Quotes about wax

A collection of quotes on the topic of wax, likeness, doing, thing.

Quotes about wax

“Si aad u hesho wax aaney qayrkaa heli doonin mustaqbalka, samee wax ka duwan waxa ay sameeyaan.”

Ahmed Omaar (1987)

Source: https://www.pinterest.com/ahmedomaar7/

“Do not erase the designs the child makes in the soft wax of his inner life.”

Maria Montessori (1870–1952) Italian pedagogue, philosopher and physician

Life

“Yon rising Moon that looks for us again —
How oft hereafter will she wax and wane;
How oft hereafter rising look for us
Through this same Garden — and for one in vain!”

Omar Khayyám (1048–1131) Persian poet, philosopher, mathematician, and astronomer

The Rubaiyat (1120)

“I proposed to remedy this defect by employing wax, tallow, or other grease, to lubricate and keep the piston tight. It next occurred to me”

James Watt (1736–1819) British engineer

"Notes on Professor Robison's Dissertation on Steam-engines" (1769)
Context: In Newcomen's engine, the piston is kept tight by water, which could not be applicable in this new method; as, if any of it entered into a partially-exhausted and hot cylinder, it would boil, and prevent the production of a vacuum, and would also cool the cylinder by its evaporation during the descent of the piston. I proposed to remedy this defect by employing wax, tallow, or other grease, to lubricate and keep the piston tight. It next occurred to me, that the mouth of the cylinder being open, the air which entered to act on the piston would cool the cylinder, and condense some steam on again filling it. I therefore proposed to put an air-tight cover upon the cylinder, with a hole and stuffing-box for the piston-rod to slide through, and to admit steam above the piston to act upon it, instead of the atmosphere.... There still remained another source of the destruction of steam, the cooling of the cylinder by the external air, which would produce an internal condensation whenever steam entered it, and which would be repeated every stroke; this I proposed to remedy by an external cylinder, containing steam, surrounded by another of wood, or of some other substance which would conduct heat slowly.

“Do not weep. Do not wax indignant. Understand.”

Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) Dutch philosopher

Understanding

“Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind.”

William Shakespeare Hamlet

Source: Hamlet

“The time has come," the walrus said, "to talk of many things: Of shoes and ships - and sealing wax - of cabbages and kings”

Lewis Carroll (1832–1898) English writer, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer

Source: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass

Shoe, Time

“The time has come
The walrus said
To talk of many things:
Of shoes- and ships-
And sealing wax-
Of cabbages and kings-
And why the sae is boiling hot-
And whether pigs have wings.”

Lewis Carroll book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Source: Alice in Wonderland

Shoe, Time

“Politeness is to human nature what warmth is to wax.”

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) German philosopher

Nature

“The sun by the action of heat makes wax moist and mud dry, hardening the one while it softens the other, by the same operation producing exactly opposite results; thus, from the long-suffering of God, some derive benefit, and others harm; some are softened, while others are hardened.”

Theodoret (393–458) Syrian bishop

As quoted in Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), by Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, p. 263.

God, Suffering, Sun

“It is not also taught you in Scripture, that you should desire St. Rock to preserve you from the pestilence, to pray to St. Barbarra to defend you from thunder or gun-shot, to offer St. Loy an horse of wax, a pig to St. Anthony, a candle to St, Sithine. But I should be too long, if I were to rehearse unto you all the superstitions that have grown out of the invocation and praying to saints departed, wherewith men have been seduced, and God's honour given to creatures.
This was also no small abuse that we called the images by the names of the things, whom they did represent. For we were won't to say, "This is St. Ann's altar;"-"My father is gone a pilgrimage to our Lady of Walsingham;"-" In our church St. James standeth on the right hand of the high altar." These speeches we were wont to use, although they be not to be commended. For St. Austin in the exposition of the 113th Psalm affirmeth, that they who do call such images, as the carpenter hath made, do change the truth of God into a lie. It is not also taught you in all Scripture.
Thus, good children, I have declared how we were wont to abuse images, not that hereby I condemn your fathers, who were men of great devotion, and had an earnest love towards God, although their zeal in all points was not ruled and governed by true knowledge, but they were seduced and blinded partly by the common ignorance that reigned in their time, partly by the covetousness of their teachers, who abused the simplicity of the unlearned people to the maintenance of their own lucre and glory. But this be profitable, for if they had, either Christ would have taught it or the Holy Ghost would have revealed it unto the Apostles, which they did not. And if they did, the Apostles were very negligent that would not make some mention of it, and speak some good word for images, seeing that they speak so many against them. And by this means Anti-christ and his holy Papists had more knowledge or fervent zeal to give s godly things ad profitable for us, than had the very holy saints of Christ, yea more than Christ himself and the Holy Ghost. Now forasmuch, good children, as images be neither necessary nor profitable in our churches and temples, nor were not used at the beginning in Christ's nor the Apostles' time, nor many years after, and that at length they were brought in by bishops of Rome, maugre emperors' teeth; and seeing also, that they be very slanderous to Christ's religion, for by them the name of God is blasphemed among the infidels, Turks, and Jews, which because of our images do call Christian religion, idolatry and worshiping of images: and for as much also, as they have been so wonderfully abused within this realm to the high contumely and dishonor of God, and have been great cause of blindness and of much contention among the King's Majesty's loving subjects and are like so to be still, if they should remain: and chiefly seeing God's word speaketh so much against them, you may hereby right well consider what great causes and ground the King's Majesty had to take them away within his realm, following here in the example of the godly King Hezekias, who brake down the brazen serpent, when he saw it worshiped, and was therefore praised of God, notwithstanding at the first the same was made and set up by God's commandment, and was not only a remembrance of God's benefits, before received, but also a figure of Christ to come. And not only Hezekias, but also Manasses, and Jehosaphat, and Josias, the best kings that were of the Jews, did pull down images in the time of their reign.”

Thomas Cranmer (1489–1556) leader of the English Reformation and Archbishop of Canterbury

The Life, Martyrdom, and Selections from the Writings of Thomas Cranmer https://books.google.com/books?id=FvNeAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA3&lpg=PA3&dq=The+Life,+Martyrdom,+and+Selections+from+the+Writings+of+Thomas+Cranmer+...&source=bl&ots=LbXiMjz5Zp&sig=0pi5SHuxfdt_YUoiJcxvLgr7x5E&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjzmZL_wsfaAhVl6YMKHWubBkcQ6AEILDAB by Thomas Cranmer, p.139-142, (1809)

Love, Men, God, Children

“That is the secret of all culture: it does not provide artificial limbs, wax noses or spectacles—that which can provide these things is, rather, only sham education. Culture is liberation, the removal of all the weeds, rubble and vermin that want to attack the tender buds of the plant.”

Friedrich Nietzsche Untimely Meditations

Untimely Meditations (1876)

Education, Secret

“As a genius of construction man raises himself far above the bee in the following way: whereas the bee builds with wax that he gathers from nature, man builds with the far more delicate conceptual material which he first has to manufacture from himself.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense (1873)

Way, Nature, Bee

“The Duc, pike aloft, closed in upon Augustine; he brayed, he swore, he waxed unreasonable, and the poor little thing, all atremble, retreated like a dove before the bird of prey ready to pounce upon it.”

Marquis de Sade book The 120 Days of Sodom

Le duc, le vit en l'air, serrait Augustine de bien près; il braillait, il jurait, il déraisonnait, et la pauvre petite, toute tremblante, se reculait toujours, comme la colombe devant l'oiseau de proie qui la guette et qui est près d'en faire sa capture.
The Second Day
The 120 Days of Sodom (1785)

Bird

“And now, ladies and gentlemen, that we've enjoyed some good times this evening, and enjoyed some laughter together, I feel it is my obligation to remind you of some of the negative, depressing, dangerous, life-threatening things that life is really all about; things you have not been thinking about tonight, but which will be waiting for you as soon as you leave the theater or as soon as you turn off your television sets. Anal rape, quicksand, body lice, evil spirits, gridlock, acid rain, continental drift, labor violence, flash floods, rabies, torture, bad luck, calcium deficiency, falling rocks, cattle stampedes, bank failure, evil neighbors, killer bees, organ rejection, lynching, toxic waste, unstable dynamite, religious fanatics, prickly heat, price fixing, moral decay, hotel fires, loss of face, stink bombs, bubonic plague, neo-Nazis, friction, cereal weevils, failure of will, chain reaction, soil erosion, mail fraud, dry rot, voodoo curse, broken glass, snake bite, parasites, white slavery, public ridicule, faithless friends, random violence, breach of contract, family scandals, charlatans, transverse myelitis, structural defects, race riots, sunspots, rogue elephants, wax buildup, killer frost, jealous coworkers, root canals, metal fatigue, corporal punishment, sneak attacks, peer pressure, vigilantes, birth defects, false advertising, ungrateful children, financial ruin, mildew, loss of privileges, bad drugs, ill-fitting shoes, widespread chaos, Lou Gehrig's disease, stray bullets, runaway trains, chemical spills, locusts, airline food, shipwrecks, prowlers, bathtub accidents, faulty merchandise, terrorism, discrimination, wrongful cremation, carbon deposits, beef tapeworm, taxation without representation, escaped maniacs, sunburn, abandonment, threatening letters, entropy, nine-mile fever, poor workmanship, absentee landlords, solitary confinement, depletion of the ozone layer, unworthiness, intestinal bleeding, defrocked priests, loss of equilibrium, disgruntled employees, global warming, card sharks, poisoned meat, nuclear accidents, broken promises, contamination of the water supply, obscene phone calls, nuclear winter, wayward girls, mutual assured destruction, rampaging moose, the greenhouse effect, cluster headaches, social isolation, Dutch elm disease, the contraction of the universe, paper cuts, eternal damnation, the wrath of God, and PARANOIAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!”

George Carlin (1937–2008) American stand-up comedian

Playing With Your Head (1986)

Life, God, Bad luck, Children

“Well, I suppose I won't see you for a while. So farewell, good luck, avoid roasted cabbage, don't eat ear wax, and look on the bright side of life!”

Christopher Paolini book Eldest

Angela bidding Eragon goodbye before he leaves for Ellesméra
Eldest (2005)

Life

“If you wish to thoroughly accustom yourself to correct and good positions for your fingers, fasten a frame or a loom divided into squares by threads between your eye and the nude figure which you are representing, and then make the same squares upon the paper where you wish to draw the said nude but very faintly. You should then put a pellet of wax on a part of the network to serve as a mark which as you look at your model should always cover the pit of the throat, or if he should have turned his back make it cover one of the vertebrae of the neck. …The squares you draw may be as much smaller than those of the network in proportion as you wish your figure to be less than life size…”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci (1938), XXIX Precepts of the Painter

Life, Parting, Drawing

“If one takes pleasure in calling the gold standard a "barbarous relic," one cannot object to the application of the same term to every historically determined institution. Then the fact that the British speak English — and not Danish, German, or French — is a barbarous relic too, and every Briton who opposes the substitution of Esperanto for English is no less dogmatic and orthodox than those who do not wax rapturous about the plans for a managed currency.”

Ludwig von Mises book Human Action

The Gold Standard http://mises.org/daily/4153 - LvMI, excerpt from chapter 17 of Human Action Human Action (1949)

Pleasure

“If your head is wax, don't walk in the sun. ”

Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) American author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, inventor, civic activist, …

Sun

“There’s nothing here,” Carter said.
“What do you want?” I asked. “We’ve got wax, some toilet papyrus, an ugly statue.”

Rick Riordan book The Red Pyramid

Source: The Red Pyramid

“The first thing we pulled out was a lump of white gunk.
“Wax,” Carter pronounced.
“Fascinating.”

Rick Riordan book The Red Pyramid

Source: The Red Pyramid

“if you think of a relationship as a living entity, I guess it's one thing if the missing two percent is, like, a fingernail. But when it's the heart, that's a whole different ball of wax.”

Jodi Picoult My Sister's Keeper

Source: My Sister's Keeper

Thinking, Heart

“The wacky thing about those bad guys is that you can't count on them to be obvious. They forget to wax their mustaches and goatees, leave their horns at home, send their black hats to the dry cleaner's. They're funny like that.”

Jim Butcher book White Night

Source: White Night

Guy, Home, Forgetting

“Had you but seen it, I promise you, your high-minded principles would have melted like candle wax. Never would you have wished such beauty away.”

Jennifer Donnelly book Revolution

Source: Revolution

Beauty

“Frustration was my constant companion. I wanted to scream. "What the he-eck are we supposed to doI asked Fang.
He looked at me, and I could tell he was mulling over the problem. He held out a small waxed-paper bag.
Peanut?”

James Patterson (1947) American author

Source: Maximum Ride The Angel Experiment

Problem

“They courted the face on the screen, the face of translucence, the face of wax on which men found it possible to imprint the image of their fantasy.”

Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) writer of novels, short stories, and erotica

Men

“I've had so many bikini waxes, I cry every time I see a Popsicle stick.”

Libba Bray (1964) American teen writer

Source: Beauty Queens

Time, Cry

“What fabrications they are, mothers. Scarecrows, wax dolls for us to stick pins into, crude diagrams. We deny them an existence of their own, we make them up to suit ourselves -- our own hungers, our own wishes, our own deficiencies.”

Margaret Atwood book The Blind Assassin

Source: The Blind Assassin

Hunger

“Please accept this humble fax. My love for you is without wax.”

Dan Brown book Digital Fortress

Source: Digital Fortress

Love

“Do you understand now why books are hated and feared? Because they reveal the pores on the face of life. The comfortable people want only the faces of the full moon, wax, faces without pores, hairless, expressionless.”

Ray Bradbury book Fahrenheit 451

Source: Fahrenheit 451

Life, Hate, People, Books

“Oh, Wax has always been solemn, but when he's at his best, there's a smirk underneath.”

Brandon Sanderson (1975) American fantasy writer

Source: The Alloy of Law

“I need something, Wax. A place to look. You always did the thinking.”
“Yes, having a brain helps with that, surprisingly.”

Brandon Sanderson (1975) American fantasy writer

Source: The Alloy of Law

Thinking, Help

“He threw his head back and sang, "'I am a centaur, yes, a centaur is what I am.' It's not like you to wax, Artemis"

"Foaly is singing," said Holly. "Surely that's illegal?”

Eoin Colfer (1965) Irish author of children's books

Source: The Atlantis Complex

Singing

“A non-doer is very often a critic-that is, someone who sits back and watches doers, and then waxes philosophically about how the doers are doing. It's easy to be a critic, but being a doer requires effort, risk, and change.”

Wayne W. Dyer (1940–2015) American writer

Effort, Change

“What I don't understand is how women can pour hot wax on their bodies, let it dry, then rip out every single hair by its root and still be scared of spiders.”

Jerry Seinfeld (1954) American comedian and actor

I'm Telling You for the Last Time (1998)
Context: Men and women will never understand each other; my advice is to just stop trying. Just forget it. I know I will never understand women. I will never understand how you can take boiling hot wax, pour it onto your upper thigh, rip the hair out by the root... and still be afraid of a spider.

Women, Understanding

“Doughboy, we need to talk.”
Doughboy opened his wax eyes. “Finally! You realize how stuffy it is in there? At last you’ve remembered that you need my brilliant guidance.”
“Actually we need to become a coat.”

Rick Riordan book The Red Pyramid

Source: The Red Pyramid

“I inhabit the wax image of myself, a doll's body. Sickness begins here; I am a dartboard for witches.”

Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer

“Wayne's a little attached to that hat," Waxillium said. "He thinks it's lucky."
Wayne: "It is lucky. I ain't never died while wearing that hat."
Marasi frowned. "I… I'm not sure I know how to respond."
Wax: "That's a common reaction to Wayne.”

Brandon Sanderson (1975) American fantasy writer

Source: The Alloy of Law

Thinking

“I’ve never been certain whether the moral of the Icarus story should only be, as is generally accepted, ‘don’t try to fly too high,’ or whether it might also be thought of as ‘forget the wax and feathers, and do a better job on the wings.”

Stanley Kubrick (1928–1999) American film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer and editor

Flying, Forgetting

“In its widest possible sense, however, a man's Self is the sum total of all that he can call his, not only his body and his psychic powers, but his clothes and his house, his wife and children, his ancestors and friends, his reputation and works, his lands and horses, and yacht and bank-account. All these things give him the same emotions. If they wax and prosper, he feels triumphant; if they dwindle and die away, he feels cast down.”

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

Source: 1890s, The Principles of Psychology (1890), Ch. 10

Children, Feeling, Sense, Horse

“To be perfectly ignorant in all the Terms of them is only tolerable in those, who think their Tongues of as little Use to them, as generally their Understandings are. Those whom Necessity has obliged to get their Bread by Manual Industry, where some Degree of Art is required to go along with it, and who have had some Insight into these Studies, have very often found Advantages from them sufficient to reward the Pains they were at in acquiring them. And whatever may have been imputed (how justly I'm not now to determine) to some other Studies, under the Notion of Insignificancy and Loss of Time; yet these, I believe, never caused Repentance in any, except it was for their Remissness in the Prosecution of them. And though Plato's Censure, that those who did not understand the 117 Prop. of the 10th Element, ought not to be ranked among Rational Creatures, wax unreasonable and unjust: Yet to give a Man the Character of Universal Learning that is destitute of a competent Knowledge in the Mathematics, is no less so.”

Jacques Ozanam (1640–1718) French mathematician

Preface
A Mathematical Dictionary: Or; A Compendious Explication of All Mathematical Terms, 1702

Pain, Art, Mathematics, Understanding

“No, reprobate! You are a castaway - be off, or I'll hurt you seriously! I'll have you all modeled in wax and clay; and the first who passes the limits I fix, shall — I'll not say what he shall be done to — but, you'll see! Go, I'm looking at you!”

Emily Brontë book Wuthering Heights

Catherine Linton to Joseph (Ch. III).
Wuthering Heights (1847)

Hurt

“Had the acute-angled rabble been all, without exception, absolutely destitute of hope and of ambition, they might have found leaders in some of their many seditious outbreaks, so able as to render their superior numbers and strength too much even for the wisdom of the Circles. But a wise ordinance of Nature has decreed that, in proportion as the working-classes increase in intelligence, knowledge, and all virtue, in that same proportion their acute angle (which makes them physically terrible) shall increase also and approximate to the comparatively harmless angle of the Equilateral Triangle. Thus, in the most brutal and formidable of the soldier class — creatures almost on a level with women in their lack of intelligence — it is found that, as they wax in the mental ability necessary to employ their tremendous penetrating power to advantage, so do they wane in the power of penetration itself.

How admirable is this Law of Compensation! And how perfect a proof of the natural fitness and, I may almost say, the divine origin of the aristocratic constitution of the States in Flatland! By a judicious use of this Law of Nature, the Polygons and Circles are almost always able to stifle sedition in its very cradle, taking advantage of the irrepressible and boundless hopefulness of the human mind. Art also comes to the aid of Law and Order. It is generally found possible — by a little artificial compression or expansion on the part of the State physicians — to make some of the more intelligent leaders of a rebellion perfectly Regular, and to admit them at once into the privileged classes; a much larger number, who are still below the standard, allured by the prospect of being ultimately ennobled, are induced to enter the State Hospitals, where they are kept in honourable confinement for life; one or two alone of the more obstinate, foolish, and hopelessly irregular are led to execution.”

Edwin Abbott Abbott book Flatland

Source: Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions (1884), PART I: THIS WORLD, Chapter 3. Concerning the Inhabitants of Flatland

Life, Wisdom, Women, Law

“Then came a Religious person to me and asked me how I fared. I said I had raved to-day. And he laughed loud and heartily. And I said: The Cross that stood afore my face, methought it bled fast. And with this word the person that I spake to waxed all sober and marvelled. And anon I was sore ashamed and astonished for my recklessness, and I thought: This man taketh in sober earnest the least word that I might say. Then said I no more thereof.”

Julian of Norwich (1342–1416) English theologian and anchoress

The Fifteenth Revelation, Chapter 66

Personality

“The soldier shook his head, waxing philosophical. “It’s a madness, sir. We’ve all got it. It could go on until the last human being crawls away from the body of the chap he’s just bashed to bits with a stone. That’s what war is, sir—madness. You don’t think about what you’re doing. You forget, don’t you—you just go on killing and killing.””

Michael Moorcock book The Land Leviathan

Book 1, Chapter 2 “The Dream—and the Nightmare—of the Chilean Wizard” (p. 187)
The Land Leviathan (1974)

War, Thinking, Madness, Forgetting

“Supposed former infatuation junkie,
I sink three pointers and you wax poetically.”

Alanis Morissette (1974) Canadian-American singer-songwriter

So Pure
Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie (1998)

“My heart is wax molded as she pleases, but enduring as marble to retain.”

Miguel de Cervantes book La gitanilla

La Gitanilla (The Little Gypsy) (c. 1590–1612; published 1613)

Heart

“I use the example of the rainbow and of the phenomena connected with it, of which sort are the circle around the sun and the stars, likewise the rod lying at the side of the sun or of a star which appears to the eye in a straight line… called the rod by Seneca, and the circle is called the corona, which often has the colors of the rainbow. But neither Aristotle nor Avicenna, in their Natural Histories, has given us knowledge of things of this sort, nor has Seneca, who composed a special book on them. But Experimental Science makes certain of them. [The experimenter] considers rowers and he finds the same colors in the falling drops dripping from the raised oars when the solar rays penetrate drops of this sort. It is the same with waters falling from the wheels of a mill; and when a man sees the drops of dew in summer of a morning lying on the grass in the meadow or the field, he will see the colors. And in the same way when it rains, if he stands in a shady place and if the rays beyond it pass through dripping moisture, then the colors will appear in the shadow nearby; and very frequently of a night colors appear around the wax candle. Moreover, if a man in summer, when he rises from sleep and while his eyes are yet only partly opened, looks suddenly toward an aperture through which a ray of the sun enters, he will see colors. And if, while seated beyond the sun, he extend his hat before his eyes, he will see colors; and in the same way if he closes his eye, the same thing happens under the shade of the eyebrow; and again, the same phenomenon occurs through a glass vessel filled with water, placed in the rays of the sun. Or similarly if any one holding water in his mouth sprinkles it vigorously into the rays and stands to the side of the rays; and if rays in the proper position pass through an oil lamp hanging in the air, so that the light falls on the surface of the oil, colors will be produced. And so in an infinite number of ways, as well natural as artificial, colors of this sort appear, as the careful experimenter is able to discover.”

Roger Bacon book Opus Majus

6th part Experimental Science, Ch.2 Tr. Richard McKeon, Selections from Medieval Philosophers Vol.2 Roger Bacon to William of Ockham
Opus Majus, c. 1267

Books, Color, Way, History

“421. He that hath a head of waxe must not walke in the sunne.”

George Herbert (1593–1633) Welsh-born English poet, orator and Anglican priest

Jacula Prudentum (1651)

“Capacity to endure through infinite transformation must be innate in that mighty civilization which has seen the intellectual culture of the Nile Valley of Assyria and of Babylon wax and wane and disappear, and which today gazes on the future with the same invincible faith with which it met the past.”

Jagadish Chandra Bose (1858–1937) Bengali polymath, physicist, biologist, botanist and archaeologist

In page=106
Science and National Consciousness in Bengal: 1870-1930

Faith, Past, Future

“As air becomes the medium for light when the sun rises,
And as wax melts from the heat of fire,
So the soul drawn to that light is resplendent,
Feels self melt away,
Its will and actions no longer its own.
So clear is the imprint of God
That the soul, conquered, is conqueror;
Annihilated, it lives in triumph. What happens to the drop of wine
That you pour into the sea?
Does it remain itself, unchanged?
It is as if it never existed.
So it is with the soul: Love drinks it in,
It is united with Truth,
Its old nature fades away,
It is no longer master of itself.”

Jacopone da Todi (1236–1306) Italian Franciscan mystic

The Lauds

Love, God, Truth, Feeling

“Instead of dirt and poison we have rather chosen to fill our hives with honey and wax; thus furnishing mankind with the two noblest of things, which are sweetness and light.”

Jonathan Swift book The Battle of the Books

The Battle of the Books, preface (1704)

Light

“One night, the soul of wine was singing in the flask:
"O man, dear disinherited! to you I sing
This song full of light and of brotherhood
From my prison of glass with its scarlet wax seals."”

Charles Baudelaire book Les Fleurs du mal

Un soir, l'âme du vin chantait dans les bouteilles: "Homme, vers toi je pousse, ô cher déshérité, Sous ma prison de verre et mes cires vermeilles." "L'Âme du Vin" [The Soul of Wine] http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/L%E2%80%99%C3%82me_du_vin Les fleurs du mal (Flowers of Evil) (1857)

Soul, Light, Wine, Singing

“Alternating periods of activity and rest is necessary to survive, let alone thrive. Capacity, interest, and mental endurance all wax and wane. Plan accordingly.”

Timothy Ferriss book The 4-Hour Workweek

The 4-Hour Workweek (2007)

“Oh! my name is John Wellington Wells,
I'm a dealer in magic and spells,
In blessings and curses
And ever-filled purses,
In prophecies, witches, and knells.

If you want a proud foe to "make tracks"—
If you'd melt a rich uncle in wax—
You've but to look in
On our resident Djinn,
Number seventy, Simmery Axe!”

W. S. Gilbert (1836–1911) English librettist of the Gilbert & Sullivan duo

Mr Wells' song, Act I.
"Simmery Axe" is the traditional pronunciation of "St. Mary Axe", a road in the City of London.
In Gilbert's day, the last building was number 68, though number 70 was built later.
The Sorcerer (1877)

“Alas, despite wing implants, feathers and wax, and carnal associations with swans, we will never grow wings. Alas, any true flight we make will always be externally assisted. Alas, the best we can do is fall and believe ourselves flying.”

Peter Greenaway (1942) British film director

Flying Out of This World

Flying

“In America, we build public housing by creating lucrative inducements to private developers, and then wax indignant at the public waste.”

Robert Kuttner (1943) American journalist

Source: The Economic Illusion (1984), Chapter 1, Equality and Efficiency, p. 37

Housing

“As evil waxes, the very men who stand for good will in their fear use ever worse means o’ fighting, and thereby give evil a free beachhead.”

Poul Anderson book Three Hearts and Three Lions

Source: Three Hearts and Three Lions (1961), Chapter 12 (p. 102)

Men, Fear, Evil, Fight

“On, on we went, till at last the east began to blush like the cheek of a girl. Then there came faint rays of primrose light, that changed presently to golden bars, through which the dawn glided out across the desert. The stars grew pale and paler still, till at last they vanished; the golden moon waxed wan, and her mountain ridges stood out against her sickly face like the bones on the cheek of a dying man. Then came spear upon spear of light flashing far away across the boundless wilderness, piercing and firing the veils of mist, till the desert was draped in a tremulous golden glow, and it was day.”

H. Rider Haggard book King Solomon's Mines

Source: King Solomon's Mines (1885), Chapter 5, "Our March into the Desert"

Girl, Mountain, Star, Light

“Christianity is ever-present, with its wonderful parable of the prodigal son, to urge us to counsels of forbearance and forgiveness. Jesus was full of love for souls of women wounded by the passions of men, and He loved to bind their wounds, drawing from those same wounds the balm which would heal them. Thus he said to Mary Magdalene: "Your sins, which are many, shall be forgiven, because you loved much?" a sublime pardon which was to awaken a sublime faith.
Why should we judge more strictly than Christ? Why, clinging stubbornly to the opinions of the world which waxes hard so that we shall think it strong, why should we too turn away souls that bleed from wounds oozing with the evil of their past, like infected blood from a sick body, as they wait only for a friendly hand to bind them up and restore them to a convalescent heart?”

Alexandre Dumas, fils (1824–1895) French writer and dramatist, son of the homonym writer and dramatist

Le christianisme est là avec sa merveilleuse parabole de l'enfant prodigue pour nous conseiller l'indulgence et le pardon. Jésus était plein d'amour pour ces âmes blessées par les passions des hommes, et dont il aimait à panser les plaies en tirant le baume qui devait les guérir des plaies elles-mêmes. Ainsi, il disait à Madeleine : - "il te sera beaucoup remis parce que tu as beaucoup aimé", sublime pardon qui devait éveiller une foi sublime. Pourquoi nous ferions-nous plus rigides que le Christ ?
Pourquoi, nous en tenant obstinément aux opinions de ce monde qui se fait dur pour qu'on le croie fort, rejetterions-nous avec lui des âmes saignantes souvent de blessures par où, comme le mauvais sang d'un malade, s'épanche le mal de leur passé, et n'attendant qu'une main amie qui les panse et leur rende la convalescence du coeur ?
La Dame aux Camélias, English translation by David Coward; Oxford University Press, Sep 18, 1986.

Love, Women, Men, World

“Persons whom I saw thirty years ago and with whom I was intimate now appear on the page, and this compels me to declare that The Story of the Stone is a book of the deepest feelings and the truest words. Unless, however, one has in fact experienced such events or been deluded by such feelings, reading it is like "chewing wax" absentmindedly, never understanding the miraculous wonders of what one has witnessed.”

Zhiyanzhai

Comment in the 1760 manuscript of The Story of the Stone, as quoted by Anthony C. Yu in Rereading the Stone (Princeton University Press, 1997), p. 7

Books, Feeling, Understanding, Appearance

“The dirty wax of egotism accumulated in the heart prevents us from clearly hearing the Lord’s voice within. A guru, with the stick of knowledge, cleans our hearts. Its really ugly to see what may come out, but by following patiently, we keep cleaning.”

Radhanath Swami (1950) Gaudiya Vaishnava guru

?
The Journey Home: Autobiography of an American Swami (Tulsi Books, 2010)

Knowledge, Heart

“On protests against going to war with Iraq: "One woman bore a picture of some female genitalia – possibly hers, the provenance was obscure – over the caption 'This Bush Is For Peace.' Another waxed eloquent: 'Trim Bush.' Out in Marin County somewhere, other bushes for peace disrobed, lay down on a hillside, and formed the words 'No War.' I wonder if there are any conflicted nudists, with a bush for Iraq and a rack for Bush.”

Mark Steyn (1959) Canadian writer

The Spectator, 25 January 2003

War, Peace

“The reason that [political correctness] is very troubling to me is that it’s the very same thing that happened to the Roman Empire. They were extremely powerful. There was no way anybody could overcome them. But these philosophers, with the long flowing white robes and the long white beards, they could wax eloquently on every subject, but nothing was right and nothing was wrong. They soon completely lost sight of who they were.”

Ben Carson (1951) 17th and current United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; American neurosurgeon

As quoted in "Ben Carson thinks “political correctness” could lead U.S. to collapse like Rome" http://www.salon.com/2014/10/15/ben_carson_thinks_political_correctness_could_lead_u_s_to_collapse_like_rome/, Salon (October 15, 2014)

Way

“It seems that in writing a composition, one must first have in mind a reason for writing. If there is a reason behind it, no matter what one writes about, it will turn out to be excellent writing. If there is no reason behind it, there is no way to write. Even if one can produce something, it will be as dry and unpleasant as chewing wax.”

Jin Shengtan (1610–1661) Chinese writer

"How to Read the Shui-hu chuan", § 26; in How to Read the Chinese Novel (1990), ed. David L. Rolston, p. 137

Way

“Moons waxed and waned, the lilacs bloomed and died,
In the broad river ebbed and flowed the tide,
Ships went to sea, and ships came home from sea,
And the slow years sailed by and ceased to be.”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) American poet

Lady Wentworth.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Home, Sea

“The Rumsfeld-Cheney axis has self-destructed right in front of our eyes, along with the once-proud Perle-Wolfowitz bund that is turning to wax. They somehow managed to blow it all, like a gang of kids on a looting spree, between January and July, or even less. It is genuinely incredible. The U. S. Treasury is empty, we are losing that stupid, fraudulent chickencrap War in Iraq, and every country in the world except a handful of Corrupt Brits despises us. We are losers, and that is the one unforgiveable sin in America.”

Hunter S. Thompson (1937–2005) American journalist and author

2000s, Welcome to the Big Darkness (2003)

War, Stupidity, World, Country

“My soul, so far as I understand it, has very kindly taken colour and form from the many various modes of life that self-will and an impetuous temperament have forced me to indulge in. Therefore I may say that I am free from original qualities, defects, tastes, etc. What is mine I have acquired, or, to speak more exactly, chance bestowed, and still bestows, upon me. I came into the world apparently with a nature like a smooth sheet of wax, bearing no impress, but capable of receiving any; of being moulded into all shapes.”

George Moore (novelist) (1852–1933) Irish novelist, short-story writer, poet, art critic, memoirist and dramatist

Source: Confessions of a Young Man http://www.gutenberg.org/files/12278/12278-h/12278-h.htm (1886), Ch. 1.

Life, World, Soul, Understanding

“I watched the living soldiers pass by the dead at the roadside without a glance, and the dead scarcely looked human. They resembled wax mannequins thrown from a show window, lying about in grotesque, inhuman postures, arms pointing toward the sky, legs frozen as though they were running. Their faces were bloodless, waxy white.”

Larry LeSueur (1909–2003) American journalist

Twelve Months That Changed the World ( Google Books link http://books.google.com/books?id=Emc1AQAAIAAJ&q), A.A. Knopf, 1943. Twelve Months That Changed the World (1943)

Lying, Dead

“Everything about Pee-Wee's Big Adventure, from its toy-box colors to its superb, hyper-animated Danny Elfman score to the butch-waxed hairdo and wooden-puppet walk of its star and mastermind is pure pleasure.”

Stephanie Zacharek (1963) American film critic

Review http://www.salon.com/ent/movies/dvd/review/2000/10/10/peewees_big_adventure/index.html of Pee-Wee's Big Adventure (1985)

Pleasure, Color, Star, Animals

“It is fashionable to wax apocalyptic about the threat to humanity posed by the AIDS virus, "mad cow" disease, and many others, but I think a case can be made that faith is one of the world's great evils, comparable to the smallpox virus but harder to eradicate.”

Richard Dawkins (1941) English ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author

" Is Science a Religion? http://www.thehumanist.org/humanist/articles/dawkins.html", The Humanist (January 1997)

World, Disease, Faith, Fashion

“His heart was one of those which most enamour us,
Wax to receive, and marble to retain:
He was a lover of the good old school,
Who still become more constant as they cool.”

George Gordon Byron (1788–1824) English poet and a leading figure in the Romantic movement

Stanza 34; this can be compared to: "My heart is wax to be moulded as she pleases, but enduring as marble to retain", Miguel de Cervantes, The Little Gypsy.
Beppo (1818)

School, Lovers, Heart

“The theatre was full — crammed to its roof: royal and noble were there; palace and hotel had emptied their inmates into those tiers so thronged and so hushed. Deeply did I feel myself privileged in having a place before that stage; I longed to see a being of whose powers I had heard reports which made me conceive peculiar anticipations. I wondered if she would justify her renown: with strange curiosity, with feelings severe and austere, yet of riveted interest, I waited. She was a study of such nature as had not encountered my eyes yet: a great and new planet she was: but in what shape? I waited her rising.She rose at nine that December night: above the horizon I saw her come. She could shine yet with pale grandeur and steady might; but that star verged already on its judgment-day. Seen near, it was a chaos — hollow, half-consumed: an orb perished or perishing — half lava, half glow.I had heard this woman termed "plain," and I expected bony harshness and grimness — something large, angular, sallow. What I saw was the shadow of a royal Vashti: a queen, fair as the day once, turned pale now like twilight, and wasted like wax in flame.For awhile — a long while — I thought it was only a woman, though an unique woman, who moved in might and grace before this multitude. By-and-by I recognized my mistake. Behold! I found upon her something neither of woman nor of man: in each of her eyes sat a devil. These evil forces bore her through the tragedy, kept up her feeble strength — for she was but a frail creature; and as the action rose and the stir deepened, how wildly they shook her with their passions of the pit! They wrote HELL on her straight, haughty brow. They tuned her voice to the note of torment. They writhed her regal face to a demoniac mask. Hate and Murder and Madness incarnate she stood.It was a marvellous sight: a mighty revelation.It was a spectacle low, horrible, immoral.Swordsmen thrust through, and dying in their blood on the arena sand; bulls goring horses disembowelled, made a meeker vision for the public — a milder condiment for a people's palate — than Vashti torn by seven devils: devils which cried sore and rent the tenement they haunted, but still refused to be exorcised.Suffering had struck that stage empress; and she stood before her audience neither yielding to, nor enduring, nor in finite measure, resenting it: she stood locked in struggle, rigid in resistance. She stood, not dressed, but draped in pale antique folds, long and regular like sculpture. A background and entourage and flooring of deepest crimson threw her out, white like alabaster — like silver: rather, be it said, like Death.”

Charlotte Brontë book Villette

Source: Villette (1853), Ch. XXIII: Vashi

Death, Hate, People, Feeling

“Being kissed by a man who didn't wax his moustache was like eating an egg without salt.”

Rudyard Kipling book The Story of the Gadsbys

The Story of the Gadsbys (1888), "Poor Dear Mamma".
Other works

Kiss

“One in particular, whose warped will it ever was even in the upper world (hence his life ended ill) to insult misfortune and wax sour at prosperity.”
Unus ibi ante alios, cui laeva voluntas semper et ad superos (hinc et gravis exitus aevi) insultare malis rebusque aegrescere laetis.

Statius book Thebaid

Source: Thebaid, Book II, Line 16

Life, World

“To tell the truth, I often felt uneasy when I thought of the excessive brittleness and fragility of the moon. The moon is generally repaired in Hamburg, and very imperfectly. It is done by a lame cooper, an obvious blockhead who has no idea how to do it. He took waxed thread and olive-oil—hence that pungent smell over all the earth which compels people to hold their noses. And this makes the moon so fragile that no men can live on it, but only noses. Therefore we cannot see our noses, because they are on the moon.”

Nikolai Gogol book Diary of a Madman

Diary of a Madman (1835)

Men, People, Truth, Idea

“Faced with unmeasurables, people steer their way by magic. Before the invention of navigational instruments, a lady was carved on the prow of the boat to help sailors cross the ocean; and architects, grappling with the intangibles of design, select a guru whose work gives them personal help in areas where there are few rules to follow. The guru, as architectural father figure, is subject to intense hate and love; either way, the relationship is personal, it can only be a one-to-one affair. This accounts for the intensely ad hominem stance of some of ‘Venturi’s’ critics. If the attribution were correct the tone would be more even, as one cannot easily wax emotional over several people. I suspect, too, that for male architects the guru must be male. There can be no Mom and Pop gurus in architecture. The architectural prima donnas are all male.”

Denise Scott Brown (1931) American architect

"Sexism and the star system in architecture"

Love, Hate, People, Way

“With that, he scribbled in an additional ninety thousand dollars on the estimate, which had waxed to the girth of the Talmud while rivaling it in possible interpretations.”

Woody Allen book Mere Anarchy

Mere Anarchy (2007)

“Whereat some one of the loquacious Lot —
I think a Sufi pipkin-waxing hot —
"All this of Pot and Potter — Tell me then,
Who is the Potter, pray, and who the Pot?"”

Omar Khayyám (1048–1131) Persian poet, philosopher, mathematician, and astronomer

The Rubaiyat (1120)

Thinking

“The Prince himself has no distinction, either of garments, or of a crown; but is only distinguished by a sheaf of corn carried before him; as the high priest is also known by his being preceded by a person carrying a wax light.”

Thomas More book Utopia

Source: Utopia (1516), Ch. 7 : Of Their Slaves, and of Their Marriages

Light, Personality

“2155. He that hath a Head of Wax, must not walk in the Sun.”

Thomas Fuller (writer) (1654–1734) British physician, preacher, and intellectual

Compare Poor Richard's Almanack (1749) : If your head is wax, don't walk in the sun.
Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727), Gnomologia (1732)

Sun

“The capacity to evolve must be evolved itself. Evolution has been, and will keep on, exploring the space of possible evolutions. Organisms, memes, the whole ball of wax are only evolution's way to keep evolving.”

Kevin Kelly (1952) American author and editor

Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World (1995)

Way

“The fall of the patriciate by no means divested the Roman commonwealth of its aristocratic character. We have already indicated that the plebeian party carried within it that character from the first as well as, and in some sense still more decidedly than, the patriciate; for, while in the old body of burgesses an absolute equality of rights prevailed, the new constitution set out from a distinction between the senatorial houses who were privileged in point of burgess rights and of burgess usufructs, and the mass of the other citizens. Immediately, therefore, on the abolition of the patriciate and the formal establishment of civic equality, a new aristocracy and a corresponding opposition were formed; and we have already shown how the former engrafted itself as it were on the fallen patriciate, and how, accordingly, the first movements of the new party of progress were mixed up with the last movements of the old opposition between the orders. The formation of these new parties began in the fifth century, but they assumed their definite shape only in the century which followed. The development of this internal change is, as it were, drowned amidst the noise of the great wars and victories, and not merely so, but the process of formation is in this case more withdrawn from view than any other in Roman history. Like a crust of ice gathering imperceptibly over the surface of a stream and imperceptibly confining it more and more, this new Roman aristocracy silently arose; and not less imperceptibly, like the current concealing itself beneath and slowly extending, there arose in opposition to it the new party of progress. It is very difficult to sum up in a general historical view the several, individually insignificant, traces of these two antagonistic movements, which do not for the present yield their historical product in any distinct actual catastrophe. But the freedom hitherto enjoyed in the commonwealth was undermined, and the foundation for future revolutions was laid, during this epoch; and the delineation of these as well as of the development of Rome in general would remain imperfect, if we should fail to give some idea of the strength of that encrusting ice, of the growth of the current beneath, and of the fearful moaning and cracking that foretold the mighty breaking up which was at hand. The Roman nobility attached itself, in form, to earlier institutions belonging to the times of the patriciate. Persons who once had filled the highest ordinary magistracies of the state not only, as a matter of course, practically enjoyed all along a higher honour, but also had at an early period certain honorary privileges associated with their position. The most ancient of these was doubtless the permission given to the descendants of such magistrates to place the wax images of these illustrious ancestors after their death in the family hall, along the wall where the pedigree was painted, and to have these images carried, on occasion of the death of members of the family, in the funeral procession.. the honouring of images was regarded in the Italo-Hellenic view as unrepublican, and on that account the Roman state-police did not at all tolerate the exhibition of effigies of the living, and strictly superintended that of effigies of the dead. With this privilege were associated various external insignia, reserved by law or custom for such magistrates and their descendants:--the golden finger-ring of the men, the silver-mounted trappings of the youths, the purple border on the toga and the golden amulet-case of the boys--trifling matters, but still important in a community where civic equality even in external appearance was so strictly adhered to, and where, even during the second Punic war, a burgess was arrested and kept for years in prison because he had appeared in public, in a manner not sanctioned by law, with a garland of roses upon his head.(6) These distinctions may perhaps have already existed partially in the time of the patrician government, and, so long as families of higher and humbler rank were distinguished within the patriciate, may have served as external insignia for the former; but they certainly only acquired political importance in consequence of the change of constitution in 387, by which the plebeian families that attained the consulate were placed on a footing of equal privilege with the patrician families, all of whom were now probably entitled to carry images of their ancestors. Moreover, it was now settled that the offices of state to which these hereditary privileges were attached should include neither the lower nor the extraordinary magistracies nor the tribunate of the plebs, but merely the consulship, the praetorship which stood on the same level with it,(7) and the curule aedileship, which bore a part in the administration of public justice and consequently in the exercise of the sovereign powers of the state.(8) Although this plebeian nobility, in the strict sense of the term, could only be formed after the curule offices were opened to plebeians, yet it exhibited in a short time, if not at the very first, a certain compactness of organization--doubtless because such a nobility had long been prefigured in the old senatorial plebeian families. The result of the Licinian laws in reality therefore amounted nearly to what we should now call the creation of a batch of peers. Now that the plebeian families ennobled by their curule ancestors were united into one body with the patrician families and acquired a distinctive position and distinguished power in the commonwealth, the Romans had again arrived at the point whence they had started; there was once more not merely a governing aristocracy and a hereditary nobility--both of which in fact had never disappeared--but there was a governing hereditary nobility, and the feud between the gentes in possession of the government and the commons rising in revolt against the gentes could not but begin afresh. And matters very soon reached that stage. The nobility was not content with its honorary privileges which were matters of comparative indifference, but strove after separate and sole political power, and sought to convert the most important institutions of the state--the senate and the equestrian order--from organs of the commonwealth into organs of the plebeio-patrician aristocracy.”

Theodor Mommsen (1817–1903) German classical scholar, historian, jurist, journalist, politician, archaeologist and writer

The History of Rome - Volume 2

Death, Men, War, Youth

“I told him how we kept fewer forms between us and God; retaining, indeed, no more than, perhaps, the nature of mankind in the mass rendered necessary for due observance. I told him I could not look on flowers and tinsel, on wax- lights and embroidery, at such times and under such circumstances as should be devoted to lifting the secret vision to Him whose home is Infinity, and His being — Eternity. That when I thought of sin and sorrow, of earthly corruption, mortal depravity, weighty temporal woe — I could not care for chanting priests or mumming officials; that when the pains of existence and the terrors of dissolution pressed before me — when the mighty hope and measureless doubt of the future arose in view — _then_, even the scientific strain, or the prayer in a language learned and dead, harassed: with hindrance a heart which only longed to cry — "God be merciful to me, a sinner!"”

Charlotte Brontë book Villette

Source: Villette (1853), Chapter XXXVI: The Apple of Discord

God, Pain, Secret, Hope

“Black are the horses.
The horseshoes are black.
On the dark capes glisten
stains of ink and wax.
Their skulls are leaden,
which is why they do not weep.
With their patent leather souls
they come down the street.”

Federico García Lorca (1898–1936) Spanish poet, dramatist and theatre director

Los caballos negros son. Las herraduras son negras. Sobre las capas relucen manchas de tinta y de cera. Tienen, por eso no lloran, de plomo las calaveras. Con el alma de charol vienen por la carretera. " Romance de la Guardia Civil Española http://www.poesia-inter.net/index214.htm" from Primer Romancero Gitano (1928)

Soul, Horse

“Somewhere in between
The waxing and the waning wave
Somewhere in between
What the song and the silence says
Somewhere in between
The ticking and the tocking clock
Somewhere in a dream between
Sleep and waking up
Somewhere in between
Breathing out and breathing in
Like twilight is neither night nor morning”

Kate Bush (1958) British recording artist; singer, songwriter, musician and record producer

Song lyrics, Aerial (2005), A Sky of Honey (Disc 2)

Dreams, Sleep, Silence, Night

“In politics and politicians' lies
The modern farmer waxes wondrous wise;”

John Clare (1793–1864) English poet

"The Parish: A Satire"
Poems Chiefly from Manuscript

“A little gold and a little charcoal, / A little bone, a little wax. / A little alcohol, a little horror and a little gum. / A little ivory, / a little sulphur, / a little damp dust, / a sluice of fluids.”

Peter Greenaway (1942) British film director

"The Vesalius Song"
M is for Man, Music, and Mozart

Alcohol

“It's terribly demeaning to write something that tells its story in its own way and be told it fails because it might scare somebody. My God, must we speak with all the candor of a wax Elvis?”

Mark Heard (1951–1992) American musician and record producer

Life in the Industry: A Musician's Diary

God, Way

“There is no magic in parchment or in wax.”

William Henry Ashurst (judge) (1725–1807) English judge

Master v. Miller (1763), 4 T. R. 320.

“Water is a polar solvent. It readily dissolves most bio molecules, which are generally charged or polar com pounds (Table 2-2); compounds that dissolve easily in water are hydrophilic (Greek, "water-loving"). In contrast, nonpolar solvents such as chloroform and benzene are poor solvents for polar biomolecules but easily dis solve those that are hydrophobic-nonpolar molecules such as lipids and waxes.”

Albert L. Lehninger (1917–1986) American biochemist

Principles of Biochemistry, Ch. 2 : Water

Love, Water

“The moon blew up without warning and for no apparent reason. It was waxing, only one day short of full. The time was 05:03:12 UTC. Later it would be designated A+0.0.0, or simply Zero.
An amateur astronomer in Utah was the first person on Earth to realize that something unusual was happening. Moments earlier, he had noticed a blur flourishing in the vicinity of the Reiner Gamma formation, near the moon’s equator. He assumed it was a dust cloud thrown up by a meteor strike. He pulled out his phone and blogged the event.”

Neal Stephenson book Seveneves

Opening paragraphs of the novel; "The Age of the One Moon"
Seveneves (2015), Part One

Time, Personality

“The notion that our productivity problems reside in "the spirit of entrepreneurship" that waxes and wanes for unexplained reasons is a counsel of despair, for it gives no guidance on how to reawaken that spirit once it has lagged”

William J. Baumol (1922–2017) American economist

Source: "Entrepreneurship: Productive, unproductive, and destructive," 1996, p. 5

Problem, Despair

“I have chosen my boat, and laid in my scant stores. I have selected a few books; the principal are Homer and Shakespeare — But the libraries of the world are thrown open to me — and in any port I can renew my stock. I form no expectation of alteration for the better; but the monotonous present is intolerable to me. Neither hope nor joy are my pilots — restless despair and fierce desire of change lead me on. I long to grapple with danger, to be excited by fear, to have some task, however slight or voluntary, for each day's fulfilment. I shall witness all the variety of appearance, that the elements can assume — I shall read fair augury in the rainbow — menace in the cloud — some lesson or record dear to my heart in everything. Thus around the shores of deserted earth, while the sun is high, and the moon waxes or wanes, angels, the spirits of the dead, and the ever-open eye of the Supreme, will behold the tiny bark, freighted with Verney — the LAST MAN.”

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley The Last Man

The Last Man (1826)

Books, World, Fear, Hope

“None of the men and women who voted for this bill has any right to speak in public about the rule of law anymore, or to take a high moral view of the Third Reich, or to wax poetic about the American Idea.”

Garrison Keillor (1942) American radio host and writer

Referring to the Military Commissions Act of 2006, in "Congress's Shameful Retreat From American Values" in The Chicago Tribune (4 October 2006) http://www.truthout.org/article/garrison-keillor-congresss-shameful-retreat-from-american-values

Women, Men, Law, Idea

“People who read my magazine wax their turtles all the time.”

Bill Allred

as Larry Flynt
Radio From Hell (November 1, 2006)

People, Time, Reading

“Some have argued convincingly that this antichrist will rise up out of Syria and the three kings he takes over (by flatteries? Daniel 11:21-34) as he waxes great (Daniel 8:9) are: toward the south (Jordan), toward the east (Iraq), and toward the pleasant land (Lebanon—near Israel, the pleasant land). I’m not sure if this is true but it would be wise to keep an eye on that region!”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

Source: What On Earth Is About To Happen… For Heaven’s Sake? (2013), p. 95

“The Ground of Rinebrant of Rine: Take half an ounce of Expoltum burnt of Amber, one ounce of Virgin's was, half an ounce of Mastick, then take the Mastick and Expoltum, and beat them severally very fine in a Mortar; this being done, take a new earthen pot and set upon it a charcoal-fire, then shake into it the Mastick and Expoltum by degrees, stirring the Wax about till they be thoroughly mingled, then pour it forth into fair water and make a ball of it, and use it as before mentioned, but be sure you do not heat the plate too hot when you lay the ground upon it, this is the only way of Rinebrant.”

Rembrandt van Rijn (1606–1669) Dutch 17th century painter and etcher

Rembrandt's etching recipe http://remdoc.huygens.knaw.nl/#/document/remdoc/e12885, in 'The Whole Art of Drawing', Alexander Browne, London 1660, p. 106 Strauss &amp; Van der Meulen 1979, p. 476, RD 1660/29: 'This recipe, specifically attributed to Rembrandt, for preparing the ground of a plate for etching is given by Alexander Brown in 'The Whole of Drawing' 1640 - 1670

Way, Water

“I that have loved thee thus before thou fadest,
My faith shall wax, when thou art in thy waning.
The world shall find this miracle in me,
That fire can burn when all the matter's spent.”

Samuel Daniel (1562–1619) Poet and historian

Delia (1592), Sonnet XXXIII.

Love, World, Faith, Art

“It ['The Great Masturbator', 1929] represented a large head, yellow like wax, with very red cheeks, long eyelashes and an imposing nose compressed against the ground. This face had no mouth, and in place of the mouth an enormous lobster was hooked. The lobster's belly was decomposing and full of ants. Some of these ants were scurrying through the space that would have been occupied by the non-existent mouth of the great anguished face, whose head ended in 1900-style architecture and ornamentation. The title of the painting was The Great Masturbator.”

Salvador Dalí (1904–1989) Spanish artist

Quote from La vida secreta de Salvador Dalí. In: Complete Works, Autobiographical Articles 1. Ediciones Destino / Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation, Barcelona / Figueres, 2003, p. 648
Quotes of Salvador Dali, 1941 - 1950

Painting