Quotes about salt

A collection of quotes on the topic of salt, likeness, water, doing.

Quotes about salt

“I have eaten your bread and salt.
I have drunk your water and wine.
The deaths ye died I have watched beside
And the lives ye led were mine.”

Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) English short-story writer, poet, and novelist

Prelude, Stanza 1.
Departmental Ditties and other Verses (1886)

Death, Water, Wine

“Mary is the great mother. She is the mother. That's what Mary is. Whether she existed or not, is not the point. She exists at least as a hyper-reality. She exists as the mother. What's the sacrifice of the mother? That's easy: if you're a mother who's worth her salt, you offer your son to be destroyed by the world. That's what you do. And that's what's going to happen. He's going to be born, he's going to suffer, he's going to have his trouble in life, he's going to have his illnesses, he's going to face his failures and catastrophes, and he's going to die. That's what's going to happen, and if you're awake you know that, and then you say, 'well, perhaps he will live in a way that will justify that.' And then you try to have that happen. And that's what makes you worthy of a statue like [The Pieta]. 'Is it right to bring a baby into this terrible world?' Well, every woman asks herself that question. Some say no, and they have their reasons. Mary answers 'yes' voluntarily. Mary is the archetype of the woman who answers yes to life voluntarily. Not because she is blind. She knows what's going to happen. So, she's the archetypal representation of the woman who says yes to life knowing full well what life is. She's not naive. She's not someone who got pregnant in the backseat of a 1957 Chevy during one night of half-drunk idiocy. Not that. She does so consciously. Consciously, knowing what's to come. And then she allows it to happen, which is a testament to mothers.”

Jordan Peterson (1962) Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology

Bible Series V: Cain and Abel: The Hostile Brothers
Concepts

Life, World, Way, Failure

“It was all a dream, I used to read Word Up magazine. Salt-n-Peppa, Heavy D up in tha limousine. Hangin' pictures on my wall, every Saturday rap attack, Mr. Magic Marley Marl. I let my tape rock till my tape pop, smoking weed and bamboo, sippin' on Private Stock. Way back, when I had the red-and-black lumberjack, with the hat to match. Remember Rappin' Duke? Duh-ha duh-ha, you never thought that hip hop would take it this far. Now I'm in the limelight 'cause I rhyme tight. Time to get paid, blow up like the World Trade! Born sinner, the opposite of a winner. Remember when I used to eat sardines for dinner.”

The Notorious B.I.G. (1972–1997) American rapper

Song lyrics, Ready to Die (1994), "Juicy"

World, Dreams, Way, Time

“I know of a cure for everything: salt water… in one way or the other. Sweat, or tears, or the salt sea.”

Karen Blixen (1885–1962) Danish writer

As quoted in Reader's Digest (April 1964)
Variant: I know a cure for everything. Salt water … in one form or another, sweat, tears or the salt sea.
Variant: The cure for anything is salt water — sweat, tears, or the sea.

Way, Tear, Water, Sea

“And perhaps there is a limit to the grieving that the human heart can do. As when one adds salt to a tumbler of water, there comes a point where simply no more will be absorbed.”

Sarah Waters book The Little Stranger

Source: The Little Stranger

Water, Heart, Heartbreaking, Moving On

“Sadness isn't sadness. It's happiness in a black jacket. Tears are not tears. They're balls of laughter dipped in salt. Death is not death. It's life that's jumped off a tall cliff.”

Paul McCartney (1942) English singer-songwriter and composer

Source: Blackbird Singing: Poems and Lyrics, 1965-1999

Life, Death, Happiness, Sadness

“Thou shalt prove how salt is the taste of another man's bread and how hard is the way up and down another man's stairs.”

Dante Alighieri book Paradiso

Canto XVII, lines 58–60 (tr. Sinclair).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Paradiso

Way

“I eat only white foods: eggs, sugar, grated bones, the fat of dead animals; veal, salt, coconut, chicken cooked in white water; fruit mold, rice, turnips; camphorated sausage, dough, cheese (white), cotton salad, and certain fish (skinless).”

Erik Satie (1866–1925) French composer and pianist

Quoted by Rollo H. Myers (1968). Erik Satie, p.135. New York: Dover.
See also Socrate for the context of this quote.
General quotes

Food, Fish, Water, Animals

“They always gives me bath salts," complained Nobby. "And bath soap and bubble bath and herbal bath lumps and tons of bath stuff and I can't think why, 'cos it's not as if I hardly ever has a bath. You'd think they'd take the hint, wouldn't you?”

Terry Pratchett book Hogfather

Source: Hogfather

Thinking

“"Do you know a cure for me?" "Why yes," he said, "I know a cure for everything. Salt water." "Salt water?" I asked him. "Yes," he said, "in one way or the other. Sweat, or tears, or the salt sea."”

Karen Blixen book Seven Gothic Tales

"The Deluge at Norderney"
Source: Seven Gothic Tales (1934)

Way, Tear, Water, Sea

“Unfortunately this Electric Monk had developed a fault, and had started to believe all kinds of things, more or less at random. It was even beginning to believe things they'd have difficulty believing in Salt Lake City.”

Douglas Adams book Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

Source: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

“If you put butter and salt on it, it tastes like salty butter.”

Terry Pratchett book Moving Pictures

Source: Moving Pictures

“Si todos los rios son dulces
de donde saca sal el mar?

If all rivers are sweet
where does the sea get its salt?”

Pablo Neruda (1904–1973) Chilean poet

Source: The Book of Questions

Sea

“Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work.”

Stephen King (1947) American author

Success, Back To Work

“As boys do sparrows, with flinging salt upon their tails.”

Jonathan Swift book A Tale of a Tub

Sect. 7
A Tale of a Tub (1704)

Boy

“I need not tell you, what complaints the more candid and judicious of the Chymists themselves are wont to make of those boasters, that confidently pretend, that they have extracted the salt or sulphur of quicksilver, when they have disguised it by additaments, wherewith it resembles the concretes, whose names are given it; whereas by a skilful and rigid examen, it may be easily enough stripped of its disguises, and made to appear again in the pristine form of running mercury. The pretended salts and sulphurs being so far from being elementary parts extracted out of the body of mercury, that they are rather… de-compound bodies, made up of the whole metal and the menstruum, or other additaments employed to disguise it.”

Robert Boyle book The Sceptical Chymist

Part I
The Sceptical Chymist (1661)

Confidence, Appearance, Parting

“Business is the salt of life.”

Voltaire (1694–1778) French writer, historian, and philosopher

This is a proverb which can be found in Robert Codrington's "Youth's Behaviour, Second Part" (1672) and in Thomas Fuller's "Gnomologia" (1732)
Misattributed

Life, Business

“There are some mixt bodies, from which it has not been yet made appear, that any degree of fire can separate either salt, or sulphur, or mercury, much less all the three. The most obvious instance of this truth is gold, which is a body so fixed, and wherein the elementary ingredients (if it have any) are so firmly united to each other, that we find not in the operations, wherein gold is exposed to the fire, how violent soever, that it does discernably so much as lose of its fixedness or weight, so far is it from being dissipated into those principles, whereof one at least is acknowledged to be fugitive enough.”

Robert Boyle book The Sceptical Chymist

Part I
The Sceptical Chymist (1661)

Truth, Appearance

“If one leaves a wooden or cardboard box containing a small glass ampulla with several centigrams of a radium salt in one’s pocket for a few hours, one will feel absolutely nothing. But 15 days afterwards a redness will appear on the epidermis, and then a sore which will be very difficult to heal. A more prolonged action could lead to paralysis and death. Radium must be transported in a thick box of lead.
It can even be thought that radium could become very dangerous in criminal hands, and here the question can be raised whether mankind benefits from knowing the secrets of Nature, whether it is ready to profit from it or whether this knowledge will not be harmful for it. The example of the discoveries of Nobel is characteristic, as powerful explosives have enabled man to do wonderful work. They are also a terrible means of destruction in the hands of great criminals who are leading the peoples towards war. I am one of those who believe with Nobel that mankind will derive more good than harm from the new discoveries.”

Pierre Curie (1859–1906) French physicist

Nobel lecture (1905)

Death, War, People, Secret

“All men have heard of the Mormon Bible, but few except the "elect" have seen it, or, at least, taken the trouble to read it. I brought away a copy from Salt Lake. The book is a curiosity to me, it is such a pretentious affair, and yet so "slow," so sleepy; such an insipid mess of inspiration. It is chloroform in print. If Joseph Smith composed this book, the act was a miracle — keeping awake while he did it was, at any rate. If he, according to tradition, merely translated it from certain ancient and mysteriously-engraved plates of copper, which he declares he found under a stone in an out-of-the-way locality, the work of translating was equally a miracle, for the same reason.”

Mark Twain book Roughing It

On the Book of Mormon, Roughing It (published 1872), pp. 58-59
Roughing It (1872)

Men, Books, Way, Reading

“I went to Salt Lake City and the Mormons tried to convert me, but when I found they forbade tea and tobacco I thought it was no religion for me.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

Letter to C. P. Sanger, 23 December, 1929
1920s

Religion, Tea

“In Africa a thing is true at first light and a lie by noon and you have no more respect for it than for the lovely, perfect wood-fringed lake you see across the sun-baked salt plain. You have walked across that plain in the morning and you know that no such lake is there. But now it is there absolutely true, beautiful and believable.”

Ernest Hemingway book True at First Light

Source: True at First Light (1999), Ch. 10

Love, Lie, Beauty, Light

“Passion is the salt of life, and that at the times when we are under its spell this salt is indispensable to us, even if we have got along very well without it before.”

Françoise Sagan book Dans un mois, dans un an

Dans un mois, dans un an (1957, Those Without Shadows, translated 1957)

Life, Passion, Time

“Too much SALT isn’t good for you.”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

Remark about the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks in Reykjavík, Iceland, quoted by James Reston, 'The New York Times (6 July 1986)
1980s, Second term of office (1985–1989)

“We were the Leopards, the Lions; those who'll take our place will be little jackals, hyenas; and the whole lot of us, Leopards, jackals, and sheep, we'll all go on thinking ourselves the salt of the earth.”

Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa book The Leopard

Noi fummo i Gattopardi, i Leoni; quelli che ci sostituiranno saranno gli sciacalletti, le iene; e tutti quanti Gattopardi, sciacalli e pecore, continueremo a crederci il sale della terra.
Page 152
Il Gattopardo (1958)

Thinking

“In name we had the Declaration of Independence in 1776; but we gave the lie by our acts to the words of the Declaration of Independence until 1865; and words count for nothing except in so far as they represent acts. This is true everywhere; but, O my friends, it should be truest of all in political life. A broken promise is bad enough in private life. It is worse in the field of politics. No man is worth his salt in public life who makes on the stump a pledge which he does not keep after election; and, if he makes such a pledge and does not keep it, hunt him out of public life. I care for the great deeds of the past chiefly as spurs to drive us onward in the present. I speak of the men of the past partly that they may be honored by our praise of them, but more that they may serve as examples for the future.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

1910s, The New Nationalism (1910)

Life, Men, Lie, Past

“The whole nature of man presupposes woman, both physically and spiritually. His system is tuned into woman from the start, just as it is prepared for a quite definite world where there is water, light, air, salt, carbohydrates etc..”

C.G. Jung (1875–1961) Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist who founded analytical psychology

"Two Essays in Analytical Psychology" In CW 7: P. 188 (1967)

World, Nature, Light, Water

“Any man worth his salt will stick up for what he believes right, but it takes a slightly better man to acknowledge instantly and without reservation that he is in error.”

Andrew Jackson (1767–1845) American general and politician, 7th president of the United States

General Peyton C. March, as quoted in Crew Resource Management for the Fire Service (2004) by Randy Okray and Thomas Lubnau II, p. 25.
Misattributed

Error

“Oh salty sea, how much of your salt
are tears of Portugal!”

Fernando Pessoa book Mensagem

Poem "Mar Português", Verses 1-2
Message
Original: Ó mar salgado, quanto do teu sal
São lágrimas de Portugal!

Tear, Sea

“We must never yield to this temptation. Our American values are not luxuries, but necessities— not the salt in our bread, but the bread itself.”

Jimmy Carter (1924) American politician, 39th president of the United States (in office from 1977 to 1981)

Presidency (1977–1981), Farewell Address (1981)
Context: We live in a time of transition, an uneasy era which is likely to endure for the rest of this century. During the period we may be tempted to abandon some of the time-honored principles and commitments which have been proven during the difficult times of past generations. We must never yield to this temptation. Our American values are not luxuries, but necessities— not the salt in our bread, but the bread itself.

“But the Spirit of God anticipated this abominable, detestable assertion, this claim full of presumption and falsehood, a claim with nothing to support it, illumined by no spark of wisdom, seasoned by no salt”

Aurelius Augustinus (354–430) early Christian theologian and philosopher

Exposition 2 of Psalm 108. The unity and perpetuity of the Church against the Donatists. Expositions of the Psalms 99-120 (The Works of Saint Augustine, Vol 19 Part 3), Boniface Ramsey, ed., Maria Boulding, O.S.B, tr., New City Press, , pp. 68-69 http://books.google.com/books?id=3iWSkxuvyQ4C&pg=PA68&dq=%22So+say+people+who+are+not+within+the+Church.+What+an+impudent+assertion%22&hl=en&ei=-MlfTI7XKIHGlQeZ0JCZCA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCUQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22So%20say%20people%20who%20are%20not%20within%20the%20Church.%20What%20an%20impudent%20assertion%22&f=false Expositions on the Psalms Context: God is one, and the Church is a unity; only unity can respond to him who is one. But there are some people why say, “Yes, that certainly was the case. The Church spread among all nations did respond to him, bearing more children than did the wedded wife. It responded to him in the way of his strength, for it believed that Christ had risen. All nations believed in him. But that Church which was drawn from all nations no longer exists: it has perished.” So say people who are not within the Church. What an impudent assertion! The Church does not exist because you are not in it? Be careful lest such an attitude result in your not existing yourself, for the Church will be here even if you are not. But the Spirit of God anticipated this abominable, detestable assertion, this claim full of presumption and falsehood, a claim with nothing to support it, illumined by no spark of wisdom, seasoned by no salt. God’s Spirit anticipated this empty, unfounded, foolhardy and pernicious proposition and seemingly refuted it in advance by proclaiming that the Church is united by the gathering of the people together into one, and kingdoms to serve the Lord.

Wisdom, God, Support, Season

“Something is happening to America, not something dangerous but something all too safe. I see it in my lifelong friends. I am a child of the "baby boom," a generation not known for its sane or cautious approach to things. Yet suddenly my peers are giving up drinking, giving up smoking, cutting down on coffee, sugar, and salt. They will not eat red meat and go now to restaurants whose menus have caused me to stand on a chair yelling, "Flopsy, Mopsy, Cottontail, dinner is served!" This from the generation of LSD, Weather Underground, and Altamont Rock Festival! And all in the name of safety! Our nation has withstood many divisions—North and South, black and white, labor and management—but I do not know if the country can survive division into smoking and non-smoking sections.”

P. J. O'Rourke book Republican Party Reptile

Republican Party Reptile (1987)

Coffee, Drink, Baby, Weather

“Too much SALT is bad for your health.”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

Health

“All these points are so obvious that anyone who says that Hinduism is as foreign to India as Islam or Christianity, deserves to have his head examined. The followers of both Islam and Christianity have full knowledge of and pride in the time and place of origin of their religions outside India, the early history of their religions outside India, the arrival of their religions into India (brought in by invaders and imperialists), and the manner in which their religions were established in India. On the other hand, until the Aryan invasion theory was mooted by the European imperialists, no Hindu had ever suspected that any foreign connection could be attributed to his religion. Even today, with the Aryan invasion theory being instilled into every Hindu brain right from childhood, no Hindu worth his salt would accept the contention that Hinduism is of foreign origin.”

Shrikant Talageri (1958) Indian author

The Aryan Invasion Theory and Indian Nationalism (1993)

Religion, History, Knowledge, Time

“Be it known however that I am no advocate of those Mohammedans who behaved undutifully, and joined in the Rebellion: on the contrary I hold their conduct in utter abhorrence, as being in the highest degree criminal, and wholly inexcusable; because at that momentous crisis it was imperatively their duty, a duty enjoined by the precepts of our religion, to identify themselves heartily with the Christians and to espouse their cause; seeing that they have, like ourselves, been favoured with a revelation from Heaven, and believe in the Prophets, and hold sacred the word of God in His holy book, which is also an object of faith with us. It was therefore needful and proper, that where the blood of Christians was spilt, there should also have mingled with it that of Mohammedans; and those who shrunk from manifesting such devotedness, and sided with the rebels wilfully disobeyed the injunctions of religion, besides proving themselves ungrateful to their salt, and thereby incurring the severe displeasure of Government, a fact that is patent to every peasant...”

Syed Ahmed Khan (1820–1898) Indian educator and politician

quoted in Arun Shourie - The World of Fatwas Or The Sharia in Action (2012, Harper Collins)

God, Books, Faith, Religion

“He organized the much talked about Salt Satyagraha in the state of Bihar.”

Rajendra Prasad (1884–1963) Indian political leader

Source: Presidents of India, 1950-2003, p. 4

“Lust is the craving for salt of a man who is dying of thirst.”

Frederick Buechner (1926) Poet, novelist, short story writer, theologian

Source: Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC

“I come from a family of screamers. If they are trying to express any emotion or idea beyond pass the salt, it comes in shrieks.”

Elizabeth Wurtzel book Prozac Nation

Source: Prozac Nation

Family, Idea

“Salt is born of the purest parents: the sun and the sea.”

Pythagoras (-585–-495 BC) ancient Greek mathematician and philosopher

Parent, Sun, Sea, Powerful

“Any writer worth his salt writes to please himself… It's a self-exploratory operation that is endless. An exorcism of not necessarily his demon, but of his divine discontent.”

Harper Lee (1926–2016) American author

“No book worth its salt is meant to put you to sleep, it's meant to make you jump out of your bed in your underwear and run and beat the author's brains out.”

Bohumil Hrabal book Dancing Lessons for the Advanced in Age

Source: Dancing Lessons for the Advanced in Age

Books, Sleep

“She makes use of the soft of the bread for a napkin. She falls asleep at times with shoes on, on unmade beds. When a little money comes in, June buys delicacies, strawberries in the winter, caviar and bath salts.”

Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) writer of novels, short stories, and erotica

Source: The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 1: 1931-1934

Money, Shoe, Winter, Time

“later down the road of life, i made the discovery that salt water was also good for the mental abrasions one inevitably acquires on land.”

Jimmy Buffett book A Pirate Looks at Fifty

Source: A Pirate Looks at Fifty

Life, Water

“It doesn't seem to matter what we think… The prince will come up here and look at us as if we're barrels in a trader's wagon. And if I'm salt pork and he doesn't care for salt pork, then there's nothing I can do.”

Shannon Hale Princess Academy

Source: Princess Academy

Thinking

“Julia looked back at Hadassah on the bloodstained sand. A great emptiness opened within her as she looked at the still form. Gone, too, was the salt that had kept her from completely corruption.”

Francine Rivers book A Voice in the Wind

Source: A Voice in the Wind

“Answers to Frequently Asked Questions:
Yes.
Yes.
No.
One time in high school.
Three times in my twenties.
Rocks no salt.
Yes.
Four.
Never. And how dare you!
I will take no further questions.”

Ellen DeGeneres (1958) American stand-up comedian, television host, and actress

Source: Seriously... I'm Kidding

School, Question, Time

“But after all, the villains are the salt in the soup of a story.”

Cornelia Funke Inkheart trilogy

Source: Inkspell

“For ridding oneself of faith is like boiling seawater to retrieve the salt--something is gained but something is lost.”

Zadie Smith book White Teeth

Source: White Teeth

Faith

“I think that when the lies are all told and forgot the truth will be there yet. It dont move about from place to place and it dont change from time to time. You cant corrupt it any more than you can salt salt.”

Cormac McCarthy book No Country for Old Men

Source: No Country for Old Men (2005)
Context: The stories gets passed on and the truth gets passed over. As the sayin goes. Which I reckon some would take as meanin that the truth cant compete. But I dont believe that. I think that when the lies are all told and forgot the truth will be there yet. It dont move about from place to place and it dont change from time to time. You cant corrupt it any more than you can salt salt. You cant corrupt it because that's what it is. It's the thing you're talkin about. I've heard it compared to the rock — maybe in the bible—and I wouldnt disagree with that. But it'll be here even when the rock is gone. I'm sure they's people would disagree with that. Quite a few, in fact. But I never could find out what any of them did believe.

Truth, Thinking, Change, Time

“People said the towers looked like giant salt and pepper shakers, but I’d always thought they looked like Daleks from Doctor Who.”

Rick Riordan book The Sword of Summer

Source: The Sword of Summer

People

“I laid my face to the smooth face of the marble and howled my loss into the cold salt rain.”

Sylvia Plath book The Bell Jar

Source: The Bell Jar

Loss

“my father asked.“If you build a tower in Lawrenceville, I will smash it, set it on fire, and salt the ground it stood on.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Shifts

“Love can smack you like a seagull, and pour all over your feet like junkmail. You can't be ready for such a thing any more than salt water taffy gets you ready for the ocean.”

Daniel Handler book Adverbs

Source: Adverbs (2006), Collectively

Love, Water

“To subdue one's self to one's own ends might be dangerous, but to subdue one's self to other people's ends was dust and ashes. Yet there were those, still more unhappy, who envied even the ashy saltness of those dead sea apples.”

Dorothy L. Sayers book Gaudy Night

Source: Gaudy Night

People, Envy, Sea, Dead

“I don’t love you as if you were the salt-rose, topaz
or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:
I love you as certain dark things are loved,
secretly, between the shadow and the soul.”

Pablo Neruda (1904–1973) Chilean poet

Source: 100 Love Sonnets

Love, Soul

“I could fall in love with a cruel desert that kills without passion, a canyon full of scorpions, one thousand blinding arctic storms, a century sealed in a cave, a river of molten salt flowing down my throat. But never with you.”

Henry Rollins (1961) American singer-songwriter

Source: Solipsist

Love, Passion

“The point is that nobody likes having salt rubbed into their wounds, even if it is the salt of the earth.”

Rebecca West (1892–1983) British feminist and author

"The Salt of the Earth"
Source: The Harsh Voice: Four Short Novels (1935)

“It's salt. Why don't you sprinkle some on me, honey? Aren't I just good enough to eat?”

Grant Morrison (1960) writer

Source: Batman: Arkham Asylum - A Serious House on Serious Earth

“No hard feelings about that time in the Crucible when you mixed my salts and I was nearly blind for a day. No. No, really, drink up!”

Patrick Rothfuss book The Name of the Wind

Source: The Name of the Wind

Feeling, Drink, Time

“My gran had always told me that a woman--any woman worth her salt--could do whatever she had to.”

Charlaine Harris book Dead to the World

Source: Dead to the World

“Salt. Wound. Together at last.”

Maureen Johnson book 13 Little Blue Envelopes

Source: 13 Little Blue Envelopes

“Like some winter animal the moon licks the salt of your hand,
Yet still your hair foams violet as a lilac tree
From which a small wood-owl calls.”

Johannes Bobrowski (1917–1965) German author

Tree, Winter, Animals

“Kids. You gotta love them. I adore children. A little salt, a squeeze of lemon--perfect.”

Jim Butcher book Storm Front

Source: Storm Front

Love, Children, Perfection

“A family is one of nature's solubles; it dissolves in time like salt in rainwater.”

Pat Conroy book The Prince of Tides

Source: The Prince of Tides

Family, Nature, Time, Family

“Stars, I have seen them fall,
But when they drop and die
No star is lost at all
From all the star-sown sky.
The toil of all that be
Helps not the primal fault;
It rains into the sea
And still the sea is salt.”

A.E. Housman book A Shropshire Lad

Source: A Shropshire Lad

Star, Help, Sea

“Neither sugar nor salt tastes particularly good by itself. Each is at its best when used to season other things.

Love is the same way.

Use it to "season" people.”

Vera Nazarian (1966) American writer

Source: The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration

Love, People, Way, Season

“Does she stay because she loves him as meat loves salt? Or does she stay because he has now promised her the kingdom? It is hard for her to tell the difference.”

E. Lockhart book We Were Liars

Source: We Were Liars

Love

“Trust no one unless you have eaten much salt with him.”

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

“This new quantum mechanics promised to explain all of chemistry. And though I felt an exuberance at this, I felt a certain threat, too. “Chemistry,” wrote Crookes, “will be established upon an entirely new basis…. We shall be set free from the need for experiment, knowing a priori what the result of each and every experiment must be.” I was not sure I liked the sound of this. Did this mean that chemists of the future (if they existed) would never actually need to handle a chemical; might never see the colors of vanadium salts, never smell a hydrogen selenide, never admire the form of a crystal; might live in a colorless, scentless, mathematical world? This, for me, seemed and awful prospect, for I, at least, needed to smell and touch and feel, to place myself, my senses, in the middle of the perceptual world.”

Oliver Sacks book Uncle Tungsten

Source: Uncle Tungsten (2001), pp. 312–313

World, Color, Feeling, Mathematics

“It this terrible simplification that there is one Africa, and things go on in one way in Africa. We have to stop that, it is not respectful, and it's not very clever to think that way. I had the fortune to live and work for a time in the United States. I found out that Salt Lake City and San Francisco were different. And so it is in Africa, it's a lot of difference.What do we think it would be concurrency? And what is concurrency? In Sweden, we have no concurrency. We have serial monogamy. Vodka New Year's Eve, new partner for the spring, vodka Midsummer Eve, new partner for the fall, vodka, and it goes on like this, you know, and you collect a big number of ex's, and we've got a terrible chlamydia epidemic.”

Hans Rosling (1948–2017) Swedish medical doctor, academic, statistician and public speaker

On the HIV epidemic http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/hans_rosling_the_truth_about_hiv.html

Way, Spring, Thinking, Time

“Well I'm starvin' and freezin'
In this measly old bed
(Then I'll crawl across the salt flats
To stroke your sweet head)
Come across the desert,
with no shoes on?
(I love you truly,
or I love no-one)”

Joanna Newsom (1982) American musician

Only Skin
Ys (2006)

Love, Shoe

“It would be impossible, I'd just chuck meself into the salt pot or something. I'd hate that, that would be horrible that [Karl answering Ricky's question of how he would get Suzanne's attention in the Kitchen if he were a slug]”

Karl Pilkington (1972) English television personality, social commentator, actor, author and former radio producer

Podcast Series 1 Episode 12
On Nature

Hate, Question

“There's no bread, let 'em eat cake
There's no end to what they'll take
Flaunt the fruits of noble birth
Wash the salt into the earth
-- Bastille Day (1975)”

Neil Peart (1952–2020) Canadian-American drummer , lyricist, and author

Rush Lyrics

Birth

“It’s relevant that people whose polling places are schools are more likely to vote for sales taxes that will fund education. Or that judges become more likely to deny parole the longer they go without a break. Or that people serve themselves more food when using a large plate. Such effects, even when they’re small, can make a practical difference, especially when they influence votes and justice and health. But their existence doesn’t undermine the idea of a rational and deliberative self. To think otherwise would be like concluding that because salt adds flavor to food, nothing else does.”

Paul Bloom (1963) Canadian/American psychologist

“The War on Reason,” The Atlantic, March 2014, pp. 64–70

People, Health, Education, School

“So let us listen to the light—what music do we hear? For one thing, we can elicit from each chemical element its own, unique chord. You may sometimes have noticed that a bright yellow flash is produced if ordinary table salt is sprinkled on a flame…a first bare hint of the subject of flame spectra… The fact that different elements emit light with different color characteristics is exploited by the makers of fireworks.”

Frank Wilczek (1951) physicist

Longing for the Harmonies: Themes and Variations from Modern Physics (1987)

Music, Color, Light

“Jack: Smell?… What do I want with smelling salts?”

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

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

“Yes, I'm complacent now, with my well enough paid job, with a wife I can almost talk to, with a three-year-old son all dark eyes and tousled hair and endearing clumsiness. We go driving on Sunday afternoons, through suburbs just like our own, past houses just like our own, an endlessly recurring, mesmerising daydream under the flawless blue sky. And I whistle an old song of yours, even if I never dare let the words past my lips:There's nothing wrong with The Family
That a flame-thrower can't fix
And there's nothing wrong with the salt of the Earth
That couldn't be cured with a well-aimed BRICK.</blockquote”

Greg Egan (1961) Australian science fiction writer and former computer programmer

Worthless http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/worth.htm, published in the anthology In Dreams (1992) Fiction

Family, Past, Housing

“No way that any astronaut worth his salt volunteered for the space program to become a hero. You don't select astronauts who want fame and fortune. You select them because they're the best test pilots in the world, they know it, and it's a personal challenge for them. And the astronauts of today are exactly the same.”

Alan Shepard (1923–1998) American astronaut

Roxanne Roberts (May 4, 1991) "Blastoff to the Past - Tribute to America's First Men in Space", The Washington Post, p. D1.

World, Way, Personality

“Mappo Trell, I believe motivations prove, ultimately, irrelevant. Upon either side of the battlefield the face grins with blunt stupidity, even as smoke fills the sky from horizon to horizon, even as crops whither and die, even as sweet land turns to salt. Inequity ends, Trell, when no-one and no thing is left standing.”

Steven Erikson book The Bonehunters

The Bonehunters (2006)

Stupidity, Motivation

“The next monument visited was the great Jain temple built only a few years before by Shantidas Jhaveri, one of the wealthiest men of Gujarat in his day and high in favour both with Shah Jahan and after him with Aurangzeb. …In 1638, however, when Mandelslo visited the place, this temple which he calls ‘ the principal mosque of the Banyas ’ was in all its pristine splendour and ‘ without dispute one of the noblest structures that could be seen’. ‘It was then new,’ he adds, ‘ for the Founder, who was a rich Banya merchant, named Shantidas, was living in my time.
As Mandelslo’s description is the earliest account we have of this famous monument, which was desecrated only seven years after visit by the Orders of Aurangzeb, then viceroy of Gujarat (1645), we shall reproduce it at some length. It stood in the middle of a great court which was enclosed by a high wall of freestone. All about this wall on the inner side was a gallery, similar to the cloisters of the monasteries in Europe, with a large number of cells, in each of which was placed a statue in white or black marble. These figures no doubt represented the Jain Tirthankars, but Mandelslo may be forgiven when he speaks of each of them as ‘ representing a woman naked, sitting, and having her legs lying cross under her, according to the mode of the country. Some of the cells had three statues in them, namely, a large one between two smaller ones.’ At the entrance to the temple stood two elephants of black marble in life- size and on one of them was seated an effigy of the builder. The walls of the temple were adorned with figures of men and animals. At the further end of the building were the shrines consisting of three chapels divided from each other by wooden rails. In these were placed marble statues of the Tirthankars with a lighted lamp before that which stood in the central shrine. One of the priests attending the temple was busy receiving from the votaries flowers which were placed round the images, as also oil for the lamps that hung before the rails, and wheat and salt as a sacrifice. The priest had covered his mouth and nose with a piece of linen cloth so that the impurity of his breath should not profane the images.”

Shantidas Jhaveri (1580–1659) Indian jewellery and bullion trader during Mughal era

Description of the temple built by Shantidas Jhaveri. Mandelslo’s Travels In Western India (a.d.1638-9) https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.531053 p. 23-25

Life, Men, Flowers, Lying

“The salt said, look by the sea,
Your tears are not enough praise,
You will find no comfort here,
In the kingdom of bang and blab.”

Theodore Roethke (1908–1963) American poet

The Lost Son, ll. 32 - 35
The Lost Son and Other Poems (1948)

Tear, Sea

“Some people think that macrobiotic philosophy is no more than the teaching of a diet - the eating of brown rice, carrots, and gomashio (sesame salt), others imagine that it is summed up in the statement, "Don't eat cake and sugar."”

George Ohsawa (1893–1966) twentieth century Japanese philosopher

How far from the truth!
Source: Essential Ohsawa - From Food to Health, Happiness to Freedom - Understanding the Basics of Macrobiotics (1994), p. 82

People, Truth, Imagination, Thinking

“As for silver, I never could see any degree of fire make it part with any of its three principles. …But admitting, that some parts of the silver were driven away by the violence of the fire, what proof is there, that it was either the salt, the sulphur, or the mercury of the metal, and not rather a part of it homogeneous to what remained? for besides that the silver, that was left, seemed not sensibly altered, which probably would have appeared, had so much of any one of its principles been separated from it.”

Robert Boyle book The Sceptical Chymist

Source: The Sceptical Chymist (1661), Part I

Appearance, Parting

“Or, to state his character as it stood in the scale of public opinion, when his friends and critics were in tantrums, he was considered rather a bad man; when they were pleased, he was rather a good man; when they were neither, he was a man whose moral colour was a kind of pepper-and-salt mixture.”

Thomas Hardy book Far from the Madding Crowd

Source: Far from the Madding Crowd (1874), Ch. 1

“!-- Setting forth once more, embarking upon the search once again: the narrow path that snakes among livid rocks and desolate, camel-colored hills; white houses hanging suspended from cliffs, looking as though they were about to let go and fall on the wayfarer’s head; the smell of sweating hides and cow dung; the buzz of afternoon; the screams of monkeys leaping about amid the branches of the trees or scampering along the flat rooftops or swinging from the railings of a balcony; overhead, birds circling and the bluish spirals of smoke rising from kitchen fires; the almost pink light on the stones; the taste of salt on parched lips; the sound of loose earth slithering away beneath one’s feet; the dust that clings to one’s sweat-drenched skin, makes one’s eyes red, and chokes one’s lungs; i --> Images, memories, fragmentary shapes and forms — all those sensations, visions, half-thoughts that appear and disappear in the wink of an eye, as one sets forth to meet…. The path also disappears as I think of it, as I say it.”

Octavio Paz (1914–1998) Mexican writer laureated with the 1990 Nobel Prize for Literature

Source: The Monkey Grammarian (1974), Ch. 1

Color, Search, Bird, Thinking

“When we reflect upon the brutal vices of these salt-water bandits, pirates as shameful as any whom the sea has borne, or recoil from their villainous destruction and cruel deeds, we must also remember the discipline, the fortitude, the comradeship and martial virtues which made them at this period beyond all challenge the most formidable and daring race in the world.”

Winston S. Churchill book A History of the English-Speaking Peoples

On The Vikings, Vol I; The Birth of Britain.
A History of the English-Speaking Peoples (1956–58)

World, Water, Sea

“Wasted away again in Margaritaville,
Searchin' for my lost shaker of salt.
Some people claim that there's a woman to blame,
But I know it's nobody's fault.”

Jimmy Buffett (1946) American singer–songwriter and businessman

Margaritaville
Song lyrics, Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes (1977)

People

“You could have put salt and pepper on me and fried me out in right field.”

Roberto Clemente (1934–1972) Puerto Rican baseball player

Speaking with reporters after the 1966 MLB All-Star Game, as quoted in "Frank Doesn't Miss NL Pitching" http://www.mediafire.com/view/94oxtz7gmfoc4m7/Screen%20Shot%202017-12-10%20at%209.13.36%20PM.png by Neal Russo, in The St. Louis Post-Gazette (Wednesday, July 13, 1966), p. 4C Baseball-related, <big><big>1960s</big></big>, <big>1966</big>

“Why then are the arts and sciences important? I suppose with the sciences we could say that the answer is obvious: we have radium, penicillin, television and recorded sound, motor-cars and aircraft, air-conditioning and central heating. But these achievements have never been the primary intention of science; they are a sort of by-product, the things that emerge only when the scientist has performed his main task. That task is simply stated: to be curious, to keep on asking the question 'Why?' and not to be satisfied till an answer has been found. The scientist is curious about the universe: he wants to know why water boils at one temperature and freezes at another; why cheese is different from chalk; why one person behaves differently from another. Not only 'Why?' but ‘What?' What is salt made of? What are the stars? What is the constitution of all matter? The answers to these questions do not necessarily malke our lives any easier. The answer to one question—'Can the atom be split?' - has made our lives somewhat harder. But the questions have to be asked. It is man's job to be curious; it is man's job to try to find out the truth about the world about us, to answer the big question 'What is the world really like?”

Anthony Burgess (1917–1993) English writer

Non-Fiction, English Literature: A Survey for Students (1958, revised 1974)

Truth, World, Art, Cars

“Sleep puts out silent fingers,
And leads me back to the roar
Of the dead salt sea that vomits
Wrecks of the past ashore.”

Francis Turner Palgrave (1824–1897) English poet and critic

Past and Present

Sleep, Past, Sea, Dead

“God has given the salt lick to the deer; and He has given to man, red-skin and white, the delicious spring at which to slake his thirst.”

James Fenimore Cooper (1789–1851) American author

The Pathfinder (1840)

God, Spring

“I think its time to get motivated folks. I don't know what you're doing, but it's time to get really moving. We are rapidly running out of time. What do we do? Number one, you need to realize that God is in control. Don't get nervous, get busy, but don't get nervous. For he's the potter, we're the clay. Do what he says, simple. We should be as wise as serpents and harmless as doves. Be careful for nothing, full of care. Don't get nervous, just get busy. We should pray for those in authority. If you were praying for your senators, you would know their names, wouldn't you? We're God's children. It's our job to obey him. Preach the Gospel. We're suppose to be the salt of the earth. Salt does a lot of interesting things. Salt preserves; you should be a preserving force in your community. Salt irritates. If nobody is irritated with you, you aren't a good Christian.”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

Creation seminars (2003-2005), The dangers of evolution

God, Children, Communication, Motivation

“I said
"Lily, Oh Lily I'm so afraid
I fear I am walking in the Veil of Darkness"
And she said
"Child, take what I say
With a pinch of salt
And protect yourself with fire"”

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

Song lyrics, The Red Shoes (1993)

Fear

“For instance, when Muhammad Ghauri and Qutbuddin Aibak mounted a combined attack on the Khokhars of the Salt Range (Koh-i-Jud), “great plunder was taken and many captives, so that five Hindu [Khokhars] captives could be bought for a dinar”. Captives were so plentiful that they were also sent “to sell in Khurasan, not long after.””

Qutb al-Din Aibak (1150–1210) Turkic peoples king of Northwest India

Lal, K. S. (1994). Muslim slave system in medieval India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 10, (quoting Hasan Nizami, Taj-ul-Maasir, E. D., II; Minhaj)

“As early as in the time of Sultan Iltutmish (1210-1236), soon after the establishment of the Delhi Sultanate in 1206, some Ulama suggested to him to confront the Hindus with a choice between Islam and death. The Wazir Nizamul Mulk Junaidi replied: “But at the moment in India… the Muslims are so few that they are like salt (in a large dish). If such orders are to be enforced… the Hindus might combine… and the Muslims would be too few in number to suppress(them). However, after a few years when in the capital and in the regions and small towns, the Muslims are well established and the troops are larger, it will be possible to give Hindus, the choice of ‘death’ or ‘Islam’.”68”

Iltutmish (1210–1236) Sultan of Mamluk Sultanate

Ziyauddin Barani, Sana-i-Muhammadi in Medieval India Quarterly, Aligarh, I, Part III, pp. 100-105. quoted in K.S. Lal, Legacy of Muslim rule in India, 1992.

Death, Time

“It is a true saying that a man must eat a peck of salt with his friend before he knows him.”

Miguel de Cervantes (1547–1616) Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright

Source: Don Quixote de la Mancha (1605–1615), Part I, Book III, Ch. 1.

“Don’t get me wrong. These people are mine. I like and in many ways admire them. They’re the salt of the earth. It’s simply that I want other condiments too.”

Poul Anderson book There Will Be Time

Source: There Will Be Time (1972), Chapter 1 (p. 10)

People, Way

“All these soft kinds [of stone] have the advantage that they can be easily worked as soon as they have been taken from the quarries. Under cover, they play their part well; but in open and exposed situations the frost and rime make them crumble, and they go to pieces. On the seacoast, too, the salt eats away and dissolves them, nor can they stand great heat either.”

Vitruvius book De architectura

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

Parting

“New York kept going forward precisely because it didn't give a good goddamn about what it left behind. It was like the city that Lot left, and it would dissolve if it ever began looking backward over its own shoulder. Two pillars of salt. Long Island and New Jersey.”

Colum McCann book Let the Great World Spin

Let the Great World Spin (2009), Book Three: Part of the Parts

“Cherie Blair can call herself a feminist all she likes, but any feminist worth her salt would have made a point of having a termination - on the NHS, naturally - when she got knocked up the last time... Famous women would rather admit to having been sexually abused as children than to having had a termination... Myself, I'd as soon weep over my taken tonsils or my absent appendix as snivel over those [five] abortions. I had a choice, and I chose life - mine.”

Julie Burchill (1959) British writer

Julie Burchill (2005), British feminist and abortion advocate, from "Abortion: still a dirty word" in The Guardian (May 25, 2005) http://www.guardian.co.uk/weekend/story/0,3605,720719,00.html.

Life, Women, Children, Nature