Quotes about silk
page 2

Vytautas Juozapaitis photo
Gautama Buddha photo
Donald Barthelme photo
Nick Herbert photo
M. K. Hobson photo
Alauddin Khalji photo
Robert E. Howard photo
Lois McMaster Bujold photo

“The really unforgivable acts are committed by calm men in beautiful green silk rooms, who deal death wholesale, by the shipload, without lust, or anger, or desire, or any redeeming emotion to excuse them but cold fear of some pretended future.”

Vorkosigan Saga, Shards of Honor (1986)
Context: The really unforgivable acts are committed by calm men in beautiful green silk rooms, who deal death wholesale, by the shipload, without lust, or anger, or desire, or any redeeming emotion to excuse them but cold fear of some pretended future. But the crimes they hope to prevent in that future are imaginary. The ones they commit in the present — they are real.

Bill Bailey photo
Joseph Chamberlain photo

“Sugar has gone, silk has gone, iron is threatened, wool is threatened, cotton will go! How long are you going to stand it? At the present moment these industries, and the working men who depend upon them, are like sheep in a field.”

Joseph Chamberlain (1836–1914) British businessman, politician, and statesman

Speech in Greenock (7 October 1903), quoted in Julian Amery, Joseph Chamberlain and the Tariff Reform Campaign (London: Macmillan, 1969), p. 471.
1900s
Context: Free imports have destroyed this industry, at all events for the time, and it is not easy to recover an industry when it has once been lost... They have destroyed agriculture... Agriculture as the greatest of all trades and industries of this country has been practically destroyed. Sugar has gone, silk has gone, iron is threatened, wool is threatened, cotton will go! How long are you going to stand it? At the present moment these industries, and the working men who depend upon them, are like sheep in a field. One by one they allow themselves to be led out to slaughter, and there is no combination, no apparent prevision of what is in store for the rest of them. Do you think, if you belong at present to a prosperous industry, that your industry will be allowed to continue? Do you think that the same causes which have destroyed some of our industries, and which are in the course of destroying others, will not be equally applicable to you when your turn comes?

Haile Selassie photo

“In time of war it suits the enemy to aim his guns at adorned shields, ornaments, silver and gold cloaks, silk shirts and all similar things. Whether one possesses a jacket or not, it is best to wear a narrow-sleeved shirt with faded colours.”

Haile Selassie (1892–1975) Emperor of Ethiopia

Instructions to military units (19 October 1935).
My Life and Ethiopia's Progress (1976)
Context: In time of war it suits the enemy to aim his guns at adorned shields, ornaments, silver and gold cloaks, silk shirts and all similar things. Whether one possesses a jacket or not, it is best to wear a narrow-sleeved shirt with faded colours. When we return, with God's help, you can wear your gold and silver decorations then. Now it is time to go and fight. We offer you all these words of advice in the hope that no great harm should befall you through lack of caution. At the same time, We are glad to assure you that in time of war We are ready to shed Our blood in your midst for the sake of Ethiopia's freedom...

Abu Hamid al-Ghazali photo
Tipu Sultan photo
Frédéric Chopin photo
Lois McMaster Bujold photo
J. Howard Moore photo
Wallace Stevens photo

“The poet makes silk dresses out of worms.”

Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) American poet

Opus Posthumous (1955), Adagia