A collection of quotes on the topic of stone, likeness, use, doing.
Instead, we should be prepared for everything, and we should not surrender so easily.
“The UN’s silence in the face of Trump is the final stone in its own grave.”
Source: Radiorama de Occidente. 1480 AM. Guadalajara, Mexico.
Quoted by Harry Slochower in "Julius Bahnsen, Philosopher of Heroic Despair, 1830-1881" (1932), The Philosophical Review, 41(4), p. 371
July 1890, page 320
John of the Mountains, 1938
Source: John of the Mountains: The Unpublished Journals of John Muir
December 1969; quote from a talk with his audience
Source: Artists talks 1969 – 1977, p. 12
Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II, Chapter 34. Chile 1964-1973: A hammer and sickle stamped on your child's forehead
On Palestinian Authority Television (15 January 2002).
2000s
Quote from Friedrich's Diary entry, written Aug. 1803 at Loschwitz; as cited in Religious Symbolism in Caspar David Friedrich, by Colin J. Bailey https://www.escholar.manchester.ac.uk/api/datastream?publicationPid=uk-ac-man-scw:1m2225&datastreamId=POST-PEER-REVIEW-PUBLISHERS-DOCUMENT.PDF, paper; Oct. 1988 - Edinburgh College of Art, pp. 11-12
Friedrich is describing here his first composition of the painting 'Spring', 1803 (a later version he painted in 1808, viewed and described then by Gotthilf Heinrich von Schubert)
1794 - 1840
First Rule of the Friars Minor
Letter to Emil Freund (1 November 1880), in Gustav Mahler: New Insights into his Life, Times and Work by Alfred Mathis-Rosenzweig, translated by Jeremy Barham, Ashgate Publishing, 2007, ISBN 978-0-7546-5353-0, pp. 165 https://books.google.it/books?id=VIcSAX6tY1IC&pg=PA165-166.
The Art Work of Louis C. Tiffany (Doubleday, Page & Co New York, 1916)
“What came first, the fruit-tree or the stone?”
1840s, The Journals of Søren Kierkegaard, 1840s
Context: Consciousness presupposes itself, and asking about its origin is an idle and just as sophistical a question as that old one, "What came first, the fruit-tree or the stone? Wasn't there a stone out of which came the first fruit-tree? Wasn't there a fruit-tree from which came the first stone? Journals and Papers, Hannay, 1996 1843 IVA49
Variant: My crown is in my heart, not on my head; not decked with diamonds and Indian stones, nor to be seen: my crown is called content, a crown it is that seldom kings enjoy.
Source: King Henry VI, Part 3
“How stupid and shortsighted the ruling class really is! Cupidity is stone blind. It has no vision.”
The Canton, Ohio Speech, Anti-War Speech (1918)
Context: How stupid and shortsighted the ruling class really is! Cupidity is stone blind. It has no vision. The greedy, profit-seeking exploiter cannot see beyond the end of his nose. He can see a chance for an "opening"; he is cunning enough to know what graft is and where it is, and how it can be secured, but vision he has none — not the slightest. He knows nothing of the great throbbing world that spreads out in all directions. He has no capacity for literature; no appreciation of art; no soul for beauty. That is the penalty the parasites pay for the violation of the laws of life.
The Negro and His Nemesis (1904)
Context: Foolish and vain indeed is the workingman who makes the color of his skin the stepping-stone to his imaginary superiority. The trouble is with his head, and if he can get that right he will find that what ails him is not superiority but inferiority, and that he, as well as the Negro he despises, is the victim of wage-slavery, which robs him of what he produces and keeps both him and the Negro tied down to the dead level of ignorance and degradation.
Starlight and Stone
Song lyrics, Closer to the Bone (2009)
My Own Story (1914), pp. 25–28.
"Corona" In: Paul Celan, Pierre Joris (2005). Paul Celan: Selections. p. 44
https://archive.org/stream/baburnama017152mbp/baburnama017152mbp_djvu.Txt
Baburnama, Translated from the Hindi version by S.A.A. Rizvi included in Mughal Kãlîna Bhãrata: Bãbur, Aligarh, 1960, In Goel, S.R. Hindu Temples - What happened to them
Interview with Euronews' Claudio Rocco in 2011; as quoted in " Science says 'ciao' to Italy's Margherita Hack: the 'lady of the stars'", euronews.com (1 July 2013) https://www.euronews.com/2013/07/01/science-says-ciao-to-italy-s-margherita-hack-the-lady-of-the-stars.
“In one hand he is carrying a stone, while he shows the bread with the other.”
Altera manu fert lapidem, panem ostentot altera
Alternate translation: And so he thinks to ‘tice me like a dog, by holding bread in one hand, and a stone, ready to knock my brains out, in the other.
Aulularia, Act II, sc. 2, line 18
Cf. Jesus, [Matthew, 7:9, KJV]: "Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone?"
Aulularia (The Pot of Gold)
Richard Eaton: "Temple desecration and Indo-Muslim states, Essays on Islam and Indian History." And: "Temple desecration in pre-modern India"
At the funeral of his first wife, Kato Svanidze, on 25 November 1907, as quoted in Young Stalin (2007) by Simon Sebag Montefiore, p. 193
Contemporary witnesses
Quote in a letter from Cote d'Azure to sculptor and friend Auguste Rodin, 1 February 1888; as cited in R. Gordon and A. Forge (1983), Monet, p. 123
1870 - 1890
What I've Learned (July 2002)
Falsely attributed to Darwin, but actually from The Clansman: An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan (1905) by Thomas Dixon, page 134 http://www.freefictionbooks.org/books/c/11773-the-clansman-by-thomas-dixon?start=133.
Misattributed
1970s, BOBBY FISCHER SPEAKS OUT! (1977)
“Brother, you can believe in stones, as long as you don’t throw them at me.”
Cited in: " Syrian Psychologist on the Clash of Civilizations https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/arabs/syrianpsych.html," at jewishvirtuallibrary.org, March 7, 2006.
Interview on Al Jazeera TV, 2006
Context: Brother, you can believe in stones, as long as you don’t throw them at me. You are free to worship whoever you want, but other people’s beliefs are not your concern, whether they believe that the Messiah is God, son of Mary, or that Satan is God, son of Mary. Let people have their beliefs.
Black Elk Speaks (1961)
Context: Crazy Horse dreamed and went into the world where there is nothing but the spirits of all things. That is the real world that is behind this one, and everything we see here is something like a shadow from that one. He was on his horse in that world, and the horse and himself on it and the trees and the grass and the stones and everything were made of spirit, and nothing was hard, and everything seemed to float. His horse was standing still there, and yet it danced around like a horse made only of shadow, and that is how he got his name, which does not mean that his horse was crazy or wild, but that in his vision it danced around in that queer way.
It was this vision that gave him his great power, for when he went into a fight, he had only to think of that world to be in it again, so that he could go through anything and not be hurt. Until he was killed at the Soldiers' Town on White River, he was wounded only twice, once by accident and both times by some one of his own people when he was not expecting trouble and was not thinking; never by an enemy. He was fifteen years old when he was wounded by accident; and the other time was when he was a young man and another man was jealous of him because the man's wife liked Crazy Horse.
They used to say that he carried a sacred stone with him, like one he had seen in some vision, and that when he was in danger, the stone always got heavy and protected him somehow. That, they used to say, was the reason that no horse he ever rode lasted very long. I do not know about this; maybe people only thought it; but it is a fact that he never kept one horse long. They wore out. I think it was only the power of his great vision that made him great.
And Quiet Flows the Don (1934)
Srimad Bhagavatam, Bhaktivedanta Book Trust, 1999. Canto 7, Chapter 4, verse 5-7, purport. Vedabase http://www.vedabase.com/en/sb/7/4/5-7
Quotes from Books: Loving God, Quotes from Books: Regression of Science
Source: The Elephant's Journey (2008), p. 18
Women and Roses.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
"He" - Written 11 August 1925; first published in Weird Tales, Vol. 8, No. 3 (September 1926)
Fiction
On Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman, as quoted in The New York Times (9 May 1984)
Reverend John Hale
Source: The Crucible (1953)
As quoted in The New York Times (21 June 1939)
“The stone that the builder refused shall be the head corner stone.”
Human, All Too Human (1878)
“Do not forget, man, consumed by lust:
you—are the stone, the desert, are death …”
Dionysian-Dithyrambs (1888)
“Drops of water hollow out a stone.”
Gutta cavat lapidem
IV, x, 5; Arthur Leslie Wheeler translation
Epistulae ex Ponto (Letters From the Black Sea)
“Dripping water hollows out stone, not through force but through persistence.”
“Anarchy is the stepping stone to absolute power.”
Source: Napoleon Bonaparte, Napoleon's War Maxims: With His Social and Political Thoughts (1804-15), Gale & Polden, (1899) p. 148
"A Discovery" (December 1941); published as "On Discovering a Butterfly" in The New Yorker (15 May 1943); also in Nabokov's Butterflies: Unpublished and Uncollected Writings (2000) Edited and annotated by Brian Boyd and Robert Michael Pyle, p. 274.
“Before comfort had been squeezed out of the hard land, like blood out of stone.”
Half a Life (2001)
Pupils at Sais (1799)
Context: Over his own heart and his own thoughts he watched attentively. He knew not whither his longing was carrying him. As he grew up, he wandered far and wide; viewed other lands, other seas, new atmospheres, new rocks, unknown plants, animals, men; descended into caverns, saw how in courses and varying strata the edifice of the Earth was completed, and fashioned clay into strange figures of rocks. By and by, he came to find everywhere objects already known, but wonderfully mingled, united; and thus often extraordinary things came to shape in him. He soon became aware of combinations in all, of conjunctures, concurrences. Erelong, he no more saw anything alone. — In great variegated images, the perceptions of his senses crowded round him; he heard, saw, touched and thought at once. He rejoiced to bring strangers together. Now the stars were men, now men were stars, the stones animals, the clouds plants; he sported with powers and appearances; he knew where and how this and that was to be found, to be brought into action; and so himself struck over the strings, for tones and touches of his own.
As I Please (17 February 1947) http://www.telelib.com/authors/O/OrwellGeorge/essay/tribune/AsIPlease19470214.html
"As I Please" (1943–1947)
As I Please (25 February 1944) http://orwell.ru/library/articles/As_I_Please/english/eaip_01
"As I Please" (1943–1947)
Comments at an Obama Foundation event, Chicago (29 October 2019), as quoted in "Obama Calls Out Online Call-Out Culture: 'That’s Not Activism"", Rolling Stone (30 October 2019) https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/obama-calls-out-call-out-culture-not-activism-905600/
2019
2016, Memorial Service for Fallen Dallas Police Officers (July 2016)
An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth (1940), Introduction, p. 15
1940s
“A stumbling block to the pessimist is a stepping-stone to the optimist.”
Source: The Spiritual Life (1947), p. 164
Context: Anyone who proposes to do good must not expect people to roll stones out of his way, but must accept his lot calmly if they even roll a few more upon it. A strength which becomes clearer and stronger through its experience of such obstacles is the only strength that can conquer them. Resistance is only a waste of strength.
Variant: I would not give a fig for anybody's contempt for death. If its roots are not sunk deep in an acceptance of responsibility, this contempt for death is the sign either of an impoverished soul or of youthful extravagance.
Source: Terre des Hommes (1939), Ch. II : The Men
Context: To be a man is, precisely, to be responsible. It is to feel shame at the sight of what seems to be unmerited misery. It is to take pride in a victory won by one's comrades. It is to feel, when setting one's stone, that one is contributing to the building of the world.
There is a tendency to class such men with toreadors and gamblers. People extol their contempt for death. But I would not give a fig for anybody's contempt for death. If its roots are not sunk deep in an acceptance of responsibility, this contempt for death is the sign either of an impoverished soul or of youthful extravagance.
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 596.
“The seed must grow regardless
Of the fact that it’s planted in stone”
Source: The Rose That Grew from Concrete
originally in The Chronicle of Satan (1905).
The Mysterious Stranger (1916)
On the Book of Mormon, Roughing It (published 1872), pp. 58-59
Roughing It (1872)
“While God waits for his temple to be built of love, men bring stones.”
41
Fireflies (1928)
Socrates, pp. 147–8
Eupalinos ou l'architecte (1921)
God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian (1999)
The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), II Linear Perspective
The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), XVI Physical Geography
As quoted in The 48 Laws of Power (2000) by Robert Greene, p. 33
“Love, Fear, and Esteem, — Write these on three stones.”
"Of servants"
The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), X Studies and Sketches for Pictures and Decorations
The Soul of Man Under Socialism (1891)
Source: Wilde, Oscar, (1891 / 1912) The Soul of Man Under Socialism, London, Arthur L. Humphreys. Retrieved from University of California Libraries Archive.org https://archive.org 13 February 2018 https://archive.org/details/soulofmanunderso00wildiala
“One must have a heart of stone to read the death of little Nell without laughing.”
Cited as attributed to Zola in The Heretic's Handbook of Quotations : Cutting Comments on Burning Issues (1992) by Charles Bufe, p. 183, but no earlier citation has yet been located, and this appears to be very similar to remarks often attributed to Denis Diderot: "Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest" and "Let us strangle the last king with the guts of the last priest" — these are loosely derived from a statement Diderot actually did make: "his hands would plait the priest's entrails, for want of a rope, to strangle kings."
This quote appeared in soviet popular-scientific work "Satellite atheist" (Sputnik ateista) http://books.google.ru/books/about/%D0%A1%D0%BF%D1%83%D1%82%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%BA_%D0%B0%D1%82%D0%B5%D0%B8%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B0.html?id=Lq9AAAAAIAAJ&redir_esc=y (1959), p. 491.
Disputed
“Minute by minute they live:
The stone's in the midst of all.”
St. 3
Michael Robartes and the Dancer (1921), Easter, 1916 http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1477/
The Magi http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1652/
Responsibilities (1914)
St. 3
Michael Robartes and the Dancer (1921), Easter, 1916 http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1477/
