Quotes about spark
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Anthony Doerr photo
Eoin Colfer photo
Rex Stout photo
Raymond Carver photo

“But I can hardly sit still. I keep fidgeting, crossing one leg and then the other. I feel like I could throw off sparks, or break a window--maybe rearrange all the furniture.”

Raymond Carver (1938–1988) American short story author and poet

Source: Where I'm Calling From: New and Selected Stories

Alice Walker photo
Thomas Carlyle photo
Tom Robbins photo
Charles Kingsley photo
Kuruvilla Pandikattu photo
Bob Dylan photo

“Disillusioned words like bullets bark
As human gods aim for their mark
Make everything from toy guns that spark
To flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark
It's easy to see without looking too far
That not much is really sacred”

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

Song lyrics, Bringing It All Back Home (1965), It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)

Tom Morello photo

“It'll start with a spark, and a great fire will grow.”

Tom Morello (1964) American guitarist and singer-songwriter

California's Dark.
Lyrics

Anthony Trollope photo
Patrick Henry photo

“We should not forget that the spark which ignited the American Revolution was caused by the British attempt to confiscate the firearms of the colonists.”

Patrick Henry (1736–1799) attorney, planter, politician and Founding Father of the United States

This quotation not only has no known source, but also fails to use terminology contemporary to Patrick Henry. The earliest attribution of this phrase to Patrick Henry is after the year 2000.
Misattributed

Lewis Morris (poet) photo

“The love of the Right, tho' cast down, the hate of victorious Ill,
All are sparks from the central fire of a boundless beneficent will.”

Lewis Morris (poet) (1833–1907) Welsh poet in the English language

A new Orphic Hymn, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Alberto Manguel photo
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky photo
David Mitchell photo
Bernice King photo
Jeff VanderMeer photo
Nikos Kazantzakis photo
Anne Brontë photo
Isaac Leib Peretz photo

“"For the commandment is a lamp" [Prov. 6.23]. And the spark which kindles the commandment is devotion.”

Isaac Leib Peretz (1852–1915) Yiddish language author and playwright

Torah. Alle Verk, vi. 74.

Michelangelo Antonioni photo
Arun Shourie photo
Roger Ebert photo
J.C. Ryle photo
Jim Steinman photo
David Brewster photo

“Man, made after God's image, was a nobler creation than twinkling sparks in the sky, or than the larger and more useful lamp of the moon.”

David Brewster (1781–1868) British astronomer and mathematician

More Worlds Than One: The Creed of the Philosopher and the Hope of the Christian (1856), p. 207

“Sage's light
Oh and Edison
He made two sparks ignite
All you do
It's a scientific chain reaction”

Laura Nyro (1947–1997) American musician and songwriter

"Light" (Pop's Principle)
Lyrics

Farrokh Tamimi photo
Harry V. Jaffa photo
Andrei Tarkovsky photo
Norman Mailer photo
George F. Kennan photo
Roberto Mangabeira Unger photo
Joyce Kilmer photo
Nicholas Sparks photo
Michelle Branch photo
Emily St. John Mandel photo
Aga Khan III photo
Frederick Douglass photo
Whittaker Chambers photo

“The satellite revolt was not sparked from the West. It was sparked by Communism itself.”

Whittaker Chambers (1901–1961) Defected Communist spy

Source: Cold Friday (1964), p. 315

Alfred Korzybski photo

“The spark of passion ignites the fuel for innovation.”

Craig Groeschel (1967) American priest

It – How Churches and Leaders Can Get It and Keep It (2008, Zondervan)

John Muir photo

“There is at least a punky spark in my heart and it may blaze in this autumn gold, fanned by the King. Some of my grandfathers must have been born on a muirland for there is heather in me, and tinctures of bog juices, that send me to Cassiope, and oozing through all my veins impel me unhaltingly through endless glacier meadows, seemingly the deeper and danker the better.”

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

letter to Mrs. Ezra S. Carr http://digitalcollections.pacific.edu/cdm/compoundobject/collection/muirletters/id/12500/rec/1 (perhaps Autumn 1870); published in William Federic Badè, The Life and Letters of John Muir http://www.sierraclub.org/john_muir_exhibit/life/life_and_letters/default.aspx (1924), chapter 8: Yosemite, Emerson, and the Sequoias
1870s

Anand Patwardhan photo
Peter Sloterdijk photo
Narendra Modi photo

“Mahatma Buddha has also left a deep imprint on my life. In my personal room also, there are three-four statues of the Buddha…. In Buddhism, I see dharma entrenched in karuna (compassion). I believe compassion is the most valuable essence of life. When I formed the government, these values got ingrained even deeper. What attracts me about Buddha is his inclusive philosophy; secondly, his modernity; and thirdly, his belief in the importance of Sangathan—the idea of Sangha. This underlies all his philosophy. I would often wonder how Buddha managed to reach all over the world. What was it about him that lit sparks everywhere he went, took ordinary human beings towards their kartavya (duty) and appealed to the lower status groups as well? Buddhism does not have too much tam-jham or celebration of big utsavs. There is a direct connect of the individual with the Divine. That entire thought system touches me deeply. Moreover, wherever Buddha went, the region witnessed prosperity. Even though China had a different belief system but Buddha has maintained his influence on China as well. Recently, I went to China and found that their government was introducing me to Buddhist elements of their culture with great pride. I got to know that China is making a film on Hiuen-Tsang. I took a pro-active role and wrote to those people saying that they should not forget the part about his stay in Gujarat. Hiuen-Tsang lived for a long time in the village where I was born. He has written about a hostel in that village where 1,000 student monks resided. After I became chief minister, I got the area excavated and found archeological evidence of things described by Hiuen-Tsang. This means Mahatma Buddha’s philosophy would have had some influence on my ancestors.”

Narendra Modi (1950) Prime Minister of India

Narendra Modi quoted from Kishwar, Madhu (2014). Modi, Muslims and media: Voices from Narendra Modi's Gujarat. p.388-389
2013

Corneliu Zelea Codreanu photo

“It is a new form of leadership of states, never encountered yet. I don't know what designation it will be given, but it is a new form. I think that it is based on this state of mind, this state of high national consciousness which, sooner or later, spreads to the periphery of the national organism. It is a state of inner light. What previously slept in the souls of the people, as racial instinct, is in these moments reflected in their consciousness, creating a state of unanimous illumination, as found only in great religious experiences. This state could be rightly called a state of national oecumenicity. A people as a whole reach self-consciousness, consciousness of its meaning and its destiny in the world. In history, we have met in peoples nothing else than sparks, whereas, from this point of view, we have today permanent national phenomena. In this case, the leader is no longer a 'boss' who 'does what he wants', who rules according to 'his own good pleasure': he is the expression of this invisible state of mind, the symbol of this state of consciousness. He does not do what he wants, he does what he has to do. And he is guided, not by individual interests, nor by collective ones, but instead by the interests of the eternal nation, to the consciousness of which the people have attained. In the framework of these interests and only in their framework, personal interests as well as collective ones find the highest degree of normal satisfaction.”

Corneliu Zelea Codreanu (1899–1938) Romanian politician

On the form of government he plans on creating.
For My Legionaries: The Iron Guard (1936), Politics

Peter Gabriel photo

“I'm waiting for ignition, I'm looking for a spark
Any chance collision and I light up in the dark
There you stand before me, all that fur and all that hair
Oh, do I dare… I have the touch.”

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

I Have The Touch
Song lyrics, Peter Gabriel (IV), Security (1982)

Francis Parkman photo

“It's the job of the manager not to light the fire of motivation, but to create an environment to let each person's personal spark of motivation blaze.”

Frederick Herzberg (1923–2000) American psychologist

Frederick Herzberg, quoted in: Marci Segal (2003), Quick Guide to the Four Temperaments and Creativity. p. 12

Mahmud of Ghazni photo

“The Sultan himself joined in the pursuit, and went after them as far as the fort called Bhimnagar [Nagarkot, modern Kangra], which is very strong, situated on the promontory of a lofty hill, in the midst of impassable waters. The kings of Hind, the chiefs of that country, and rich devotees, used to amass their treasures and precious jewels, and send them time after time to be presented to the large idol that they might receive a reward for their good deeds and draw near to their God. So the Sultan advanced near to this crow's fruit, ^ and this accumulation of years, which had attained such an amount that the backs of camels would not carry it, nor vessels contain it, nor writers hands record it, nor the imagination of an arithmetician conceive it. The Sultan brought his forces under the fort and surrounded it, and prepared to attack the garrison vigorously, boldly, and wisely. When the defenders saw the hills covered with the armies of plunderers, and the arrows ascending towards them like flaming sparks of fire, great fear came upon them, and, calling out for mercy, they opened the gates, and fell on the earth, like sparrows before a hawk, or rain before lightning. Thus did God grant an easy conquest of this fort to the Sultan, and bestowed on him as plunder the products of mines and seas, the ornaments of heads and breasts, to his heart's content. … After this he returned to Ghazna in triumph; and, on his arrival there, he ordered the court-yard of his palace to be covered with a carpet, on which he displayed jewels and unbored pearls and rubies, shining like sparks, or like wine congealed with ice, and emeralds like fresh sprigs of myrtle, and diamonds in size and weight like pomegranates. Then ambassadors from foreign countries, including the envoy from Tagh^n Khan, king of Turkistin, assembled to see the wealth which they had never yet even read of in books of the ancients, and which had never been accumulated by kings of Persia or of Rum, or even by Karun, who had only to express a wish and Grod granted it.”

Mahmud of Ghazni (971–1030) Sultan of Ghazni

About the capture of Bhimnagar, Tarikh Yamini (Kitabu-l Yamini) by Al Utbi, in Elliot and Dowson, Vol. II : Elliot and Dowson, History of India as told by its own Historians, 8 Volumes, Allahabad Reprint, 1964. p. 34-35 Also quoted in Jain, Meenakshi (2011). The India they saw: Foreign accounts.
Quotes (971 CE to 1013 CE)

Ian McEwan photo
Jim Steinman photo
Nicholas Lore photo
Henry James photo
José Rizal photo
Han-shan photo
Rodolfo Graziani photo

“Until face to face with the enemy, who inexorably advanced well protected toward sure prey, they cried with the last spark of life, "Long Live Italy!"”

Rodolfo Graziani (1882–1955) Italian general

Quoted in "Marshal Is Frank" - "New York Times" article, December 23, 1940

Taliesin photo
William Wordsworth photo

“Bright gem instinct with music, vocal spark.”

William Wordsworth (1770–1850) English Romantic poet

A Morning Exercise.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Aldous Huxley photo
Mary McCarthy photo
Edgar Rice Burroughs photo
Hariprasad Chaurasia photo
Cat Stevens photo

“One is the ever kindling star
King of the immortal spark
In heaven’s eye”

Cat Stevens (1948) British singer-songwriter

Monad's Anthem
Song lyrics, Numbers (1974)

Robert Graves photo

“Fear in your heart cries to the loving-cup:
Sorrow to sorrow as the sparks fly upward.
The log groans and confesses
There is one story and one story only.”

Robert Graves (1895–1985) English poet and novelist

"To Juan at the Winter Solstice" from Poems 1938-1945 (1946).
Poems

“Defiance to constituted authority leaped like a spark from one flammable area to another, growing in heat as it went.”

THE CONTAGION OF LIBERTY, Chapter VI, p. 305.
The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution (1967)

Edith Sitwell photo
Michael Lewis photo
Robert Herrick photo
James Comey photo
Kumar Sangakkara photo
Jim Henson photo

“Jim Henson was a one-of-a-kind visionary whose works have entertained and sparked the imagination of millions of people across the globe for generations.”

Jim Henson (1936–1990) American puppeteer

Tanya Lopez, senior vice president of original movies for A+E Networks — cited in: October 17, 2015, United Press International, 'Jim Henson's Turkey Hollow' to air on Lifetime this November, July 9, 2015, Karen Butler, August 25, 2015, https://web.archive.org/web/20150825182444/http://www.upi.com/Entertainment_News/TV/2015/07/09/Jim-Hensons-Turkey-Hollow-to-air-on-Lifetime-this-November/2971436466697/ http://www.upi.com/Entertainment_News/TV/2015/07/09/Jim-Hensons-Turkey-Hollow-to-air-on-Lifetime-this-November/2971436466697/,
About

Aldous Huxley photo
Angus Young photo

“Oft has it been my lot to mark
A proud, conceited, talking spark.”

James Merrick (1720–1769) British poet and philologist

The Chameleon, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Nisargadatta Maharaj photo

“(…) A spark of truth can burn up a mountain of lies. (…)”

Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897–1981) Indian guru

Truth and untruth
Source: "I am That." P.100-1.

Georges Bernanos photo
Tod A photo

“Every word I never spoke dies like a spark smothered in smoke pulled from the glow of a shitty cigarette.”

Tod A (1965) American musician

"Feels Like the End of the World", The Golden Hour (May 6, 2008).
Lyrics, Firewater

José Rizal photo
Andrew Dickson White photo
Joseph Merrick photo
Orson Scott Card photo

“Today, I saw a spark of decency. Let's blow on that spark and give it fuel.”

Orson Scott Card (1951) American science fiction novelist

Homecoming saga, Earthborn (1995)

Joseph McCarthy photo
Peter Agre photo

“Our single greatest defense against scientific ignorance is education, and early in the life of every scientist, the child's first interest was sparked by a teacher.”

Peter Agre (1949) American chemist, recipient of Nobel Prize in Chemistry

Peter Agre's speech at the Nobel Banquet http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/2003/agre-speech-e.html, December 10, 2003