Quotes about fire
page 8

“To oppose the torrent of scholastic religion by such feeble maxims as these, that it is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be, that the whole is greater than a part, that two and three make five; is pretending to stop the ocean with a bullrush. Will you set up profane reason against sacred mystery? No punishment is great enough for your impiety. And the same fires, which were kindled for heretics, will serve also for the destruction of philosophers.”

David Hume The Natural History of Religion

Part XI - With regard to reason or absurdity
The Natural History of Religion (1757)

Religion, Parting

“We're so familiar with written language that we sometimes forget how outlandish a concept it must have seemed to our ancestors. Writing allowed people to copy and transfer their thoughts and their tribal codes of conduct to others, even unto generations they themselves would not live to personally instruct, affect or control. The words themselves must have seemed alive and immortal and as "holy" as ghosts. Written law was thus a way of mastering time and influencing the future, a weapon greater than fire and steel, I hope you'll agree. When read, the written word made the head buzz and ring and fill up with voices and commands from nowhere, as if God Himself had come thundering down through the symbols, off the page and into the room, fertilising and impregnating the mind with his Ghostly, unmistakable presence.”

Grant Morrison (1960) writer

2005
http://suicidegirls.com/words/Grant+Morrison/
On writing

God, People, Law, Hope

“A message needs to go back. Vincent - you're also fired!”

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

The Apprentice, Series 7

“I really haven't seen this many people in one place since they took the group photographs of all the criminals and lawbreakers in the Ronald Reagan Administration. Two-hundred and twenty-five of 'em, so far! 225 different people in the Ronald Reagan administration have either quit, been fired, arrested, indicted or convicted of either breaking the law or violating the ethics code!”

George Carlin (1937–2008) American stand-up comedian

What Am I Doing in New Jersey? (1988)

People, Law

“The carnistic schema, which twists information so that nonsense seems to make perfect sense, also explains why we fail to see the absurdities of the system. Consider, for instance, advertising campaigns in which a pig dances joyfully over the fire pit where he or she is to be barbecued, or chickens wear aprons while beseeching the viewer to eat them. And consider the Veterinarian's Oath of the American Veterinary Medical Association, “I solemnly swear to use my … skills for the … relief of animal suffering,” in light of the fact that the vast majority of veterinarians eat animals simply because they like the way meat tastes. Or think about how people won't replace their hamburgers with veggie burgers, even if the flavor is identical, because they claim that, if they try hard enough, they can detect a subtle difference in texture. Only when we deconstruct the carnistic schema can we see the absurdity of placing our preference for a flawless re-creation of a textural norm over the lives and deaths of billions of others.”

Melanie Joy book Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows

Source: Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows (2010), p. 133

Death, People, Way, Thinking

“In retrospect, the reason for the assassination is hardly a mystery. It is now abundantly clear … why the C. I. A.'s covert operations element wanted John Kennedy out of the Oval Office and Lyndon Johnson in it. The new President elevated by rifle fire to control of our foreign policy had been one of the most enthusiastic American cold warriors…. Johnson had originally risen to power on the crest of the fulminating anti-communist crusade which marked American politics after World War II. Shortly after the end of that war, he declaimed that atomic power had become 'ours to use, either to Christianize the world or pulverize it' -- a Christian benediction if ever there was one. Johnson's demonstrated enthusiasm for American military intervention abroad … earned him the sobriquet 'the senator from the Pentagon….”

Jim Garrison (1921–1992) American judge

[On the Trail of the Assassins (New York: Sheridan Square Press, 1988)]

War, World

“Three of the four elements are shared by all creatures, but fire was a gift to humans alone. Smoking cigarettes is as intimate as we can become with fire without immediate excruciation. Every smoker is an embodiment of Prometheus, stealing fire from the gods and bringing it on back home. We smoke to capture the power of the sun, to pacify Hell, to identify with the primordial spark, to feed on the marrow of the volcano. It's not the tobacco we're after but the fire. When we smoke, we are performing a version of the fire dance, a ritual as ancient as lightning.”

Tom Robbins book Still Life with Woodpecker

Still Life with Woodpecker (1980)

God, Home, Hell, Sun

“But in the judgments they exercise they are most accurate and just, nor do they pass sentence by the votes of a court that is fewer than a hundred. And as to what is once determined by that number, it is unalterable. What they most of all honor, after God himself, is the name of their legislator [Moses], whom if any one blaspheme he is punished capitally. They also think it a good thing to obey their elders, and the major part. Accordingly, if ten of them be sitting together, no one of them will speak while the other nine are against it. They also avoid spitting in the midst of them, or on the right side. Moreover, they are stricter than any other of the Jews in resting from their labors on the seventh day; for they not only get their food ready the day before, that they may not be obliged to kindle a fire on that day, but they will not remove any vessel out of its place, nor go to stool thereon. Nay, on other days they dig a small pit, a foot deep, with a paddle (which kind of hatchet is given them when they are first admitted among them); and covering themselves round with their garment, that they may not affront the Divine rays of light, they ease themselves into that pit, after which they put the earth that was dug out again into the pit; and even this they do only in the more lonely places, which they choose out for this purpose; and although this easement of the body be natural, yet it is a rule with them to wash themselves after it, as if it were a defilement to them.”

Josephus on the Essenes

Jewish War

God, Food, Exercises, Nature

“Anton Chekhov wrote that “one must not put a loaded rifle on stage if no one is thinking of firing it.” Good drama requires spare and purposive action, sensible linking of potential causes with realized effects. Life is much messier; nothing happens most of the time. Millions of Americans (many hotheaded) own rifles (many loaded), but the great majority, thank God, do not go off most of the time. We spend most of real life waiting for Godot, not charging once more unto the breach.”

Stephen Jay Gould book Dinosaur in a Haystack

"Speaking of Snails and Scales", p. 345
Dinosaur in a Haystack (1995)

Life, God, Thinking, Time

“Incense smokes, and love takes care,
In her blue bed the virgin died;
The fire broods, the day falls,
The Angel, sisters, knocks on the door.”

Stuart Merrill (1863–1915) American poet, who wrote mostly in the French language

Fume l'encens, veille l'amour,
Dans son lit bleu la vierge est morte;
Couve le feu, tombe le jour,
L'Ange, mes soeurs, frappe à la porte.
"La Mystérieuse Chanson"

Love, Angels, Sister

“.. upon the frightening gray sky one can see a black mountain, completely black even with black houses, and all of a sudden a fire-red house appears, a violet path with snowflakes and on the path a black chain of people like crows.”

Marianne von Werefkin (1860–1938) expressionist painter

Quote from Werefkin's letter to Alexej von Jawlensky, 1910 Lithuanian Martynas-Mazvydas-National Library, Vilnius, RS (F19-1458,1.31) as reprinted in Weidle, Marianne Werefkin, Die Farbe beisst mich ans Herz, 108; as quoted in 'Identity and Reminiscence in Marianne Werefkin's Return Home', c. 1909; Adrienne Kochman http://www.19thc-artworldwide.org/spring06/52-spring06/spring06article/171-ambiguity-of-home-identity-and-reminiscence-in-marianne-werefkins-return-home-c-1909 1906 - 1911

People, Mountain, Appearance, Housing

“I'd take over World of Warcraft and I'd close it. I just want better virtual worlds. Sacrificing one of the best so its players have to seek out alternatives would be a sure-fire way to ensure that unknown gems got the chance they deserved, and that new games were developed to push back the boundaries. Er, I would get to do this anonymously, wouldn't I?”

Richard Bartle (1960) British writer

From an interview http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/games/archives/2007/07/17/id_close_world_of_warcraft_mud_creator_richard_bartle_on_the_state_of_virtual_worlds.html with Keith Stuart on Guardian Unlimited's http://www.guardian.co.uk Gamesblog The question that prompted this was "If you could take over control of one major MMORPG - which would you choose and what would you do with it?"

World, Way, Game, Chance

“Stress is like fire: When controlled and used for a purpose, it serves us well. Left unbridled, it can consume us. In amounts that our body is capable of adapting to, certain stresses are beneficial. Exercise, for example, is a stress.”

Brendan Brazier (1975) Canadian triathlete, publisher, writer, editor

Source: The Thrive Diet, Ch. 1

Exercises

“One of the many problems with the American left, and indeed of the American left, has been its image and self-image as something rather too solemn, mirthless, herbivorous, dull, monochrome, righteous, and boring. How many times, in my old days at The Nation magazine, did I hear wistful and semienvious ruminations? Where was the radical Firing Line show? Who will be our Rush Limbaugh? I used privately to hope that the emphasis, if the comrades ever got around to it, would be on the first of those and not the second. But the meetings themselves were so mind-numbing and lugubrious that I thought the danger of success on either front was infinitely slight.”

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
2000s, 2004

Hope, Problem, Time, Success

“Athenodorus used to stroke his beard slowly and rhythmically as he talked, and told me once that it was this that made it grow so luxuriantly. He said that invisible seeds of fire streamed off from his fingers, which were food for the hairs. This was a typical Stoic joke at the expense of Epicurean speculative philosophy.”

Robert Graves book I, Claudius

Source: I, Claudius (1934), Ch. 5.

Food

“Women are weak, easily swayed by passion, driven by desire, lust. He lit a fire in her body, a fire that still burned, even in his absence”

Alice Borchardt (1939–2007) American fiction writer

Devoted

Women, Passion

“We must mention the higher, nobler wealth, which does not belong to all, but to truly noble and divinely gifted men. This wealth is bestowed by wisdom through the doctrines and principles of ethic, logic and physic, and from these spring the virtues, which rid the soul of its proneness to extravagance, and engender the love of contentment and frugality, which will assimilate it to God. For God has no wants, He needs nothing, being in Himself all-sufficient to Himself, while the fool has many wants, ever thirsting for what is not there, longing to gratify his greedy and insatiable desire, which he fans into a blaze like a fire and brings both great and small within its reach. But the man of worth has few wants, standing midway between mortality and immortality.”

Philo (-15–45 BC) Roman philosopher

167-169.
On the Virtues

Love, Wisdom, Men, God

“Changes in man's society always come from the bottom, not the top, because the top does not want to change; it always wants to be on top. But if they try to seal the pot to preserve the status quo, they cannot, and the pot will explode because of the fire.”

David Berg (1919–1994) Children of God founder

All Things Change, but Jesus Never

Change

“But often, in the world’s most crowded streets,
But often, in the din of strife,
There rises an unspeakable desire
After the knowledge of our buried life;
A thirst to spend our fire and restless force
In tracking out our true, original course;
A longing to inquire
Into the mystery of this heart which beats
So wild, so deep in us, to know
Whence our lives come and where they go.”

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

"The Buried Life" (1852), st. 6

Life, World, Knowledge, Heart

“To the pure soul by Fancy's fire refined,
Ah, what is mirth but turbulence unholy,
When with the charm compared of heavenly melancholy.”

James Beattie (1735–1803) Scottish poet, moralist and philosopher

Book i. Stanza 55.
The Minstrel; or, The Progress of Genius (1771)

Soul

“When you live on Cold Mountain long enough the autumns pass quickly
When you live alone you have no worries
When you leave the doors open no one bothers you
The bubbling stream runs forever
In the cave a clay pot boils over a fire on the ground
A wandering breeze stirs the fragrant pines
When hungry I eat one simple meal
And lean against the rock in complete harmony”

Han-shan Chinese monk and poet

Cold Mountain Transcendental Poetry

Mountain, Autumn

“There are moments when the Spirit moves among men and the breath of the Lord is abroad upon the waters of our being; there are others when it retires and men are left to act in the strength or the weakness of their own egoism. The first are periods when even a little effort produces great results and changes destiny; the second are spaces of time when much labour goes to the making of a little result. It is true that the latter may prepare the former, may be the little smoke of sacrifice going up to heaven which calls down the rain of God's bounty…. Unhappy is the man or the nation which, when the divine moment arrives, is found sleeping or unprepared to use it, because the lamp has not been kept trimmed for the welcome and the ears are sealed to the call. But thrice woe to them who are strong and ready, yet waste the force or misuse the moment; for them is irreparable loss or a great destruction…. In the hour of God cleanse thy soul of all self-deceit and hypocrisy and vain self-flattering that thou mayst look straight into thy spirit and hear that which summons it. All insincerity of nature, once thy defence against the eye of the Master and the light of the ideal, becomes now a gap in thy armour and invites the blow. Even if thou conquer for the moment, it is the worse for thee, for the blow shall come afterwards and cast thee down in the midst of thy triumph. But being pure cast aside all fear; for the hour is often terrible, a fire and a whirlwind and a tempest, a treading of the winepress of the wrath of God; but he who can stand up in it on the truth of his purpose is he who shall stand; even though he fall, he shall rise again; even though he seem to pass on the wings of the wind, he shall return. Nor let worldly prudence whisper too closely in thy ear; for it is the hour of the unexpected, the incalculable, the immeasurable. Mete not the power of the Breath by thy petty instruments, but trust and go forward…. But most keep thy soul clear, even if for a while, of the clamour of the ego. Then shall a fire march before thee in the night and the storm be thy helper and thy flag shall wave on the highest height of the greatness that was to be conquered.”

Sri Aurobindo (1872–1950) Indian nationalist, freedom fighter, philosopher, yogi, guru and poet

1918 (The Hour of God)
India's Rebirth

Men, God, Truth, Fear

“When coal-fired power generation is a necessity for Taiwan, the Linkou Power Plant, equipped with the most advanced generators and pollution control and abatement systems and burning the types of coal that have the fewest impurities, is the model we look toward.”

William Lai (1959) Taiwanese politician

William Lai (2018) cited in " Premier visits coal-fired power plant to alleviate public concerns http://focustaiwan.tw/news/aipl/201803180015.aspx" on Focus Taiwan, 18 March 2018.

“The interest capitalistic inflation however is like a devouring fire which is not extinguished until it has consumed all the treasures of the world and made the whole of mankind interest-slaves of international finance—or until the interest slavery is broken.”

Gottfried Feder (1883–1941) German economist and politician

Source: The German State on a National and Socialist Foundation (1923), pp. 117-118

World

“You can blow out a candle
But you can't blow out a fire
Once the flames begin to catch
The wind will blow it higher”

Peter Gabriel (1950) English singer-songwriter, record producer and humanitarian

Biko
Song lyrics, Peter Gabriel (III) (1980)

“Of all the fire-mountains which, like beacons, once blazed along the Pacific Coast, Mount Rainier is the noblest.”

John Muir (1838–1914) Scottish-born American naturalist and author

Source: 1900s, Our National Parks (1901), chapter 1: The Wild Parks and Forest Reservations of the West

Mountain

“If you could breathe a breath so strong you could blow out the wolf. Like you blow out the copo. Like you blow out the fire from the candela. The wolf is made the way the world is made. You cannot touch the world. You cannot hold it in your hand for it is made of breath only.”

Cormac McCarthy book The Crossing

The Crossing (1994)

World, Way, Strong, Wolf

“Most of the screen on a blog is blank for an imaginary populace of readers still using 640x480 resolution. I didn't buy a 19" monitor to have 50% of its screen realestate pissed away on firing white pixels, you assholes.”

Maddox (1978) American internet writer

If these words were people, I would embrace their genocide http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=banish. The Best Page in the Universe

“Religion has never, in any period, sustained itself except by the instrumentality of the tongue of fire. Only where some men, more or less imbued with this primitive power, have spoken the words of the Lord, not with " the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth," have sinners been converted, and saints prompted to a saintlier life.”

William Arthur (minister) (1819–1901) Wesleyan Methodist minister and author

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 321.

Life, Wisdom, Men, Religion

“Games with ragdoll death animations just make it look even more ridiculous. One moment an enemy is strafing and firing at full speed, the next his entire body just goes limp like Mr. Scotty teleported his skeleton out of his body or something.”

Ben Croshaw (1983) English video game journalist

19 July 2007
Fully Ramblomatic

Death, Game, Animals, Speed

“The thornbush is old obstacle in the road. It must catch fire if you want to go further.”

Franz Kafka book The Blue Octavo Notebooks

The Blue Octavo Notebooks (1954)

“The UN and the mainstream media are wailing and accusing Israel of war crimes (yes, again) after the IDF returned fire at a UN school from which Palestinians were firing mortars. The explosives and booby traps installed in the school by Hamas then blew up, killing dozens of people. And the world blames Israel.”

Charles Foster Johnson (1953) American musician

January 6, 2009 http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/32368_UN_School_Used_by_Terrorists_As_a_Weapons_Dump&only

War, People, World, School

“Whenever our neighbour's house is on fire, it cannot be amiss for the engines to play a little on our own.”

Edmund Burke book Reflections on the Revolution in France

Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)

Housing

“The crowd of ragged Confederates on the White House lawn had doubled and more since he went in to confer with Lincoln. The trees were full of men who had climbed up so they could see over their comrades. Off in the distance, cannon occasionally still thundered; rifles popped like firecrackers. Lee quietly said to Lincoln, "Will you send out your sentries under flag of truce to bring word of the armistice to those Federal positions still firing upon my men?" "I'll see to it," Lincoln promised. He pointed to the soldiers in gray, who had quieted expectantly when Lee came out. "Looks like you've given me sentries enough, even if their coats are the wrong color." Few men could have joked so with their cause in ruins around them. Respecting the Federal President for his composure, Lee raised his voice: "Soldiers of the Army of Northern Virginia, after three years of arduous service, we have achieved that for which we took up arms-" He got no further. With one voice, the men before him screamed out their joy and relief. The unending waves of noise beat at him like a surf from a stormy sea. Battered forage caps and slouch hats flew through the air. Soldiers jumped up and down, pounded on one another's shoulders, danced in clumsy rings, kissed each other's bearded, filthy faces. Lee felt his own eyes grow moist. At last the magnitude of what he had won began to sink in.”

Harry Turtledove book The Guns of the South

Source: The Guns of the South (1992), p. 180

Men, Color, Kiss, Tree

“b>Night. Two Icelandic Jóns stagger waywardly through a burning city. The learned Grindavíkian is bawling like a child. The farmer from Rein plods silently behind. The fire of Copenhagen is at their heels, driving them on in the direction of Nørreport. The sea of flames turns terrified folk into frantic silhouettes, fleshly phantoms.”

Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) Icelandic author

Íslandsklukkan (Iceland's Bell) (1946), Part III: Fire in Copenhagen

Learning, Sea, Night

“In this the Fire Book of the NiTo Ichi school of strategy I describe fighting as fire.”

Miyamoto Musashi (1584–1645) Japanese martial artist, writer, artist

Go Rin No Sho (1645), The Fire Book

Books, School, Fight

“Philosophers are generally persuaded, that the sensations of heat and cold are occasioned by the presence or absence, in degree, of certain principle or quality denominated fire or heat… It is most probable, that all substances whatever contain more or less of this principle. Respecting the nature of the principle, however, there is a diversity of sentiment : some supposing it a substance, others a quality, or property of substance. Boerhaave, followed by most of the moderns, is of the former opinion; Newton, with some others, are of the latter; these conceive heat to consist in an internal vibratory motion of the particles of bodies.”

John Dalton (1766–1844) English chemist, meteorologist and physicist

Meteorological Observations and Essays: Mit Tabellen, 1834 p. 18

Nature

“People never stop to think about these basic facts when they watch wars and cop shows on the television. People take too much for granted. Each time a gun is fired the whole history of engineering comes into play. Of politics, too: war, assassination, revolution, terror. Guns aren't just history's props and agents: they're history itself, spinning alternate futures in their chamber, hurling the present from their barrel, casting aside the empty shells of the past.”

Tom McCarthy (writer) book Déjà vu

Source: Remainder (2005), Ch. 11.

War, People, History, Thinking

“As hope kindles hope, millions more will find it. By our efforts, we have lit a fire as well — a fire in the minds of men. It warms those who feel its power, it burns those who fight its progress, and one day this untamed fire of freedom will reach the darkest corners of our world.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

2000s, 2005, Second Inaugural Address (January 2005)

Men, World, Hope, Feeling

“Like a fish in the wind, jumps right out of its knowledge, and lands on the sand. Like when the wind comes ruffling at last, to sailors adrift, trying to manage the broken springs of their muscles, and lever and lift their well rubbed oars, making tiny dents, in the ocean. Like when they're cutting ash poles in the hills, the treetops fall as soft as cloth. Like oak trees swerving out of the hills, and setting their faces to the wind, day after day being practically lifted away, they are lashed to the earth, and never let go, gripping on darkness. All day in a trance of war, men murder each other, but at dusk, silence, only the fingers of fire lifting their questions to the mainland. Is there anybody there, please help. Help. help. Until he's full, and of his own iron will walks on.”

Alice Oswald (1966) British poet

Men, War, Spring, Question

“Day after day
I turn on the machines,
I dispense their immense memory,
every day
I fire up the motors,
then inside I switch myself off.
…”

Caterina Davinio (1957) Italian writer

Serial Phenomenologies
Source: Caterina Davinio, Fenomenologie seriali / Serial Phenomenologies, with parallel English text, English translation by Caterina Davinio and David W. Seaman, Campanotto, Pasian di Prato (UD) 2010, p. 73.

Memory

“Hell's brewin', dark sun's on the rise.
This storm'll blow through by and by.
House is on fire, wiper's in the grass;
A little revenge and this too shall pass.
This too shall pass, I'm gonna pray.
Right now all I got's this lonesome day.”

Bruce Springsteen (1949) American singer and songwriter

"Lonesome Day"
Song lyrics, The Rising (2002)

Hell, Revenge, Grass, Sun

“I look at you and see
my life that might have been
your face just ghostly in the smoke.
They're setting fire to the cornfields
as you're taking me home.
The smell of burning fields
will now mean you and here.”

Kate Bush (1958) British recording artist; singer, songwriter, musician and record producer

Song lyrics, The Sensual World (1989)

Life, Home

“I have taken this step because I want the discipline, the fire and the authority of the Church. I am hopelessly unworthy of it, but I hope to become worthy.”

Edith Sitwell (1887–1964) British poet

On converting to Roman Catholicism at the age of 67, in news reports (15 Aug 1955), as quoted in Simpson’s Contemporary Quotations (1988) compiled by James B. Simpson

Hope

“Alas! for him whose youthful fire
Is vowed and wasted on the lyre,—
Alas! for him who shall essay,
The laurel's long and dreary way!
Mocking will greet, neglect will chill
His spirit's gush, his bosom's thrill;
And, worst of all, that heartless praise
Echoed from what another says.”

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

Canto I
The Troubadour (1825)

Youth, Way

“Enough, my muse, thy wearied wing no more
Must to the seat of Jove triumphant soar.
Chilled by my nation's cold neglect, thy fires
Glow bold no more, and all thy rage expires.”

Luís de Camões (1524–1580) Portuguese poet

Nô mais, Musa, nô mais, que a Lira tenho
Destemperada e a voz enrouquecida,
E não do canto, mas de ver que venho
Cantar a gente surda e endurecida.
O favor com que mais se acende o engenho
Não no dá a pátria, não, que está metida
No gosto da cobiça e na rudeza
Dũa austera, apagada e vil tristeza.
Stanza 145 (tr. William Julius Mickle)
Epic poetry, Os Lusíadas (1572), Canto X

Rage

“In the fire of love we live, or pass by many ways,
By unnumbered ways of dream to death.”

George William Russell (1867–1935) Irish writer, editor, critic, poet, and artistic painter

The Nuts of Knowledge (1903)

Love, Death, Dreams, Way

“But I've sat here four times, and there is a message coming from above…. not that I am a believer in the Lord or anything…. (Immediately before Jo Cameron's firing).”

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

The Apprentice, Series 2

Time

“He’s expected at noon, and no wight till he comes
May profane the great chair, or the porridge of plums;
For the best of the cheer, and the seat by the fire,
Is the undenied right of the Barefooted Friar.”

Walter Scott book Ivanhoe

Source: Ivanhoe (1819), Ch. 17, One of the verses of the ballad "The Barefooted Friar", sung by Friar Tuck to the Black Knight.

“In Somalia, we know exactly what they had to gain because they told us. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Colin Powell, described this as the best public relations operation of the Pentagon that he could imagine. His picture, which I think is plausible, is that there was a problem about raising the Pentagon budget, and they needed something that would be, look like a kind of a cakewalk, which would give a lot of prestige to the Pentagon. Somalia looked easy. Let's look back at the background. For years, the United States had supported a really brutal dictator, who had just devastated the country, and was finally kicked out. After he's kicked out, it was 1990, the country sank into total chaos and disaster, with starvation and warfare and all kind of horrible misery. The United States refused to, certainly to pay reparations, but even to look. By the middle of 1992, it was beginning to ease. The fighting was dying down, food supplies were beginning to get in, the Red Cross was getting in, roughly 80% of their supplies they said. There was a harvest on the way. It looked like it was finally sort of settling down. At that point, all of a sudden, George Bush announced that he had been watching these heartbreaking pictures on television, on Thanksgiving, and we had to do something, we had to send in humanitarian aid. The Marines landed, in a landing which was so comical, that even the media couldn't keep a straight face. Take a look at the reports of the landing of the Marines, it must've been the first week of December 1992. They had planned a night, there was nothing that was going on, but they planned a night landing, so you could show off all the fancy new night vision equipment and so on. Of course they had called the television stations, because what's the point of a PR operation for the Pentagon if there's no one to look for it. So the television stations were all there, with their bright lights and that sort of thing, and as the Marines were coming ashore they were blinded by the television light. So they had to send people out to get the cameramen to turn off the lights, so they could land with their fancy new equipment. As I say, even the media could not keep a straight face on this one, and they reported it pretty accurately. Also reported the PR aspect. Well the idea was, you could get some nice shots of Marine colonels handing out peanut butter sandwiches to starving refugees, and that'd all look great. And so it looked for a couple of weeks, until things started to get unpleasant. As things started to get unpleasant, the United States responded with what's called the Powell Doctrine. The United States has an unusual military doctrine, it's one of the reasons why the U. S. is generally disqualified from peace keeping operations that involve civilians, again, this has to do with sovereignty. U. S. military doctrine is that U. S. soldiers are not permitted to come under any threat. That's not true for other countries. So countries like, say, Canada, the Fiji Islands, Pakistan, Norway, their soldiers are coming under threat all the time. The peace keepers in southern Lebanon for example, are being attacked by Israeli soldiers all the time, and have suffered plenty of casualties, and they don't like it. But U. S. soldiers are not permitted to come under any threat, so when Somali teenagers started shaking fists at them, and more, they came back with massive fire power, and that led to a massacre. According to the U. S., I don't know the actual numbers, but according to U. S. government, about 7 to 10 thousand Somali civilians were killed before this was over. There's a close analysis of all of this by Alex de Waal, who's one of the world's leading specialists on African famine and relief, altogether academic specialist. His estimate is that the number of people saved by the intervention and the number killed by the intervention was approximately in the same ballpark. That's Somalia. That's what's given as a stellar example of the humanitarian intervention.”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

Responding to the question, "what did the United States have to gain by intervening in Somalia?", regarding Operation Provide Relief/Operation Restore Hope/Battle of Mogadishu.
Quotes 1990s, 1995-1999, Sovereignty and World Order, 1999

People, World, Peace, Food

“[From Ernest von Hermanstadt]; Action—action in the sunshine—passion—but little feeling, and less thought: such was meant to be our existence. But we refine—we sadden and we subdue—we call up the hidden and evil spirits of the inner world—we wake from their dark repose those who will madden us. The heart is like the wood on yonder flickering hearth: green and fresh, haunted by a thousand sweet odours, bathed in the warm air, and gladdened by the summer sunshine—so grew it at first upon its native soil. But nature submitteth to art, and man has appointed for it another destiny: it is gathered, and cast into the fire. It seems, then, as if its life had but just begun. A new spirit has crept into the kindled veins—a brilliant light dances around it—it is bright—it is beautiful—and it is consumed! What remains?—A warmth on the atmosphere soon passing away, and a heap of blackened ashes! What more will remain of the heart?”

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

The Monthly Magazine

Life, World, Beauty, Art

“Wind is a flowing wave of air, moving hither and thither indefinitely. It is produced when heat meets moisture, the rush of heat generating a mighty current of air. That this is the fact we may learn from bronze eolipiles, and thus by means of a scientific invention discover a divine truth lurking in the laws of the heavens. Eolipiles are hollow bronze balls, with a very small opening through which water is poured into them. Set before a fire, not a breath issues from them before they get warm; but as soon as they begin to boil, out comes a strong blast due to the fire. Thus from this slight and very short experiment we may understand and judge of the mighty and wonderful laws of the heavens and the nature of winds.”

Vitruvius book De architectura

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

Truth, Law, Understanding, Nature

“Zeal is that pure and heavenly flame,
The fire of love supplies;
While that which often bears the name,
Is self in a disguise. True zeal is merciful and mild,
Can pity and forbear;
The false is headstrong, fierce and wild,
And breathes revenge and war.”

John Newton Olney Hymns

Hymn 70: True and False Zeal
Olney Hymns (1779)

Love, War, Revenge, Falseness

“"To hell with the handkerchief," said Walter Mitty scornfully. He took one last drag on his cigarette and snapped it away. Then, with that faint, fleeting smile playing about his lips, he faced the firing squad; erect and motionless, proud and disdainful, Walter Mitty the Undefeated, inscrutable to the last.”

James Thurber book The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1942)
From other fiction

Smile, Hell

“That original intelligence, say the MAGIANS, who is the first principle of all things, discovers himself immediately to the mind and understanding alone; but has placed the sun as his image in the visible universe; and when that bright luminary diffuses its beams over the earth and the firmament, it is a faint copy of the glory which resides in the higher heavens. If you would escape the displeasure of this divine being, you must be careful never to set your bare foot upon the ground, nor spit into a fire, nor throw any water upon it, even though it were consuming a whole city. Who can express the perfections of the Almighty? say the Mahometans. Even the noblest of his works, if compared to him, are but dust and rubbish. How much more must human conception fall short of his infinite perfections? His smile and favour renders men for ever happy; and to obtain it for your children, the best method is to cut off from them, while infants, a little bit of skin, about half the breadth of a farthing. Take two bits of cloth, say the Roman catholics, about an inch or an inch and a half square, join them by the corners with two strings or pieces of tape about sixteen inches long, throw this over your head, and make one of the bits of cloth lie upon your breast, and the other upon your back, keeping them next your skin: There is not a better secret for recommending yourself to that infinite Being, who exists from eternity to eternity.”

David Hume The Natural History of Religion

Part VII - Confirmation of this doctrine
The Natural History of Religion (1757)

Men, Happiness, Children, Lie

“Franz Marc.... is more human, he loves more warmly, is more demonstrative.... I only try to relate myself to God, and if I am in harmony with God, I don't fancy that my brothers are not also in harmony with me; but that is their business... My fire is more like that of the dead or the unborn... Art is like Creation: it holds good on the last days as on the first.
What my art probably lacks, is a kind of passionate humanity. I don't love animals and every sort of creature with an earthly warmth... I tend rather to dissolve into the whole of creation and am then on a footing of brotherliness to my neighbour, to all things earthly. I possess. The earth-idea gives way to the world-idea. My love is distant and religious.”

Paul Klee (1879–1940) German Swiss painter

Quote (1916), # 1008, in The Diaries of Paul Klee, translation: Pierre B. Schneider, R. Y. Zachary and Max Knight; publisher, University of California Press, 1964
1916 - 1920

Love, God, World, Art

“The lack of political attention to candidates and issues, history has shown us, is a sure-fire way to end up left out of the policy debates altogether.”

Theresa Sparks (1949) American activist

The Transgender Community Needs to Reestablish Its Voice (2005)

Way, History

“But a sculpture which sets out to achieve the same ends demands an almost unbelievable effort of concentration. Practically none of the episodes or moments of such a legend, [of Prometheus ] really lends itself to sculpture, and the sculptors of the nineteenth century were often quite careless or foolish in the choice of the moment which they set out to represent. Their works could thus become cluttered with all sorts of narrative details which detract from the monumental quality of the whole... That's why, in my 'Prometheus', I represent the fire as an integral part of the presence or appearance of the hero; he stands there before us in all his awe-inspiring grandeur, a human figure that seemed in the eyes of the men who first saw him to be actually consumed by the fire that he was bearing.”

Ossip Zadkine (1890–1967) French sculptor

c. 1960
Source: 1960 - 1968, Dialogues – conversations with.., quotes, c. 1960, p. 154

Men, Effort, Appearance, Parting

“My fire was in all its glory about midnight, and, having made a bark shed to shelter me from the rain and partially dry my clothing, I had nothing to do but look and listen and join the trees in their hymns and prayers.”

John Muir (1838–1914) Scottish-born American naturalist and author

Travels in Alaska http://www.sierraclub.org/john_muir_exhibit/writings/travels_in_alaska/ (1915), chapter 2: Alexander Archipelago and the Home I Found in Alaska 1910s

Tree, Clothes

“Not far from the invention of fire… we must rank the invention of doubt.”

Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–1895) English biologist and comparative anatomist

Collected Essays vol 6, viii; quoted in T. H. Huxley: Scientist, Humanist, and Educator (1950) by Cyril Bibby, p. 257
1890s

“And I live with the dead – my mother, my sister [Sophie], my grandfather, my father [who died in 1889, when Munch was in France]... Every day is the same – my friends have stopped coming – their laughter disturbs me, tortures me.... my daily walk round the old castle becomes shorter and shorter, it tires me more and more to take walks. The fire in the fireplace is my only friend – the time I spend sitting in front of the fireplace gets longer and longer.... at its worst I lean my head against the fireplace overwhelmed by the sudden urge – Kill yourself and then it’s all over. Why live? I light the candle – my huge shadow springs across half the wall, clear up to the ceiling and in the mirror over the fireplace I see the face of my own ghost.”

Edvard Munch (1863–1944) Norwegian painter and printmaker

a note from Saint Cloud, 1898; as quoted in Edvard Much – behind the scream, Sue Prideaux; Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2007, p. 115
1896 - 1930

Spring, Sister, Laughter, Light

““For remember,” he said, “that it is altogether your world now. You and all the rest. We have delivered you from evil, but the evil that is inside men is at the last a matter for men to control. The responsibility and the hope and the promise are in your hands—your hands and the hands of the children of all men on this earth. The future cannot blame the present, just as the present cannot blame the past. The hope is always here, always alive, but only your fierce caring can fan it into a fire to warm the world.”
His voice rang out over the mountain, more impassioned than any of them had ever heard a voice before, and they stood quiet as standing stones, listening.
“For Drake is no longer in his hammock, children, nor is Arthur somewhere sleeping, and you may not lie idly expecting the second coming of anybody now, because the world is yours and it is up to you. Now especially since man has the strength to destroy this world, it is the responsibility of man to keep it alive, in all its beauty and marvellous joy.””

Susan Cooper (1935) English fantasy writer

Source: The Dark Is Rising (1965-1977), Silver on the Tree (1977), Chapter 20 “One Goes Alone” (p. 272)

Men, Children, Lie, World

“I’d very much like to wake up one morning with a cow of the Friesian variety and walk her down to Soho to the Coach and Horses, stopping on the way to buy twenty Players, ply her with vodkas until closing time, whip her off to an Indian restaurant, take her up to the Colony Room till 5.30 and then to the Yorkminster, Swiss Tavern, Three Greyhounds, get beaten up by Chinese waiters at midnight, have a row with the taxi driver, set the bed on fire, put it out with tears and then wake up on the floor. Could you then milk said cow? I doubt it.”

Jeffrey Bernard (1932–1997) British journalist

Ibid. [when?]

Way, Tear, Time, Horse

“Neither the United States of America nor the world community of nations can tolerate deliberate deception and offensive threats on the part of any nation, large or small. We no longer live in a world where only the actual firing of weapons represents a sufficient challenge to a nation's security to constitute maximum peril. Nuclear weapons are so destructive and ballistic missiles are so swift, that any substantially increased possibility of their use or any sudden change in their deployment may well be regarded as a definite threat to peace.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

Source: 1962, Cuban Missile Crisis speech

World, Peace, Communication, Change

“Listen here, baby
And stop acting so crazy
You say your mum ain't home,
it ain't my concern,
Just play with me and you won't get burned.
I have only one itching desire:
Let me stand next to your fire.”

Jimi Hendrix (1942–1970) American musician, singer and songwriter

Fire
Song lyrics, Are You Experienced? (1967)

Home, Baby

“I was walking along a path with two friends — the sun was setting — suddenly the sky turned blood red — I paused, feeling exhausted, and leaned on the fence — there was blood and tongues of fire above the blue-black fjord and the city — my friends walked on, and I stood there trembling with anxiety — and I sensed an infinite scream passing through nature.”

Edvard Munch (1863–1944) Norwegian painter and printmaker

Quote of an entry in his Diary (22 January 1892), on the experience which inspired his famous painting, '(The Scream)' ('Shrik'), originally titled: 'Der Schrei der Natur' ('The Cry of Nature')
1880 - 1895

Feeling, Nature, Sense, Sun

““Mani Madhava Chakyar was performing sikhinisalabha… Butterflies fly all around. Some of them fell into the fire below. The anguish was reflected in the actor’s eyes. Ha! There they come out without a burn! What a relief! They came again. The actor continued the performance. Only his eyes move… The audience was spellbound. They did not know that an hour has passed!”
- About his world famous abhinaya of the shloka shikhinisalabha from Subhadradhananjayam.”

Mani Madhava Chakyar (1899–1990) Indian actor

Abhinaya and Netrābhinaya Source: Indigenous Sanskrit theatre form, The Hindu, Tuesday, Jul 31, 2007 http://www.hindu.com/br/2007/07/31/stories/2007073150031600.htm

World, Flying

“And Marlowe, Webster, Fletcher, Ben,
Whose fire-hearts sowed our furrows when
The world was worthy of such men.”

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

A Vision of Poets (1844)

Men, World, Heart

“Come, now, you rich men, weep and wail over the miseries that are coming upon you. Your riches have rotted, and your clothing has become moth-eaten. Your gold and silver have rusted away, and their rust will be a witness against you and will consume your flesh. What you have stored up will be like a fire in the last days. Look! The wages you have withheld from the workers who harvested your fields keep crying out, and the cries for help of the reapers have reached the ears of Jehovah of armies. You have lived in luxury and for self-gratification on the earth. You have fattened your hearts on the day of slaughter.”

James, son of Zebedee major religious figure in Christian tradition and one of the Twelve Apostles

James 5:1-5 http://www.jw.org/en/publications/bible/nwt/books/james/5/, NWT

Men, Help, Heart, Cry

“Television is to news as a bumper sticker is to Shakespeare. I remember hearing an analogy once that went something like that. Your typical nightly, 35-minute TV news broadcast is a headline service with pictures. Five minutes of police-blotter reporting - fires, murders, car accidents, etc. - five minutes of human-interest stories and small talk, five minutes of weather, five minutes of sports, ten minutes of commercials, and maybe a minute or two for business, science, politics, and affairs of the world.”

Mike Rosen (1944) American political pundit

July 3, 1998 Denver Post column

World, Cars, Business, Sport

“The scar of fire, the dint of steel,
Are easier than Love's wounds to heal.”

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

Canto II
The Troubadour (1825)

Love

“Perhaps [Condoleezza Rice] would have made a more timely cameo in New Orleans had a Chevron tanker caught fire. Jane Crow seems to be just as willing as old Jim was.”

Larisa Alexandrovna (1971) Ukrainian-American journalist, essayist, poet

Defending Those Who Know http://www.huffingtonpost.com/larisa-alexandrovna/defending-those-who-know_b_7517.html; "Jim" is a reference to Jim Crow laws.

Time

“It [love] conquers nihilism and pessimism/Suicide and self-annihilation./ It conquers its own death. /It is the spark of fire that kindles life forever.”

Kuruvilla Pandikattu (1957) Indian philosopher

Life: Relish It! p. 127.
Love: Be it! (2001)

Love, Life, Death, Suicide

“After each firing order, when the shots were addressed, somebody looked at the victims, because the victims were then put into the grave when they did not fall into the grave themselves, and these tasks were in the field of tasks of the men of the individual Kommandos. The edge of the grave had to be cleaned, for instance. Two men who had spades dealt with this. They had to clean it up and then the next group was led there.”

Paul Blobel (1894–1951) German SS officer and Holocaust perpetrator

Quoted in "The Eichmann Kommandos" - Page 158 - by Michael Angelo Musmanno - 1961.

Men

“My tears, O Ryno! are for the dead; my voice for those that have passed away. Tall thou art on the hill; fair among the sons of the vale. But thou shalt fall like Morar; the mourner shall sit on thy tomb. The hills shall know thee no more; thy bow shall lie in thy hall, unstrung!
Thou wert swift, O Morar! as a roe on the desert; terrible as a meteor of fire. Thy wrath was as the storm. Thy sword in battle, as lightning in the field. Thy voice was a stream after rain; like thunder on distant hills. Many fell by thy arm; they were consumed in the flames of thy wrath. But when thou didst return from war, how peaceful was thy brow! Thy face was like the sun after rain; like the moon in the silence of night; calm as the breast of the lake when the loud wind is laid.
Narrow is thy dwelling now! dark the place of thine abode! With three steps I compass thy grave, O thou who wast so great before. Four stones, with their heads of moss, are the only memorial of thee. A tree with scarce a leaf, long grass, which whistles in the wind, mark to the hunter's eye the grave of the mighty Morar.”

James Macpherson (1736–1796) Scottish writer, poet, translator, and politician

"The Songs of Selma"
The Poems of Ossian

War, Lie, Peace, Art

“The virus was not helping. He had hoped that it would, but the feelings it brought were too superficial. When he most needed their succour he could feel them for the paper-thin façades they were. Just because the virus was tickling the parts of his brain that produced feelings of religious experience didn’t mean he was able to turn off the other parts of his mind that recognised these feelings as having been induced artificially. He truly felt himself to be in the presence of something sacred, but he also knew, with total clarity, that this was due to neuroanatomy. Nothing was really with him: the organ music, the stained-glass windows in the sky, the sense of proximity to something huge and timeless and infinitely compassionate were all explicable in terms of neural wiring, firing potentials, synaptic gaps.”

Alastair Reynolds book Absolution Gap

Source: Absolution Gap (2003), Chapter 9 (p. 136)

Hope, Music, Feeling, Sense

“Yonder stands your orphan with his gun, crying like a fire in the sun.”

Bob Dylan (1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist

Song lyrics, Bringing It All Back Home (1965), It's All Over Now, Baby Blue

Sun, Cry

“A frame of adamant, a soul of fire,
No dangers fright him, and no labors tire.”

Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer

Source: Vanity of Human Wishes (1749), Line 193

Soul

“Did you know orchids
employ trickery to attract insects?
They spray a deceptive scent
resembling insect pheromones.
Bad flower! Bad flower!
Liar! Liar! Petals on fire!”

Sheri-D Wilson (1958) Canadian Spoken Word Poet

"Heart"
Goddess Gone Fishing for a Map of the Universe (2012)

Flowers

“On the way back we were constantly under heavy shell fire and I had to double time them to get them through safely.
There was nothing to be gained by having any more of them wounded or killed. They had surrendered to me, and it was up to me to look after them. And so I did.”

Alvin C. York (1887–1964) United States Army Medal of Honor recipient

Account of 8 October 1918.
Diary of Alvin York

Way, Time

“And, notwithstanding a few exceptions, we do undoubtedly find that the most truly eminent men have had not only their affections, but also their intellect, greatly influenced by women. I will go even farther; and I will venture to say that those who have not undergone that influence betray a something incomplete and mutilated. We detect, even in their genius, a certain frigidity of tone; and we look in vain for that burning fire, that gushing and spontaneous nature with which our ideas of genius are indissolubly associated. Therefore, it is, that those who are most anxious that the boundaries of knowledge should be enlarged, ought to be most eager that the influence of women should be increased, in order that every resource of the human mind may be at once and quickly brought into play.”

Henry Thomas Buckle (1821–1862) English historian

" The Influence Of Women On The Progress Of Knowledge http://www.public.coe.edu/~theller/soj/u-rel/buckle.html". Lecture given at the Royal Institution 19 March 1858. In: The Miscellaneous and Posthumous Works of Henry Thomas Buckle (1872)

Women, Men, Idea, Nature

“The Love of God is a consuming Fire,
Which draws us out of ourselves
And swallows us up in unity with God,
Where we are satisfied and overflowing,
And with Him, beyond ourselves,
Eternally fulfilled.”

John Ruysbroeck (1293–1381) Flemish mystic

The Twelve Beguines

Love, God, Drawing

“Wake in our breast the living fires,
The holy faith that warmed our sires;
Thy hand hath made our nation free;
To die for her is serving Thee.”

Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809–1894) Poet, essayist, physician

Army Hymn; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Faith

“When I was in hospital I found I could hardly read or writ. In these circumstances I began to write poems. I found that poetry was the only kind of writing in which I could express my thoughts. One night I dreamed I was lying on the bank of a canal, under machine gun fire. The next morning I wrote it out, Carentan O Caretan, and as I wrote I realized it was not a dream, but the memory of my first time under fire”

Louis Simpson (1923–2012) Jamaican poet

The Poetry of War 1939-45 ed. Ian Hamilton, London 1965
Carentan O Carentan, 1948

Dreams, Lying, Memory, Time

“"Lust is the offspring of a thousand sighs,
"Intrigue, deception, and as many lies;
"A strange compound of hidden, plotting ill,
"To fire with rage, to torture, or to kill"
-Lust”

John Lyon (poet) (1803–1889) Scottish Latter Day Saint poet and hymn writer

The Harp of Zion (1853)

Rage

“North Korea best not make any more. They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen. He has been very threatening beyond a normal state. They will be met with fire, fury, and frankly power the likes of which this world has never seen before.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

Comment on North Korean nuclear tests, made during a public meeting on the . Trump's 'fire and fury' remark was improvised but familiar http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/09/politics/trump-fire-fury-improvise-north-korea/index.html, CNN. August 9, 2017. 2010s, 2017, August

World

“He that loves a rosy cheek,
Or a coral lip admires,
Or from star-like eyes doth seek
Fuel to maintain his fires,—
As old Time makes these decay,
So his flames must waste away.”

Thomas Carew (1594–1640) English poet

Disdain Returned, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Love, Star, Time

“…Sooltan Mahmood now attacked one of the forts in the Koombulmere district, defended by Beny Ray, the deputy of Rana Koombho of Chittor. In front of the gateway was a large temple which commanded the lower works. This building was strongly fortified, and employed by the enemy as a magazine. Sooltan Mahmood, aware of its importance, determined to take possession of it at all hazards; and having stormed it in person, carried it, but not without heavy loss; after which, the fort fell into his hands, and many Rajpoots were put to death. The temple was now filled with wood, and being set on fire, cold water was thrown on the, stone images, which causing them to break, the pieces were given to the butchers of the camp, in order to be used as weights in selling meat. One large figure in particular, representing a ram, and formed of solid marble, being consumed, the Rajpoots were compelled to eat the calcined parts with pan, in order that it might be said that they were made to eat their gods…”

Firishta (1560–1620) Indian historian

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

Death, God, Water, Loss

“Christians don't steal or lie, they don't get divorced or have abortions. If the Ten Commandments were followed by everyone we would be able to fire half the police force and in six months the prisons would be all half empty.”

John Hagee (1940) American pastor, theologian and saxophonist

"The Fish Gate" sermon (September 2, 2007)

Lie

“I prize thy gentle heart,
Free from ambition, falsehood, or art,
And thy good mind,
Daily refined,
By pure desire
To fan the heaven-seeking fire.”

Margaret Fuller (1810–1850) American feminist, poet, author, and activist

Life Without and Life Within (1859), A Greeting

Art, Heart

“Opening the door to the visiting doctor, all set to apologize for the flour on her hands—she had been baking—Mrs. Byrne sniffed. Smoke! And if she could smell it with her heavy head cold, it must be a tremendous fire!
”We ought to call the brigade!” she exclaimed. “Is it a hayrick?”
”The brigade would have a long way to go,” the doctor told her curtly. “It’s from America. The wind’s blowing that way.””

John Brunner book The Sheep Look Up

November “THE SMOKE OF THAT GREAT BURNING”
The Sheep Look Up (1972)

Way

“The literature of former days is like watching a fire from across the water; in present-day literature, the author himself is being scorched by the fire and he is bound to feel it deeply, and when he begins to feel it deeply, he is bound to take part in the social struggle.”

Lu Xun (1881–1936) Chinese novelist and essayist

35
"The Epigrams of Lusin"

Feeling, Literature, Water, Parting

“For the first time he looked into his heart and wrote, and thus for the first time he touched the hearts of others; the cold style took fire, and beneath the clumsy periods welled tears.”

Evelyn Beatrice Hall book The Friends of Voltaire

Source: The Friends of Voltaire (1906), Ch. 1 : D'Alembert: The Thinker, p. 29

Tear, Time, Heart

“Despair is like forward children, who, when you take away one of their playthings, throw the rest into the fire for madness. It grows angry with itself, turns its own executioner, and revenges its misfortunes on its own head.”

Pierre Charron (1541–1603) French theologian and philosopher

As quoted in Treasury of Thought : Forming an encyclopædia of quotation from ancient and modern authors (1894) edited by Maturin Murray Ballou, p. 123

Children, Revenge, Madness, Despair

“They knew me from the dawn of time: if Hermes beats his rainbow wings,
If Angus shakes his locks of light, or golden-haired Apollo sings,
It matters not the name, the land; my joy in all the gods abides:
Even in the cricket in the grass some dimness of me smiles and hides.
For joy of me the day star glows, and in delight and wild desire
The peacock twilight rays aloft its plumes and blooms of shadowy fire,
Where in the vastness too I burn through summer nights and ages long,
And with the fiery footed Watchers shake in myriad dance and song.”

George William Russell (1867–1935) Irish writer, editor, critic, poet, and artistic painter

The Nuts of Knowledge (1903)

God, Age, Smile, Star