot. They said afterwards they were on the right, guarding the prisoners. And the prisoners were lying down and the machine guns had to shoot over them to get me. As soon as the machine guns opened fire on me, I began to exchange shots with them.
"Fortunately"
Versus (1949)
Context: A young person is a person with nothing to learn
One who already knows that ice does not chill and fire does not burn...
It knows it can spend six hours in the sun on its first
day at the beach without ending up a skinless beet,
And it knows it can walk barefoot through the barn
without running a nail in its feet....
Meanwhile psychologists grow rich
Writing that the young are ones' should not
undermine the self-confidence of which.
“My thinking shifted when I read that the military was firing translators because they are gay.”
"Bigotry That Hurts Our Military" in The Washington Post (14 May 2007) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/13/AR2007031301507.html.
Context: As a lifelong Republican who served in the Army in Germany, I believe it is critical that we review — and overturn — the ban on gay service in the military. I voted for "don't ask, don't tell." But much has changed since 1993.
My thinking shifted when I read that the military was firing translators because they are gay. According to the Government Accountability Office, more than 300 language experts have been fired under "don't ask, don't tell," including more than 50 who are fluent in Arabic. This when even Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice recently acknowledged the nation's "foreign language deficit" and how much our government needs Farsi and Arabic speakers. Is there a "straight" way to translate Arabic? Is there a "gay" Farsi? My God, we'd better start talking sense before it is too late. We need every able-bodied, smart patriot to help us win this war.
Source: 1880s, Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (1881), pp. 263–264.
Context: I had been living four or five months in New Bedford when there came a young man to me with a copy of the Liberator, the paper edited by William Lloyd Garrison and published by Isaac Knapp, and asked me to subscribe for it. I told him I had but just escaped from slavery, and was of course very poor, and had no money then to pay for it. He was very willing to take me as a subscriber, notwithstanding, and from this time I was brought into contact with the mind of Mr. Garrison, and his paper took a place in my heart second only to the Bible. It detested slavery, and made no truce with the traffickers in the bodies and souls of men. It preached human brotherhood; it exposed hypocrisy and wickedness in high places; it denounced oppression; and with all the solemnity of "Thus saith the Lord," demanded the complete emancipation of my race. I loved this paper and its editor. He seemed to me an all-sufficient match to every opponent, whether they spoke in the name of the law or the gospel. His words were full of holy fire, and straight to the point. Something of a hero-worshiper by nature, here was one to excite my admiration and reverence. It was my privilege to listen to a lecture in Liberty Hall by Mr. Garrison, its editor. He was then a young man, of a singularly pleasing countenance, and earnest and impressive manner. On this occasion he announced nearly all his heresies. His Bible was his textbook — held sacred as the very word of the Eternal Father. He believed in sinless perfection, complete submission to insults and injuries, and literal obedience to the injunction if smitten "on one cheek to turn the other also." Not only was Sunday a Sabbath, but all days were Sabbaths, and to be kept holy. All sectarianism was false and mischievous — the regenerated throughout the world being members of one body, and the head Christ Jesus. Prejudice against color was rebellion against God. Of all men beneath the sky, the slaves, because most neglected and despised, were nearest and dearest to his great heart. Those ministers who defended slavery from the Bible were of their "father the devil"; and those churches which fellowshiped slaveholders as Christians, were synagogues of Satan, and our nation was a nation of liars. He was never loud and noisy, but calm and serene as a summer sky, and as pure. "You are the man — the Moses, raised up by God, to deliver his modern Israel from bondage," was the spontaneous feeling of my heart, as I sat away back in the hall and listened to his mighty words, — mighty in truth, — mighty in their simple earnestness.
"Postscript", p. 153.
The Anarchist Cookbook (1971)
“It broke out with matchless fury.
The rapid vehement fire.”
Book of Taliesin (c. 1275?), The Song of the Horses
Context: It broke out with matchless fury.
The rapid vehement fire.
Him we praise above the earth,
Fire, the fiery meteor of the dawn.
Above the high gale,
Higher than every cloud.
Great his animal.
The Libertarian as Conservative (1984)
Context: Murray Rothbard thinks egalitarianism is a revolt against nature, but his day is 24 hours long, just like everybody else’s. If you spend most of your waking life taking orders or kissing ass, if you get habituated to hierarchy, you will become passive-aggressive, sado-masochistic, servile and stupefied, and you will carry that load into every aspect of the balance of your life. Incapable of living a life of liberty, you’ll settle for one of its ideological representations, like libertarianism. You can’t treat values like workers, hiring and firing them at will and assigning each a place in an imposed division of labor. The taste for freedom and pleasure can’t be compartmentalized.
The Philosophy of Paine (1925)
Context: Looking back to those times we cannot, without much reading, clearly gauge the sentiment of the Colonies. Perhaps the larger number of responsible men still hoped for peace with England. They did not even venture to express the matter that way. Few men, indeed, had thought in terms of war.
Then Paine wrote 'Common Sense,' an anonymous tract which immediately stirred the fires of liberty. It flashed from hand to hand throughout the Colonies. One copy reached the New York Assembly, in session at Albany, and a night meeting was voted to answer this unknown writer with his clarion call to liberty. The Assembly met, but could find no suitable answer. Tom Paine had inscribed a document which never has been answered adversely, and never can be, so long as man esteems his priceless possession.
In 'Common Sense' Paine flared forth with a document so powerful that the Revolution became inevitable. Washington recognized the difference, and in his calm way said that matters never could be the same again.. It must be remembered that 'Common Sense' preceded the declaration and affirmed the very principles that went into the national doctrine of liberty. But that affirmation was made with more vigor, more of the fire of the patriot and was exactly suited to the hour. It is probable that we should have had the Revolution without Tom Paine. Certainly it could not be forestalled, once he had spoken.
“And yet it is hard to believe that anything
in nature could stand revealed as solid matter.
The lightning of heaven goes through the walls of houses,
like shouts and speech; iron glows white in fire;
red-hot rocks are shattered by savage steam;
hard gold is softened and melted down by heat;
chilly brass, defeated by heat, turns liquid;
heat seeps through silver, so does piercing cold;
by custom raising the cup, we feel them both
as water is poured in, drop by drop, above.”
Etsi difficiile esse videtur credere quicquam
in rebus solido reperiri corpore posse.
transit enim fulmen caeli per saepta domorum,
clamor ut ad voces; flamen candescit in igni
dissiliuntque ferre ferventi saxa vapore.
tum labefactatus rigor auri solvitur aestu;
tum glacies aeris flamma devicta liquescit;
permanat calor argentum penetraleque frigus
quando utrumque manu retinentes pocula rite
sensimus infuso lympharum rore superne.
Book I, lines 487–496 (Frank O. Copley)
De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things)
1940s, Third Inaugural Address (1941)
Context: If we lose that sacred fire — if we let it be smothered with doubt and fear — then we shall reject the destiny which Washington strove so valiantly and so triumphantly to establish. The preservation of the spirit and faith of the Nation does, and will, furnish the highest justification for every sacrifice that we may make in the cause of national defense.
“If you are what you ought to be, you will set fire to all Italy, and not only yonder.”
Letter 368 to Stefano Maconi
https://books.google.com/books?id=LWNjf0Z4lyQC&pg=PA305&lpg=PA305&dq=%22If+you+are+what+you+ought+to+be,+you+will+set+fire+to+all+Italy,+and+not+only+yonder%22&source=bl&ots=6tw9wgS_zN&sig=5LhhXLw-1e1UzxXkUVoRnmMncdM&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjjxcDfzuPJAhVPw2MKHcPYCiwQ6AEIKTAC#v=onepage&q=%22If%20you%20are%20what%20you%20ought%20to%20be%2C%20you%20will%20set%20fire%20to%20all%20Italy%2C%20and%20not%20only%20yonder%22&f=false
Original Italian: Se sarete quello che dovete essere, metterete fuoco in tutta Italia, non tanto costì. https://books.google.com/books?id=KX8Nu_SRy7wC&pg=PA461&dq=Se+sarete+quello+che+dovete+essere,+metterete+fuoco+in+tutta+Italia,+non+tanto+costi.&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi55pmdzuPJAhUU3GMKHY8OBCUQ6AEIHDAA#v=onepage&q=%22Se%20sarete%20quello%20che%20dovete%20essere%2C%20metterete%20fuoco%20in%20tutta%20Italia%2C%20non%20tanto%20costi.%22&f=false
Variant versions:
If you are what you should be, you will set the whole world on fire!
If you are what you should be, you will set the whole world ablaze! As quoted by Pope John Paul II in | an address to the Regnum Christi Movement and the Legionaries of Christ (4 January 2001) http://w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/speeches/2001/january/documents/hf_jp-ii_spe_20010104_legionari-cristo.html
Also as quoted by Pope John Paul II in | The Closing Homily at World Youth Day, Tor Vergata, (Sunday 20 August 2000) http://w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/homilies/2000/documents/hf_jp-ii_hom_20000820_gmg.html
Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire.
As quoted by Bishop Richard Chartres in his sermon to the Royal Wedding congregation at Westminster Abbey (29 April 2011)
“Electrical fire and the fire of greed kindle economies.”
Interlude, p. 75
Towards a Canada of Light (2006)
Context: Electrical fire and the fire of greed kindle economies. In that flux, nations become digitized commodities on stock-exchange floors and on investors' rating screens. A country becomes a product to be rated for its obedience to paying of deficits and debts.
“Crossing that bridge,
With lessons I've learned.
Playing with fire,
And not getting burned.”
"Prayer For The Dying"
Seal (1994)
Context: Crossing that bridge,
With lessons I've learned.
Playing with fire,
And not getting burned.
I may not know what you're going through.
But time is the space,
Between me and you.
Life carries on... it goes on.
“Within your magic web of hair, lies furled
The fire and splendour of the ancient world;”
"The Web of Eros"
The Wooden Pegasus (1920)
Context: Within your magic web of hair, lies furled
The fire and splendour of the ancient world;
The dire gold of the comet's wind-blown hair;
The songs that turned to gold the evening air
When all the stars of heaven sang for joy.
Book 7, Ch. 226.
The Histories