Quotes about straw (109 quotes, page 2)

“The only simplicity for which I would give a straw is that which is on the other side of the complex — not that which never has divined it.”

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (1841–1935) United States Supreme Court justice

"Holmes-Pollock Letters : The Correspondence of Mr. Justice Holmes and Sir Frederick Pollock, 1874-1932" (2nd ed., 1961), p. 109.
Often quoted as "I wouldn't give a fig for the simplicity on this side of complexity; I would give my right arm for the simplicity on the far side of complexity" and attributed to Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr..
1930s

“I know paper straws are better for the environment and I’m all for that. But for the love of everything that is under the sun, can we agree that paper straws actually SUCK more than the person using them? We gotta do better than this!”

Antonio Fresco (1983) American DJ, music producer, and radio personality

Twitter statement about environmental impact of plastic straws. https://twitter.com/djantoniofresco/status/1199086440031956993 (25 November 2019)

Sun , Personality , Love , Making love

“America needs a majority party of the democratic Left. This is not a proposal for a tightly disciplined party on the old European model (I see no reason to add to the amusement of the politcal scientists who have been setting up, and shredding, that straw man for a generation). It is simply a recognition of the fact that, to solve problems which the Government passively records, there must be radical departures and a political movement capable of initiating them. The real ideologues in this period are those utopian pragmatists who believe that the society can bumble its way through a revolution. They are fanatics of moderation.”

Michael Harrington (1928–1989) American political writer

Source: Toward a Democratic Left: A Radical Program for a New Majority (1968), Chapter 10, "For a New Party"

Way , Problem , Departure

“I wonder at the strange fidelity of your officers that they neglect to tell you of the true state of things, but cover a blazing fire with straw ! May the sun of your royalty continue to shine above the horizon of greatness !”

Shivaji (1627–1680) founder of Maratha Empire

Letter to Aurangzeb

Sun

“Petty souls are more susceptible to ambition than great ones, just as straw or thatched cottages burn more easily than palaces.”

Nicolas Chamfort (1741–1794) French writer

L'ambition prend aux petites âmes plus facilement qu'aux grandes, comme le feu prend plus aisément à la paille, aux chaumières qu'aux palais.
Maximes et Pensées, #68
Reflections

Soul

“According to Sir Anthony Fitzherbert it was the custom in England to shear wheat and rye and to leave the straw standing after the third method described by Varro, the purpose being to preserve the straw to be cut later for thatching, as threshing It would necessarily destroy its value for thatching. It was the custom in England, however, to mow barley and oats.”

Anthony Fitzherbert (1470–1538) English judge, scholar and legal author

A Virginia farmer (translator) (1913) in Varro's Rerum Rusticarum Libri Tres https://archive.org/stream/cu31924062805209#page/n181/mode/2up/search/husbandry, p. 161-2.