Quotes about stone
page 7

Henry David Thoreau photo
William Lenthall photo
Karl Pilkington photo

“People who live in a glass house have to answer the door - Karl invents his own phrase based on Those who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.”

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

Podcast Series 1 Episode 6
On Sayings

Narendra Modi photo

“But so far as the Hindus are concerned, this period was a prolonged spell of darkness which ended only when the Marathas and the Jats and the Sikhs broke the back of Islamic imperialism in the middle of the 18th century. The situation of the Hindus under Muslim rule is summed up by the author of Tãrîkh-i-Wassãf in the following words: “The vein of the zeal of religion beat high for the subjection of infidelity and destruction of idols… The Mohammadan forces began to kill and slaughter, on the right and the left unmercifully, throughout the impure land, for the sake of Islãm, and blood flowed in torrents. They plundered gold and silver to an extent greater than can be conceived, and an immense number of precious stones as well as a great variety of cloths… They took captive a great number of handsome and elegant maidens and children of both sexes, more than pen can enumerate… In short, the Mohammadan army brought the country to utter ruin and destroyed the lives of the inhabitants and plundered the cities, and captured their off-springs, so that many temples were deserted and the idols were broken and trodden under foot, the largest of which was Somnãt. The fragments were conveyed to Dehlî and the entrance of the Jãmi‘ Masjid was paved with them so that people might remember and talk of this brilliant victory… Praise be to Allah the lord of the worlds.””

The Story of Islamic Imperialism in India (1994)

Bob Dylan photo

“I put one on the turntable and when the needle dropped, I was stunned — didn't know if I was stoned or straight… All these songs together, one after another made my head spin. It made me want to gasp. It was like the land parted.”

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

Referring to the first Woody Guthrie record he ever heard, p. 243
Chronicles: Vol. One (2004)

Richard Leakey photo
Philip K. Dick photo
Jahangir photo

“On the 24th of the same month I went to see the fort of Kangra, and gave an order that the Qazi, the Chief Justice (Mir'Adl), and other learned men of Islam should accompany me and carry out in the fort whatever was customary, according to the religion of Muhammad. Briefly, having traversed about one koss, I went up to the top of the fort, and by the grace of God, the call to prayer and the reading of the Khutba and the slaughter of a bullock which had not taken place from the commencement of the building of the fort till now, were carried out in my presence. I prostrated myself in thanksgiving for this great gift, which no king had hoped to receive, and ordered a lofty mosque to be built inside the fort' ….'After going round the fort I went to see the temple of Durga, which is known as Bhawan. A world has here wandered in the desert of error. Setting aside the infidels whose custom is the worship of idols, crowds of the people of Islam, traversing long distances, bring their offerings and pray to the black stone (image)' Some maintain that this stone, which is now a place of worship for the vile infidels, is not the stone which was there originally, but that a body of the people of Islam came and carried off the original stone, and threw it into the bottom of the river, with the intent that no one could get at it. For a long time the tumult of the infidels and idol-worshippers had died away in the world, till a lying brahman hid a stone for his own ends, and going to the Raja of the time said: 'I saw Durga in a dream, and she said to me: They have thrown me into a certain place: quickly go and take me up.”

Jahangir (1569–1627) 4th Mughal Emperor

The Raja, in the simplicity of his heart, and greedy for the offerings of gold that would come to him, accepted the tale of the brahman and sent a number of people with him, and brought that stone, and kept it in this place with honour, and started again the shop of error and misleading
Kangra (Himachal Pradesh) , Tuzuk-i-Jahangiri, translated into English by Alexander Rogers, first published 1909-1914, New Delhi Reprint, 1978, Vol. II, pp. 223-25.

Bawa Muhaiyaddeen photo
Vitruvius photo

“Voice is a flowing breath of air, perceptible to the hearing by contact. It moves in an endless number of circular rounds, like the innumerably increasing circular waves which appear when a stone is thrown into smooth water, and which keep on spreading indefinitely from the centre unless interrupted by narrow limits, or by some obstruction which prevents such waves from reaching their end in due formation. When they are interrupted by obstructions, the first waves, flowing back, break up the formation of those which follow.”

Alternate translation: The voice is a flowing breath, made sensible to the organ of hearing by the movements it produces in the air. It is propagated in infinite numbers of circular zones, exactly as when a stone is thrown into a pool of standing water countless circular undulations are generated therein, which, increasing as they recede from the center, spread out over a great distance, unless the narrowness of the locality or some obstacle prevent their reaching their termination; for the first line or waves, when impeded by obstructions, throw by their backward swell the succeeding circular lines of waves into confusion. Quoted by Ernst Mach, The Science of Mechanics: A Critical and Historical Account of its Development (1893, 1960) Tr. Thomas J. McCormack
Source: De architectura (The Ten Books On Architecture) (~ 15BC), Book V, Chapter IV, Sec. 6

Clement Attlee photo
Hilaire Belloc photo
John Betjeman photo

“Stony seaboard, far and foreign,
Stony hills poured over space,
Stony outcrop of the Burren,
Stones in every fertile place.”

John Betjeman (1906–1984) English poet, writer and broadcaster

"In Ireland with Emily" from New Bats in Old Belfries.
Poetry

Marguerite Yourcenar photo
Jeanette Winterson photo
Charles Lyell photo
Alfred Noyes photo
Christopher Hitchens photo

“"Bombing Afghanistan back into the Stone Age" was quite a favourite headline for some wobbly liberals… But an instant's thought shows that Afghanistan is being, if anything, bombed OUT of the Stone Age.”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

2001-11-15
Christopher Hitchens on why peace-lovers must welcome this war
The Mirror
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/WAR+ON+TERROR%3a+CHRISTOPHER+HITCHENS+on+why+peace-lovers+must+welcome...-a080078072: On the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan
2000s, 2001

Muhammad bin Tughluq photo
Robert E. Howard photo
Ryan Adams photo
Fred Polak photo
John F. Kennedy photo

“I appreciate very much your generous invitation to be here tonight. You bear heavy responsibilities these days and an article I read some time ago reminded me of how particularly heavily the burdens of present day events bear upon your profession. You may remember that in 1851 the New York Herald Tribune under the sponsorship and publishing of Horace Greeley, employed as its London correspondent an obscure journalist by the name of Karl Marx.
We are told that foreign correspondent Marx, stone broke, and with a family ill and undernourished, constantly appealed to Greeley and managing editor Charles Dana for an increase in his munificent salary of $5 per installment, a salary which he and Engels ungratefully labeled as the "lousiest petty bourgeois cheating."
But when all his financial appeals were refused, Marx looked around for other means of livelihood and fame, eventually terminating his relationship with the Tribune and devoting his talents full time to the cause that would bequeath the world the seeds of Leninism, Stalinism, revolution and the cold war.
If only this capitalistic New York newspaper had treated him more kindly; if only Marx had remained a foreign correspondent, history might have been different. And I hope all publishers will bear this lesson in mind the next time they receive a poverty-stricken appeal for a small increase in the expense account from an obscure newspaper man.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

1961, Address to ANPA

Abraham Joshua Heschel photo
Curtis LeMay photo

“My solution to the problem would be to tell [the North Vietnamese Communists] frankly that they've got to draw in their horns and stop their aggression or we're going to bomb them into the Stone Age. And we would shove them back into the Stone Age with Air power or Naval power—not with ground forces.”

Curtis LeMay (1906–1990) American general and politician

Mission With LeMay: My Story (1965), p. 565. In an interview two years after the publication of this book, General LeMay said, "I never said we should bomb them back to the Stone Age. I said we had the capability to do it. I want to save lives on both sides"; reported in The Washington Post (October 4, 1968), p. A8. Many years later LeMay would claim that this was his ghost writer's overwriting.

“There may be some tenderness in the conscience and yet the will be a very stone; and as long as the will stands out, there is no broken heart.”

Richard Alleine (1611–1681) English clergyman

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 615.

Hugh Plat photo
Edward Lear photo

“There he heard a Lady talking,
To some milk-white Hens of Dorking,—
'Tis the lady Jingly Jones!
On that little heap of stones
Sits the Lady Jingly Jones!”

Edward Lear (1812–1888) British artist, illustrator, author and poet

St. 2.
The Courtship of the Yonghy-Bongy-Bò http://www.nonsenselit.org/Lear/ll/ybb.html (1877)

“In consequence of the great fear which fell upon Jaipál, who confessed he had seen death before the appointed time, he sent a deputation to the Amír soliciting peace, on the promise of his paying down a sum of money, and offering to obey any order he might receive respecting his elephants and his country. The Amir Subuktigín consented on account of mercy he felt towards those who were his vassals, or for some other reason which seemed expedient to him. But the Sultán Yamínu-d daula Mahmúd addressed the messengers in a harsh voice, and refused to abstain from battle, until he should obtain a complete victory suited to his zeal for the honour of Islám and the Musulmáns, and one which he was confident God would grant to his arms. So they returned, and Jaipál being in great alarm, again sent the most humble supplications that the battle might cease saying, "You have seen the impetuosity of the Hindus and their indifference to death, whenever any calamity befalls them, as at this moment. If therefore, you refuse to grant peace in the hope of obtaining plunder, tribute, elephants and prisoners, then there is no alternative for us but to mount the horse of stern determination, destroy our property, take out the eyes of our elephants, cast our children into fire, and rush out on each other with sword and spear, so that all that will be left to you to conquer and seize is stones and dirt, dead bodies, and scattered bones."”

Sabuktigin (942–997) Founder of the Ghaznavid Empire

Elliot and Dowson, History of India as told by its own Historians, Volume II, pp. 20-21. Translation of Tarikh-i-Yamini of al-Utbi.

W. H. Auden photo
Ralph Waldo Emerson photo

“The hand that rounded Peter's dome,
And groined the aisles of Christian Rome,
Wrought in a sad sincerity,
Himself from God he could not free;
He builded better than he knew,
The conscious stone to beauty grew.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

St. 2
1840s, Poems (1847), The Problem http://www.emersoncentral.com/poems/problem.htm

Abbie Hoffman photo
Max Pechstein photo

“What a variety of shapes exists in the lithograph when one prepares the stone for printing, etches it, and prints oneself. Above all, one must do the printing oneself!”

Max Pechstein (1881–1955) German artist

quote, c. 1920; in Buchheim, Künstlergemeinschaft Brücke, p. 303; as cited in 'The Revival of Printmaking in Germany', I. K. Rigby; in German Expressionist Prints and Drawings - Essays Vol 1.; published by Museum Associates, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, California & Prestel-Verlag, Germany, 1986, pp. 40-41

Dong Fuxiang photo

“Jung Lu has the guns which my army needs; with their aid not a stone would be left standing in the whole of the Legation Quarter.”

Dong Fuxiang (1839–1908) Chinese general

[The Siege at Peking, Peter Fleming, 1959, NEW YORK 49 East 33rd Street, New York 16, N.Y, HARPER & BROTHERS, 226, 1-9-2011, One account describes an audience which Tung had of the Empress Dowager on 23 June, the third day of the Siege, at which he complained that 'Jung Lu has the guns which my army needs; with their aid not a stone would be left standing in the whole of the Legation Quarter.' The Empress Dowager, who had been painting a design of bamboos on silk when the warrior was announced, dismissed him with contumely. 'Your tail,' she said elliptically, 'is becoming too heavy to wag.' Ching-Shan mentions Tung's grievance about guns a week later.]

“If a man’s deeds do not outlive him, of what value is a mark in stone?”

Sean Russell (1952) author

Source: World Without End (1995), Chapter 24 (p. 341)

Joaquin Miller photo

“Who now shall accuse and arraign us?
What man shall condemn and disown?
Since Christ has said only the stainless
Shall cast at his fellows a stone.”

Joaquin Miller (1837–1913) American judge

The Danites: and Other Choice Selections from the Writings of Joaquin Miller (1877), p. 52.

Viktor Schauberger photo

“It is possible to regulate watercourses over any given distance without embankment works; to transport timber and other materials, even when heavier than water, for example ore, stones, etc., down the centre of such water-courses; to raise the height of the water table in the surrounding countryside and to endow the water with all those elements necessary for the prevailing vegetation. Furthermore it is possible in this way to render timber and other such materials non-inflammable and rot resistant; to produce drinking and spa-water for man, beast and soil of any desired composition and performance artificially, but in the way that it occurs in Nature; to raise water in a vertical pipe without pumping devices; to produce any amount of electricity and radiant energy almost without cost; to raise soil quality and to heal cancer, tuberculosis and a variety of nervous disorders… the practical implementation of this … would without doubt signify a complete reorientation in all areas of science and technology. By application of these new found laws, I have already constructed fairly large installations in the spheres of log-rafting and river regulation, which as is known, have functioned faultlessly for a decade, and which today still present insoluble enigmas to the various scientific disciplines concerned.”

Viktor Schauberger (1885–1958) austrian philosopher and inventor

Viktor Schauberger: Our Senseless Toil (1934)

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel photo

“Aristotle (De Anima, I. 1) makes in the first place the general remark that it appears as if the soul must, on the one hand, be regarded in its freedom as independent and as separable from the body, since in thinking it is independent; and, on the other hand, since in the emotions it appears to be united with the body and not separate, it must also be looked on as being inseparable from it; for the emotions show themselves as materialized Notions (λόγοι έννοια), as material modes of what is spiritual. With this a twofold method of considering the soul, also known to Aristotle, comes into play, namely the purely rational or logical view, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the physical or physiological; these we still see practiced side by side. According to the one view, anger, for instance, is looked on as an eager desire for retaliation or the like; according to the other view it is the surging upward of the heartblood and the warm element in man. The former is the rational, the latter the material view of anger; just as one man may define a house as a shelter against wind, rain, and other destructive agencies, while another defines it as consisting of wood and stone; that is to say, the former gives the determination and the form, or the purpose of the thing, while the latter specifies the material it is made of, and its necessary conditions.”

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Lectures on the Philosophy of History Vol 2 1837 translated by ES Haldane and Francis H. Simson first translated 1894 p. 181
Lectures on the Philosophy of History (1832), Volume 2

Steve Jobs photo
Honinbo Sansa photo

“In go, when my stones are in difficulty I look for a ko to try to live—when those possibilities all fail there is nothing I can do.”

Honinbo Sansa (1559–1623) go player, founder of the prestigious Hon'inbō school

Last words, as reported in Dictionary of Basic Tesuji by Fujisawa Shuko, trans. Steven Bretherick (Slate & Shell, 2007), Vol. IV, p. 23

Vitruvius photo

“Next comes the consideration of stone quarries from which dimension stone and supplies of rubble to be used in building are taken and brought together.”

Source: De architectura (The Ten Books On Architecture) (~ 15BC), Book II, Chapter VII "Stone" Sec. 1

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow photo

“Into a world unknown,—the corner-stone of a nation.”

Part V; referring to Plymouth Rock
The Courtship of Miles Standish (1858)

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow photo

“Chorus of the Eumenides: …
With useless endeavour
Forever, forever,
Is Sisyphus rolling
His stone up the mountain!”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) American poet

The Masque of Pandora and Other Poems (1875)

Salvador Dalí photo
William James photo
Johannes Kepler photo
Fulke Greville, 1st Baron Brooke photo
Ernest Flagg photo
Ramakrishna photo
Vincent Van Gogh photo
Brooks D. Simpson photo
Alfred Noyes photo
Edward O. Wilson photo
Eduardo Torroja photo
Thomas Henry Huxley photo
Charles Reis Felix photo
Michael Savage photo

“I intend to make this day forward the first day of the rest of my life. We can change our lives. You say, 'Well, what's wrong with your life, Michael?' Well, it's not that there's anything wrong with my life, but it's not what I want it to be. I don't feel that I'm inspiring people in the way I want to inspire them. You see, you can inspire through hate; you can inspire through love, hope, humor – the positives. I look at the history of the world, and I look at the world today, and I realize that if we don't inspire each other through positive attributes – love, hope and humor – we're gonna descend into the barbarism of the Left and the barbarism of ISIS. You like me to be hard, you like me to be tough, you like me to give you the breaking news, you like me to be cynical, you like me to analytical, you like me to give you stuff that you don't hear anywhere else – I get that. But there's a limit to that. There's a lot of area beyond all that.I think of Christmas. Christianity is the religion of peace. Christianity is the true religion of peace. 'Turn the other cheek.' 'Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.' These are messages that come from Christianity. What can you do in an age of deceit and lies and terror? You can go to church again. However un-needing you think you really are, you know in your heart that there's something missing in you. You know that you crave something greater. Because the human being is not a dog. We are unique creatures. And we need something different than the bear, the dog, the snake and the eagle. What is that thing that we need? It's that 'thing' called God.The media has promulgated the idea, and promoted the idea, that we only need food and fornication. And so when people are empty that's what they seek. And when they are really empty, what happens? They become drug addicts. They start with marijuana, they end up with heroin, crack, you name it. As God has been driven out of America, drugs have entered America. What does an empty soul look to do? An empty soul looks to fill itself. Just as an empty vessel needs to be filled with a liquid to be complete, an empty human being needs to fill itself to be complete. And how does it fill itself? I know, again, many of you will laugh because you're cynical; it's through those things I'm talking about – inspiration. Do you think a musician can play one day without inspiration from somewhere? The greatest artists in the history of the world were not drug-addicts. They were usually God-addicts. Look at the greatest art in history, you'll find most of them were super religious people, who literally saw God in their living room, and they took the power of God and that was transmitted through the paintbrush, or through that piece of marble. How could a man like Rodin take a piece of inert stone, and inside that stone see the essence of the human form, and sculpt from that block of inert stone, a marble, the portrait of a human being that looks so real – a hundred years later I go and look at them in the museum, and literally inside that carved eye I can see the person; how is that possible? How? It's a different show than I've ever done in my 21 years, because each day to me – I must tell you – I see as my last day, my last day on Earth.”

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

The Savage Nation (1995- ), 2015

Koxinga photo

“I will give you more and stronger ones. But if you still persist in refusing to listen to reason and decline to do my bidding, and if you wish deliberately to rush to your ruin, then I will shortly, in your presence, order your Castle to be stormed. (Here he pointed with one hand towards Fort Provintia.) My smart boys will attack it, conquer it, and demolish it in such a way, that not one stone will remain standing. If I wish to set my forces to work, then I am able to move Heaven and Earth; wherever I go, I am destined to win. Therefore take warning, and think the matter well over.”

Koxinga (1624–1662) Chinese military leader

Formosa under the Dutch: described from contemporary records, with explanatory notes and a bibliography of the island, 1903, William Campbell, Kegan Paul, 424, Dec. 20 2011 http://books.google.com/books?id=OpdMq-YJoeoC&pg=PA423&dq=koxinga+formosa+always+belonged+to+china&hl=en&ei=vsjiTergDM3TgAekqbzKBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=7&ved=0CEQQ6AEwBg#v=onepage&q=same%20doom%20had%20they%20not%20taken%20to%20flight%20and%20gone%20out%20to%20sea.&f=false, Original from the University of Michigan(LONDON : KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER & CO. LTD DRYDEN HOUSE, 43 GERRARD STREET, SOHO MDCCCCIII Edinburgh : T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to His Majesty)

Emily Dickinson photo
Oliver Wendell Holmes photo
William James photo

“Every Jack sees in his own particular Jill charms and perfections to the enchantment of which we stolid onlookers are stone-cold. And which has the superior view of the absolute truth, he or we? Which has the more vital insight into the nature of Jill's existence, as a fact? Is he in excess, being in this matter a maniac? or are we in defect, being victims of a pathological anesthesia as regards Jill's magical importance? Surely the latter; surely to Jack are the profounder truths revealed; surely poor Jill's palpitating little life-throbs are among the wonders of creation, are worthy of this sympathetic interest; and it is to our shame that the rest of us cannot feel like Jack. For Jack realizes Jill concretely, and we do not. He struggles toward a union with her inner life, divining her feelings, anticipating her desires, understanding her limits as manfully as he can, and yet inadequately, too; for he also is afflicted with some blindness, even here. Whilst we, dead clods that we are, do not even seek after these things, but are contented that that portion of eternal fact named Jill should be for us as if it were not. Jill, who knows her inner life, knows that Jack's way of taking it - so importantly - is the true and serious way; and she responds to the truth in him by taking him truly and seriously, too. May the ancient blindness never wrap its clouds about either of them again! Where would any of us be, were there no one willing to know us as we really are or ready to repay us for our insight by making recognizant return? We ought, all of us, to realize each other in this intense, pathetic, and important way.”

William James (1842–1910) American philosopher, psychologist, and pragmatist

"What Makes a Life Significant?"
1910s, Talks to Teachers on Psychology and to Students on Some of Life's Ideals (1911)

Joan Maragall photo

“Think deeply about this: what are you going to ask of Christ when you are in his Church? You come stepping in softly, seeking quiet under her vaulted roofs (unless, of course, you come out of mere vanity) in order to forget your problems and preoccupations [-] languidly immersing yourself in the majesty of the sacred chorales and in the aromatic clouds of incense: and then to sleep[-] But this is not the peace of Christ. My peace I give you, my peace I leave you. He said My, which is not the peace of this world. But you want to establish the Church in the peace of the world, and that is why the others, when they come, cannot enter without war cries rising from their overwrought lungs. They rebel, filling the temple with blashemous roars, they eject the terrified faithful, who had been half asleep, they insult or kill the ministers at the altar, knock over the altar itself, smash the stone saints, burn the church [-] so it is that she once again becomes, for them, the church of the Christ that died on the cross. [-] This time, do not leave her rebuilding to others. Do not wish to put up sturdier walls for these will not give her a better defense [-] Nor should you ask the rich to contribute too much money for the reconstruction, lest the poor, should receive the benefice with mistrust. Let it be the poor who rebuild her, for then they will do so according to their fashion and only in this way will they love her.”

Joan Maragall (1860–1911) Spanish writer
Benjamín Netanyahu photo

“Israel is the nation state of the Jewish people, which honors the individual rights of all its citizens, I repeat this is our state. The Jewish state. Lately, there are people who are trying to destabilize this and therefore destabilize the foundations of our existence and our rights, so today we have made a law in stone. This is our country. This is our language. This is our anthem and this is our flag. Long live the state of Israel.”

Benjamín Netanyahu (1949) Israeli prime minister

About the Basic Law: Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People, as quoted in Israel's Parliament Has Passed a Controversial Jewish Nation Bill http://time.com/5342702/israel-jewish-nation-state-bill/ (July 19, 2018) by Ilan Ben Zion, The Times.
2010s, 2018

Mark Kingwell photo

“All social space is suffused with political meanings and agendas, the very stones and walls a kind of testament to the ongoing struggles for liberation and justices.”

Mark Kingwell (1963) Canadian philosopher

Source: The World We Want (2000), Chapter 4, Spaces And Dreams, p. 174.

Shashi Tharoor photo
Georges Braque photo
Stephen King photo
Richard Lovelace photo
Theodore Roszak photo
Clement of Alexandria photo

“To me, therefore, that Thracian Orpheus, that Theban, and that Methymnaean,--men, and yet unworthy of the name,--seem to have been deceivers, who, under the pretence of poetry corrupting human life, possessed by a spirit of artful sorcery for purposes of destruction, celebrating crimes in their orgies, and making human woes the materials of religious worship, were the first to entice men to idols; nay, to build up the stupidity of the nations with blocks of wood and stone,--that is, statues and images,--subjecting to the yoke of extremest bondage the truly noble freedom of those who lived as free citizens under heaven by their songs and incantations. But not such is my song, which has come to loose, and that speedily, the bitter bondage of tyrannizing demons; and leading us back to the mild and loving yoke of piety, recalls to heaven those that had been cast prostrate to the earth. It alone has tamed men, the most intractable of animals; the frivolous among them answering to the fowls of the air, deceivers to reptiles, the irascible to lions, the voluptuous to swine, the rapacious to wolves. The silly are stocks and stones, and still more senseless than stones is a man who is steeped in ignorance. As our witness, let us adduce the voice of prophecy accordant with truth, and bewailing those who are crushed in ignorance and folly: "For God is able of these stones to raise up children to Abraham;" and He, commiserating their great ignorance and hardness of heart who are petrified against the truth, has raised up a seed of piety, sensitive to virtue, of those stones--of the nations, that is, who trusted in stones. Again, therefore, some venomous and false hypocrites, who plotted against righteousness, he once called "a brood of vipers."”

Clement of Alexandria (150–215) Christian theologian

But if one of those serpents even is willing to repent, and follows the Word, he becomes a man of God.
Exhortation to the Heathen

Ray Bradbury photo
Mahmud of Ghazni photo

“About this time the King learned that the inhabitants of two hilly tracts, denominated Kuriat and Nardein, continued the worship of idols and had not embraced the faith of Islam' Mahmood resolved to carry the war against these infidels, and accordingly marched towards their country' The Ghiznevide general, Ameer Ally, the son of Arslan Jazib, was now sent with a division of the army to reduce Nardein, which he accomplished, pillaging the country, and carrying away many of the people captives. In Nardein was a temple, which Ameer Ally destroyed, bringing from thence a stone on which were curious inscriptions, and which according to the Hindoos, must have been 40,000 years old…'The celebrated temple of Somnat, situated in the province of Guzerat, near the island of Dew, was in those times said to abound in riches, and was greatly frequented by devotees from all parts of Hindoostan' Mahmood marched from Ghizny in the month of Shaban AH 415 (AD Sept. 1024), with his army, accompanied by 30,000 of the youths of Toorkistan and the neighbouring countries, who followed him without pay, for the purpose of attacking this temple'…'Some historians affirm that the idol was brought from Mecca, where it stood before the time of the Prophet, but the Brahmins deny it, and say that it stood near the harbour of Dew since the time of Krishn, who was concealed in that place about 4000 years ago' Mahmood, taking the same precautions as before, by rapid marches reached Somnat without opposition. Here he saw a fortification on a narrow peninsula, washed on three sides by the sea, on the battlements of which appeared a vast host of people in arms' In the morning the Mahomedan troops advancing to the walls, began the assault…”

Mahmud of Ghazni (971–1030) Sultan of Ghazni

Tarikh-i-Firishta, translated into English by John Briggs under the title History of the Rise of the Mahomedan Power in India, 4 Volumes, New Delhi Reprint, 1981. p. 38-49
Quotes from Muslim medieval histories

Matthijs Maris photo

“Last year I asked too much of my strength. I can't go on like this. it was not possible for me, I had to step back, I didn't make anything but stones [about his paintings? ] … They wanted to see beautiful paintings but I still couldn't make them, one illusion disappears for the other. I have made Cold reality, and I have made Truth. Is there a truth, also the cold reality is a truth. What exists between them was [only] baroque convention. I threw away everything in the stove... I am messing up my time with them; what is nothing more than material is no art to me; I could not bring it out..”

Matthijs Maris (1839–1917) Dutch painter

translation from original Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018
version in original Dutch / citaat van J. H. Weissenbruch, in het Nederlands: Ik heb verleden jaar een beetje te veel van mijn krachten gevergd, ik kan dat niet volhouden, het was mij niet mogelijk, ik moest weder terug, ik heb niets zitten maken als steenen [over zijn schilderijen?].. .Zij hebben van mij mooie schilderijen willen zien en ik heb ze nog niet kunnen maken, de eene illusie verdwijnt voor de andere, ik heb de koude werkelijkheid gemaakt, en ik heb de Waarheid gemaakt. Is er een waarheid, de koude werkelijkheid is ook een waarheid. Wat daartusschen ligt was baroque conventie. Ik heb alles in de kachel gestopt.. ..ik zit er mijn tijd op te verknoeien; wat materieel is, is voor mij geen kunst. Ik heb die er niet uit kunnen brengen.
in a letter to E. Goossens van Eijndhoven, c. 1886, published in Onze Kunst, 1918, p. 136; as cited in 'Matthijs Maris' in Palet serie; een reeks monografieën over Hollandsche en Vlaamsche schilders https://archive.org/details/paletserieeenree4amstuoft, dr. H. E. v. Gelder; H. J. W. Becht, Amsterdam, pp. 13-14
Matthijs was that year painting his famous work 'The Bride, or Novice taking the Veil / De Kerkbruid' https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Matthijs_Maris#/media/File:Matthijs_Maris_The_Bride,_or_Novice_taking_the_Veil,_c_1887.jpg

Anna Akhmatova photo

“Mary Magdalene beat her breasts and sobbed,
His dear disciple, stone-faced, stared.
His mother stood apart. No other looked
into her secret eyes. Nobody dared.
— 1940-1943”

Anna Akhmatova (1889–1966) Russian modernist poet

Magdalena struggled, cried and moaned.
Piter sank into the stone trance...
Only there, where Mother stood alone,
None has dared cast a single glance.
Translated by Tanya Karshtedt (1996) http://www.poetryloverspage.com/poets/akhmatova/akhmatova_ind.html
Mary Magdalene beat her breast and sobbed,
The beloved disciple turned to stone,
But where the silent Mother stood, there
No one glanced and no one would have dared.
Translated by Judith Hemschemeyer
Requiem; 1935-1940 (1963; 1987), Crucifixion

Walter Scott photo
Takuboku Ishikawa photo

“Like to a stone
That rolls down a hill,
I have come to this day.”

Takuboku Ishikawa (1886–1912) Japanese writer

A Handful of Sand ("Ichiaku no Suna"), as translated by Shio Sakanishi

Roger Ebert photo
Benjamin Ricketson Tucker photo
Indro Montanelli photo
William Wordsworth photo

“A violet by a mossy stone
Half hidden from the eye;
Fair as a star, when only one
Is shining in the sky.”

William Wordsworth (1770–1850) English Romantic poet

She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways, st. ? (1799).
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“Rattle his bones over the stones!
He's only a pauper, whom nobody owns!”

Thomas Noel (poet) (1799–1861) English poet

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

“When I believe a stone is a stone and a cloud a cloud, I am in a state of unconsciousness.”

Antonio Porchia (1885–1968) Italian Argentinian poet

Cuando creo que la piedra es piedra, que la nube es nube, me hallo es un estado de inconsciencia.
Voces (1943)

Scott Lynch photo
Barbara Hepworth photo
Louis Auguste Blanqui photo
Pablo Neruda photo

“If you should ask me where I've been all this time
I have to say "Things happen."
I have to dwell on stones darkening the earth,
on the river ruined in its own duration:
I know nothing save things the birds have lost,
the sea I left behind, or my sister crying.
Why this abundance of places? Why does day lock
with day? Why the dark night swilling round
in our mouths? And why the dead?”

Pablo Neruda (1904–1973) Chilean poet

Si me preguntáis en dónde he estado
debo decir "Sucede."
Debo de hablar del suelo que oscurecen las piedras,
del río que durando se destruye:
no sé sino las cosas que los pájaros pierden,
el mar dejado atrás, o mi hermana llorando.
¿Por qué tantas regiones, por qué un día
se junta con un día? ¿Por qué una negra noche
se acumula en la boca? ¿Por qué muertos?
No Hay Olvido (Sonata) (There's No Forgetting (Sonata) or There is No Oblivion (Sonata)), Residencia II (Residence II), VI, stanza 1.
Alternate translation by Donald D. Walsh:
If you ask me where I have been
I must say "It so happens."
I must speak of the ground darkened by stones,
of the river that enduring is destroyed:
I know only the things that the birds lose,
the sea left behind, or my sister weeping.
Why so many regions, why does a day
join a day? Why does a black night
gather in the mouth? Why dead people?
Residencia en la Tierra (Residence on Earth) (1933)

Percy Bysshe Shelley photo

“It fetches crops from the rich earth,
It's a good beast biting the ground.
It must have its knife and its board
And its food right under its thigh.
It goes unwillingly through stones,
It skins the field with leg outstretched.”

Iolo Goch (1320–1398) Welsh bard

Cnwd a gyrch mewn cnodig âr,
Cnyw diwael yn cnoi daear.
E fynn ei gyllell a'i fwyd
A'i fwrdd dan fôn ei forddwd.
Gŵr a'i anfodd ar grynfaen,
Gwas a fling a'i goes o’i flaen.
Source: Y Llafurwr (The Labourer), Line 49.

Bion of Borysthenes photo

“Boys throw stones at frogs in fun, but the frogs do not die in fun, but in earnest.”

Bion of Borysthenes (-325–-246 BC) ancient greek philosopher

Variant translation: Boys throw stones at frogs for fun, but the frogs don't die for "fun", but in sober earnest.
As quoted by Plutarch, Moralia, xii. 66