Quotes about soot

A collection of quotes on the topic of soot, likeness, world, black.

Quotes about soot

“When my mother died I was very young,
And my father sold me while yet my tongue
Could scarcely cry 'weep! 'weep! 'weep!'weep!
So your chimneys I sweep, and in soot I sleep.”

William Blake The Chimney Sweeper

The Chimney Sweeper, st. 1
1780s, Songs of Innocence (1789–1790)

Sleep, Cry

“I am absolutely dumbfounded
by people
who feel they can spew out hatred and negativity like a violently sick Dragon…
but do not think of Retribution
nor the black soot that their filthy Karma is heavy with.
Karma is a real true Bitch!
She always comes to pay you a visit
when you least expect it.
I count on it…
because I work so hard to keep my side of the street clean.
The evil shan't ever win.
I'll stand there while you are burned to a crisp before me.
Good always prevails
in the End.”

Stephie Pahlavi Zan

People, Feeling, Thinking, Evil

“Her hair is smoldering. Her face was smudged with soot. She had a cut on her arms, her dress was torn, and she was missing a boot. Beautiful.”

Rick Riordan book The Lost Hero

Source: The Lost Hero

Beauty

“I suppose you could call me… Soot," said the thing. "Yes… Soot. I have breathed it, lived in it, and eaten it for so long that it is a fitting name."
"Eaten it?" asked Suzy. "Why eat soot?"
"Boredom," said Soot.”

Garth Nix book Grim Tuesday

Source: Grim Tuesday

“The sky drips its spectral
And Gods, like men, to soot revert.
Gone is the mild, the serene air.
The golden years are come too late.
Pursue not wisdom or virtue here,
But what blind motion, what dim last
Regret of men who slew their past
Raised up this bribe against their fate.”

Donald Davidson (1893–1968) American poet, essayist, critic and author

On a Replica of the Parthenon

Wisdom, Men, God, Fate

“I went up to my room, up the dusty stairs of Bunker Hill, past the soot-covered frame buildings along that dark street, sand and oil and grease choking the futile palm trees standing like dying prisoners, chained to a little plot of ground with black pavement hiding their feet. Dust and old buildings and old people sitting at windows, old people tottering out of doors, old people moving painfully along the dark street. The old folk from Indiana and Iowa and Illinois, from Boston and Kansas City and Des Moines, they sold their homes and their stores, and they came here by train and by automobile to the land of sunshine, to die in the sun, with just enough money to live until the sun killed them, tore themselves out by the roots in their last days, deserted the smug prosperity of Kansas City and Chicago and Peoria to find a place in the sun. And when they got here they found that other and greater thieves had already taken possession, that even the sun belonged to the others; Smith and Jones and Parker, druggist, banker, baker, dust of Chicago and Cincinnati and Cleveland on their shoes, doomed to die in the sun, a few dollars in the bank, enough to subscribe to the Los Angeles Times, enough to keep alive the illusion that this was paradise, that their little papier-mâché homes were castles. The uprooted ones, the empty sad folks, the old and the young folks, the folks from back home. These were my countrymen, these were the new Californians. With their bright polo shirts and sunglasses, they were in paradise, they belonged.”

John Fante book Ask the Dust

Ask the Dust (1939)

Money, People, Sadness, Angels

“The great Inventor is one who has walked forth upon the industrial world, not from universities, but from hovels; not as clad in silks and decked with honors, but as clad in fustian and grimed with soot and oil.”

Isaac Taylor (1787–1865) British writer

Isaac Taylor, Ultimate Civilization. (1859); Cited in: Samuel Smiles (1864) Industrial biography; iron-workers and tool-makers http://books.google.com/books?id=5trBcaXuazgC&pg=PA228, p. 228.

World, Universe

“So then God created the world, and on the first day he created light and air and fish and jam and soup and potatoes and haircuts and arguments and small things and rabbits and people with noses and jam – more jam, perhaps – and soot and flies and tobogganing and showers and toasters and grandmothers and, uh … Belgium. And the second day he created fire and water and eggnog and radiators and lights and Burma and things that go "urh" and … and Colonel Gaddafi and Arthur Negus. On the third day he probably got lists and said, "I can't remember what I've invented now. I've just been ad-libbing so far."”

Eddie Izzard (1962) British stand-up comedian, actor and writer

Glorious (1997)

God, People, World, Fish

“Manchester is the chimney of the world. Rich rascals, poor rogues, drunken ragamuffins and prostitutes form the moral; soot made into paste by rain the physique, and the only view long chimney: what a place! The entrance to hell realised!”

Charles James Napier (1782–1853) Commander-in-Chief in British India

The life and opinions of General Sir Charles James Napier, Volume 2

World, Hell, Past

“Every toiling Manchester, its smoke and soot all burnt, ought it not, among so many world-wide conquests, to have a hundred acres or so of free greenfield, with trees on it, conquered, for its little children to disport in; for its all-conquering workers to take a breath of twilight air in? You would say so! A willing Legislature could say so with effect. A willing Legislature could say very many things! And to whatsoever 'vested interest,' or such like, stood up, gainsaying merely, "I shall lose profits,"—the willing Legislature would answer, "Yes, but my sons and daughters will gain health, and life, and a soul."—”

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

1840s, Past and Present (1843)

Life, Children, Health, World

“Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in swych licour
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halve cours yronne,
And smale foweles maken melodye,
That slepen al the nyght with open ye
(So priketh hem nature in hir corages);
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages.”

Geoffrey Chaucer book The Canterbury Tales

General Prologue, l. 1-12
The Canterbury Tales

Nature

“So London remains my cage, the door is open, but I cannot leave. Meanwhile, the cage is comfortable enough. And now, as I finish this somewhat ungrateful piece, if I am conscious of a faintly bitter taste in my mouth, it is, I must confess, my own fault. I have just been biting the hand that feeds me, and it tastes of soot.”

Laurie Lee (1914–1997) British writer

An Obstinate Exile, p. 48.
I Can't Stay Long (1975)

“At least some Americans are still having children. Unfortunately, many of those children spend their formative years being taught how to surrender. The emasculation of American boys is one step short of suicide. […] Schoolyards used to be filled with kids at recess playing games like "kill the guy with the ball." Nobody died. Boys played with G. I. Joes and girls played with dolls. Kids played freeze tag without a single incident of sexual harassment. […] Not too many years ago, cartoons were filled with violence. Bugs Bunny tied a gun barrel in a knot and Elmer Fudd's gun went kaboom, covering his own head in black soot. Wile E. Coyote chased the Road Runner and fell off a cliff to his destruction. We as children watched Superman cartoons, but we knew not to try and jump off the roof. Teenage boys watched Rocky and Rambo and Conan films. Then they went home without trying to kill anybody. […] We did not need liberals to tell us the difference between pretend and real life. Common sense and our parents handled that. Now schools across the country are canceling gym class. Dodgeball apparently promotes aggression […]. Even rock-paper-scissors is too violent. Rocks and scissors could be used by children to harm each other. Paper requires murdering trees. It's no wonder that Islamists produce strapping young men while America produces sensitive crybabies […]. Muslim children are taught hate in madrassas. They are taught how to kill infidels and the blasphemers. American boys are suspended from school for arranging their school lunch vegetables in the shape of a gun. […] During World War II, young boys volunteered to go overseas to save the world. […] Now American kids on college campuses retreat to their safe spaces to escape from potential microagressions. Islamists cut off heads and limbs and our young boys shriek at the drop of a microaggression. And we haven't seen the worst of it.”

Michael Savage (1942) U.S. radio talk show host, Commentator, and Author

Scorched Earth: Restoring the Country after Obama (2016)

Life, Men, Hate, War

“The soote season, that bud and bloom forth brings,
With green hath clad the hill, and eke the vale:
The nightingale with feathers new she sings;
The turtle to her make hath told her tale;
Summer is come, for every spray now springs.”

Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1516–1547) English Earl

"Description of Spring", line 1

Spring, Singing, Summer, Season

“Leaden trumpets spit the soot of power they say
"I'm on your side when nobody is, cause nobody is.
Come sit right here and sleep while I slip poison in your ear"”

St. Vincent (musician) (1982) American singer-songwriter

"Paris Is Burning"
Paris Is Burning (2006)

Sleep

“Dwell in the place where your companions are spiritual heroes,

So that they may wash the foul soot from your [heart]

Don't think about their faults, for they

Will know about it before you think.”

Rumi (1207–1273) Iranian poet

"Advice to the Disciple and Aspirant" p. 527
The Quatrains of Rumi (2008)

Thinking, Heart

“What struck me most was his naiveté. He was like someone in a coal mine who suddenly finds a diamond and starts exulting over it. He begins to seriously believe that it is possible to repeat the feat, so he will dig into the black soot again.”

V. P. Singh (1931–2008) Indian politician

The Lonely Punter: V.P.Singh