Quotes about wind page 17
Alan Watts (1915–1973) British philosopher, writer and speaker
Source: The Book on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are (1966), p. 94
Isadora Duncan (1877–1927) American dancer and choreographer
Source: The Art of the Dance (1928), p. 54.
Context: The movement of the waves, of winds, of the earth is ever in the same lasting harmony. We do not stand on the beach and inquire of the ocean what was its movement of the past and what will be its movement of the future. We realize that the movement peculiar to its nature is eternal to its nature. The dancer of the future will be one whose body and soul have grown so harmoniously together that the natural language of that soul will have become the movement of the body.
“Pleasant it is, when over a great sea the winds trouble the waters, to gaze from shore upon another's great tribulation: not because any man's troubles are a delectable joy, but because to perceive from what ills you are free yourself is pleasant.”
Suave mari magno turbantibus aequora ventis
e terra magnum alterius spectare laborem;
non quia vexari quemquamst jucunda voluptas,
sed quibus ipse malis careas quia cernere suave est.
Lucretius (-94–-55 BC) Roman poet and philosopher
Book II, lines 1–4 (tr. Rouse)
De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things)
“Sweet to me was not the voice of man,
But the wind's voice was understood by me.”
Anna Akhmatova (1889–1966) Russian modernist poet
"Willow" (1940)
Context: Sweet to me was not the voice of man,
But the wind's voice was understood by me.
The burdocks and the nettles fed my soul,
But I loved the silver willow best of all.
François-René de Chateaubriand book Mémoires d'Outre-Tombe
Preface (1833).
Mémoires d'outre-tombe (1848 – 1850)
Context: I have borne the musket of a soldier, the traveller’s cane, and the pilgrim’s staff: as a sailor my fate has been as inconstant as the wind: a kingfisher, I have made my nest among the waves.
I have been party to peace and war: I have signed treaties, protocols, and along the way published numerous works. I have been made privy to party secrets, of court and state: I have viewed closely the rarest disasters, the greatest good fortune, the highest reputations. I have been present at sieges, congresses, conclaves, at the restoration and demolition of thrones. I have made history, and been able to write it. … Within and alongside my age, perhaps without wishing or seeking to, I have exerted upon it a triple influence, religious, political and literary.
“The winds gives me
Enough fallen leaves
To make a fire”
Ryōkan (1758–1831) Japanese Buddhist monk
Dewdrops on a Lotus Leaf : Zen Poems of Ryokan (1993)
Babe Ruth (1895–1948) American baseball player
As quoted and paraphrased in "I Have Been a Babe and a Boob" by Joe Winkworth, in Collier's (October 31, 1925), p. 15
Context: "I am through—through with the pests and the good-time guys. Between them and a few crooks I have thrown away more than a quarter of a million dollars. I have been a Babe—and a Boob. I'm through." [Ruth] confesses he faces either oblivion or the hard task of complete reformation. [He] realizes that he must make good all over again. "I am going to do it," he said. "I was going to be the exception, the popular hero who could do as he pleased. But all those people were right. Babe and Boob—that was me all over. Now, though, I know that if I am to wind up sitting pretty on the world I've got to face the facts and admit I have been the sappiest of saps. All right, I admit it. I haven't any desire to kid myself."
William Law (1686–1761) English cleric, nonjuror and theological writer
¶ 164 - 165.
An Humble, Earnest and Affectionate Address to the Clergy (1761)
Context: Show me a man whose heart has no desire, or prayer in it, but to love God with his whole soul and spirit, and his neighbor as himself, and then you have shown me the man who knows Christ, and is known of him; the best and wisest man in the world, in whom the first paradisaical wisdom and goodness are come to life. Not a single precept in the gospel, but is the precept of his own heart, and the joy of that new-born heavenly love which is the life and light of his soul. In this man, all that came from the old serpent is trod under his feet, not a spark of self, of pride, of wrath, of envy, of covetousness, or worldly wisdom, can have the least abode in him, because that love, which fulfilleth the whole Law and the prophets, that love which is God and Christ, both in angels and men, is the love that gives birth, and life, and growth to everything that is either thought, or word, or action in him. And if he has no share or part with foolish errors, cannot be tossed about with every wind of doctrine, it is because, to be always governed by this love, is the same thing as to be always taught of God.
On the other hand, show me a scholar as full of learning, as the Vatican is of books, and he will be just as likely to give all that he has for the gospel-pearl, as he would be, if he was as rich as Croesus. Let no one here imagine, that I am writing against all human literature, arts and sciences, or that I wish the world to be without them. I am no more an enemy to them, than to the common useful labors of life. It is literal learning, verbal contention, and critical strife about the things of God, that I charge with folly and mischief to religion. And in this, I have all learned Christendom, both popish and Protestant on my side. For they both agree in charging each other with a bad and false gospel-state, because of that which their learning, logic, and criticism do for them. Say not then, that it is only the illiterate enthusiast that condemns human learning in the gospel kingdom of God. For when he condemns the blindness and mischief of popish logic and criticism, he has all the learned Protestant world with him; and when he lays the same charge to Protestant learning, he has a much larger kingdom of popish great scholars, logically and learnedly affirming the same thing. So that the private person, charging human learning with so much mischief to the church, is so far from being led by enthusiasm, that he is led by all the church-learning that is in the world.
Pearl S. Buck (1892–1973) American writer
Source: My Several Worlds (1954), p. 52 - 53
Context: Every event has had its cause, and nothing, not the least wind that blows, is accident or causeless. To understand what happens now one must find the cause, which may be very long ago in its beginning, but is surely there, and therefore a knowledge of history as detailed as possible is essential if we are to comprehend the present and be prepared for the future. Fate, Mr. Kung taught me, is not the blind superstition or helplessness that waits stupidly for what may happen. Fate is unalterable only in the sense that given a cause, a certain result must follow, but no cause is inevitable in itself, and man can shape his world if he does not resign himself to ignorance.
Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) American poet
Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction (1942), It Must Change
Context: Like a page of music, like an upper air,
Like a momentary color, in which swans
Were seraphs, were saints, were changing essences. The west wind was the music, the motion, the force
To which the swans curveted, a will to change,
A will to make iris frettings on the blank.
Mary Wollstonecraft book A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
Source: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), Ch.5
Mary Wollstonecraft book A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
Source: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), Ch. 1
Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America
Turning Point USA conference, , quoted in * Connor Mannion
Trump Attacks Windmills in Speech to Conservative Group: ‘I Never Understood Wind’
Mediaite
2019-12-22
https://www.mediaite.com/trump/trump-attacks-windmills-in-speech-to-conservative-group-i-never-understood-wind/
2010s, 2019, December
Harold Macmillan (1894–1986) British politician
Speech to the South African Parliament (3 February 1960), quoted i.a. in "Mr Macmillan's appeal to South Africans", The Times (4 February 1960), p. 15
Prime Minister
Maximilien Robespierre (1758–1794) French revolutionary lawyer and politician
Principles to Form the Basis of the Administration of the Republic (February 1794)
Dany Laferrière (1953) Haitian Canadian novelist and journalist
On working on a French-language dictionary as part his duties at the Académie française in “Dany Laferrière, The Art of Fiction No. 237” https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/7040/dany-laferriere-the-art-of-fiction-no-237-dany-laferriere in The Paris Review (Fall 2017)
Daniel Abraham (1969) speculative fiction writer from the United States
Source: Caliban's War (2012), Chapter 42 (p. 463)
Koenraad Elst (1959) orientalist, writer
1990s, Ayodhya and After: Issues Before Hindu Society (1991)
“Wind will not cease even if trees want to rest.”
Mao Zedong (1893–1976) Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China
Directives on the Cultural Revolution (1966-1972)
Mao Zedong (1893–1976) Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China
"Rectify the Party's Style of Work" (1942)
Original: (zh-CN) 主观主义、宗派主义、党八股,现在已不是占统治地位的作风了,这不过是一股逆风,一股歪风,是从防空洞里跑出来的。 note: "整顿党的作风"
Joy Harjo (1951) American writer
On her advice to poets in “The First Native American U.S. Poet Laureate on How Poetry Can Counter Hate” https://time.com/5658443/joy-harjo-poet-interview/ in Time Magazine (2019 Aug 22)
Jair Bolsonaro (1955) Brazilian president elect
Speech at the at the 74th UN General Assembly. Statement by Mr. Jair Messias Bolsonaro, President of the Federative Republic of Brazil http://statements.unmeetings.org/GA74/BR_EN.pdf. United Nations PaperSmart (24 September 2019).
“Fact is, you work too hard…the universe won’t run down if you don’t wind it.”
Robert A. Heinlein book The Star Beast
Source: The Star Beast (1954), Chapter 12, “Concerning Pidgie-Widgie” (p. 185)
Brennan Manning book The Ragamuffin Gospel
p. 168 https://books.google.com/books?id=sUTZCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA168 <br class="br">1990s, The Ragamuffin Gospel (1990)
Michael Nava (1954) American writer
Source: Henry Rios series of novels, Goldenboy (1988), p.132
“Leaves, some the wind scatters on the ground—So is the race of man.”
Marcus Aurelius book Meditations
Leaves, also, are thy children; and leaves, too, are they who cry out so if they are worthy of credit, or bestow their praise, or on the contrary curse, or secretly blame and sneer; and leaves, in like manner, are those who shall receive and transmit a man's fame to after-times. For all such things as these "are produced in the season of spring," as the poet says; then the wind casts them down; then the forest produces other leaves in their places. But a brief existence is common to all things, and yet thou avoidest and pursuest all things as if they would be eternal.
X, 34
Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book X
Vinayak Damodar Savarkar (1883–1966) Indian pro-independence activist,lawyer, politician, poet, writer and playwright
V.D. Savarkar: Six glorious Epochs, p.136. (-: Six Glorious Epochs of Indian History. Veer Savarkar Prakashan, Bombay 1985 (1963).)
Annie Besant (1847–1933) British socialist, theosophist, women's rights activist, writer and orator
The Ageless Wisdom (1897)
Hannah Arendt (1906–1975) Jewish-American political theorist
The New York Review of Books interview with the French writer Roger Errera (1978)
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German writer, artist, and politician
Book VIII – Chapter 1
Wilhelm Meister's Wanderjahre (Journeyman Years) (1821–1829)
Ibrahim Kodra (1918–2006) father of Albanian contemporary art
Io cerco l'orizzonte lontano, l'esistenza della vita, l'infinito, i raggi del sole, l'evoluzione, io cerco l'irrazionale, l'indistruttibile, l'onda del mare, l'invincibile, io cerco l'inatteso, l'intemporale, l'inteleggibile, l'intraprendenza, l'istituibile, io cerco l'instaurabile, l'intrasferibile, l'intramutabile, l'insurrezione, io cerco l' inconsueto, l'insostituibile, l'insolubile, l'impossibile, io cerco l'insorgenza, l'invisibile, il primordiale, l'inarrivabile, io cerco l'organismo del cosmo, il mistero dell'aria, il soffio del vento, il sorgere dell'aurora, io cerco una terra da coltivare, il primo fiore, il primo seme, dell'avvenire, io cerco ...
Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) Dutch philosopher
Heinrich Heine, On the History of Philosophy and Religion and Other Writings [original in German]
G - L
Bill Nye (1955) American science educator, comedian, television host, actor, writer, scientist and former mechanical engineer
[NewsBank, Bill Nye challenges grads to 'change the world', The Eagle Tribune, Lawrence, Massachusetts, May 18, 2014]
Premchand (1880–1936) Hindi writer
After he published the Hindi novel in which the theme was about the oppressed and exploited Indian peasant quoted in [Anupa Lal, Munshi Premchand: The Voice of Truth, http://books.google.com/books?id=fTK-023B_wkC&pg=PA1900, 2002, Rupa, 978-81-7167-994-2, 1917]
Bismillah Khan (1916–2006) Indian musician
Peter Lavezzoli in his bo [Lavezzoli, Peter, The Dawn of Indian Music in the West, http://books.google.com/books?id=OSZKCXtx-wEC&pg=PA375, 24 April 2006, Continuum, 978-0-8264-1815-9, 32]
Thomas Young (scientist) (1773–1829) English polymath
Preface
A Course of Lectures on Natural Philosophy and the Mechanical Arts (1807)
“Whither hast thou fled, O wind?”
James Macpherson (1736–1796) Scottish writer, poet, translator, and politician
said the king of Morven. "Dost thou rustle in the chambers of the south? pursuest thou the shower in other lands? Why dost thou not come to my sails? to the blue face of my seas?"
"Lathmon"
The Poems of Ossian
Ingmar Bergman book Laterna Magica
Laterna Magica (1987); The Magic Lantern : An Autobiography as translated by Joan Tate (1988).
Variant translation: Film as dream, film as music. No art passes our conscience in the way film does, and goes directly to our feelings, deep down into the dark rooms of our souls.
As quoted in "Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye" by John Berger, Sight and Sound (June 1991).
Alan Keyes (1950) American politician
Barack Obama. Quoted in The Audacity of Hope - Page 210 - by Barack Obama.
Alfred Denning, Baron Denning (1899–1999) British judge
So be it—unless he has justification by law.
Southam v Smout [1964] 1 QB 308 at 320.
Denning was quoting William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham
Judgments
Nikos Kazantzakis book Report to Greco
This is how the spirit comes. After the gale, the earthquake, and fire: a gentle, cooling breeze. This is how it will come in our own day as well. We are passing through the period of earthquake, the fire is approaching, and eventually (when? after how many generations?) the gentle, cool breeze will blow.
"The Desert. Sinai.", Ch. 21, p. 278
Report to Greco (1965)
John Muir (1838–1914) Scottish-born American naturalist and author
" A Wind Storm in the Forests of the Yuba http://books.google.com/books?id=zj2gAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA55", Scribner's Monthly, volume XVII, number 1 (November 1878) pages 55-59 (at page 59); modified slightly and reprinted in The Mountains of California http://www.sierraclub.org/john_muir_exhibit/writings/the_mountains_of_california/ (1894), chapter 10: A Wind-Storm in the Forests <br class="br">1890s, The Mountains of California (1894)
Heinrich Heine (1797–1856) German poet, journalist, essayist, and literary critic
English Fragments (1828), Ch. 11 : The Emancipation
Variant: The weather-cock on the church spire, though made of iron, would soon be broken by the storm-wind if it did not understand the noble art of turning to every wind.
Thurgood Marshall (1908–1993) Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court
Speech delivered on September 6, 1990, before the Annual Judicial Conference of the Second Circuit, quoted in Supreme Justice Speeches and Writings Thurgood Marshall. Edited by J. Clay Smith, Jr. (2002).
Qurratulain Hyder (1927–2007) Urdu author
Qurratulain Hyder, Fireflies in the Mist
“I never thought I’d feel wind again. I never thought I’d be outside. It’s so beautiful.”
Daniel Abraham (1969) speculative fiction writer from the United States
Amos glanced around the ruins and shrugged. “That’s got a lot to do with context, I guess.”
Source: Nemesis Games (2015), Chapter 26 (p. 280)
Morris West (1916–1999) Australian writer
Gil Langton in Ch. 3, p. 38
The Ringmaster (1991)
Manuchehri (1000–1040) Persian poet
Tecumseh (1768–1813) Native American leader of the Shawnee
Quoted in Seeking a Nation Within a Nation, CBC Canada https://www.cbc.ca/history/EPCONTENTSE1EP5CH12LE.html
Jan van Riebeeck (1619–1677) Dutch colonial governor
Precis of the Archives of the Cape of Good Hope, January 1656 - December 1658, Riebeeck's Journal, H. C. V. Leibrandt, Cape Town 1897, p. 117
On the 3rd of May 1658 Jan van Riebeeck gave further instructions to the men on Robben Island;
William Bartram (1739–1823) American naturalist
[The travels of William Bartram, An American Bookshelf, volume 3, 236, https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.$b281934&view=1up&seq=242]
Travels of William Bartram (1791)
Bobby Sands (1954–1981) Irish volunteer of the Provisional Irish Republican Army
"Comrades in the Dark"
Poetry, Miscellaneous poems
Bobby Sands (1954–1981) Irish volunteer of the Provisional Irish Republican Army
"A Place to Rest"
Poetry, Miscellaneous poems
Garth Brooks (1962) American country music artist
The River, written by Victoria Shaw and G. Brooks.
Song lyrics, Ropin' the Wind (1991)
Stephen Vincent Benét (1898–1943) poet, short story writer, novelist
Source: Young Adventure (1918), The Lover in Hell
Daniel Abraham (1969) speculative fiction writer from the United States
Source: The Expanse, Tiamat's Wrath (2019), Chapter 32 (p. 339)
Stanley Kunitz (1905–2006) poet
Though I lack the art<br>to decipher it,<br>no doubt the next chapter<br>in my book of transformations<br>is already written.<br>I am not done with my changes. <br class="br">Poems, The Layers <br class="br">Source: "The Layers" by Stanley Kunitz<br> [Click here for video version on YouTube as read by the author https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wk6xW41EFoA ]
Alexandra David-Néel (1868–1969) French explorer, spiritualist, Buddhist, anarchist and writer
Magic And Mystery In Tibet
“No wind serves him who addresses his voyage to no certain port.”
Michel De Montaigne (1533–1592) (1533-1592) French-Occitan author, humanistic philosopher, statesman
Book II, Ch. 1
Attributed
Nikos Kazantzakis (1883–1957) Greek writer
Odysseus, Book X, line 892
The Odyssey : A Modern Sequel (1938)
Felix Adler (1851–1933) German American professor of political and social ethics, rationalist, and lecturer
Section 6 : Higher Life
Life and Destiny (1913)
“Mountains cannot be surmounted except by winding paths.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German writer, artist, and politician
“If one does not know to which port is sailing, no wind is favorable.”
Seneca the Younger (-4–65 BC) Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, and dramatist
Menotti Lerro (1980) Italian poet
Dove sarà mai la luce promessa? C’è forse un paradiso tra le nuvole, riposo nel vento, ristoro nei fondali marini? Dove finisce il buio, l’insonnia, la pazzia, il pianto, la malattia, la morte? Dove si nasconde Dio?
FROM: Andrew Mangham, The Poetry of Menotti Lerro, Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2011, pp. 71-72. ISBN 978-1443828444
Steven J. Lopes (1975) American Roman Catholic prelate (born 1975)
Bishop Steven Lopes on Ordinariate’s Missal and Gift of English Catholic Patrimony https://www.ncregister.com/news/bishop-steven-lopes-on-ordinariate-s-missal-and-gift-of-english-catholic-patrimony (December 7, 2016)
“One does not attain everything he wishes for.
Winds blow counter to what the ships desire.”
Al-Mutanabbi (915–965) Arabic poet from the Abbasid era
From the poem Bima At-Taʿallulu http://www.almotanabbi.com/poemPage.do?poemId=272
Carlos Castaneda book The Wheel of Time
Source: The Wheel of Time: Shamans of Ancient Mexico, Their Thoughts About Life, Death and the Universe], (1998), Quotations from "The Power of Silence" (Chapter 18)
Elton John (1947) English rock singer-songwriter, composer and pianist
Source: Song I'm Still Standing
Andrés Montoya (1968–1999) American writer
Source: Excerpt from his poem “three thousand lost kisses” https://poets.org/poem/three-thousand-lost-kisses
Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist
According to the Lady's Book of Flowers, 1842 , this is the centaury
Source: The London Literary Gazette, 1824
Mike Scott (1958) songwriter, musician
Book of Lightning (2007) <br class="br">Source: "The Man With The Wind At His Heels" · Video at YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozofHLXORsw
“You can make sure wind turbines can deal with the cold.”
Bill Gates (1955) American business magnate and philanthropist
Source: " Bill Gates says Texas Gov. Greg Abbott's explanation for power outages is 'actually wrong https://finance.yahoo.com/news/bill-gates-texas-gov-greg-abbott-power-outage-claims-climate-change-002303596.html" (February 17, 2021)
Alastair Reynolds book Blue Remembered Earth
Source: Blue Remembered Earth (2012), Chapter 17 (pp. 292-293)
Theodore Watts-Dunton (1832–1914) English literary critic and poet
"A Talk on Waterloo Bridge: The Last Sight of George Borrow", p. 150.
The Coming of Love and Other Poems (1897)
Jack Cady book The Night We Buried Road Dog
Source: The Night We Buried Road Dog (1993), p. 495
Viktor Yanukovych (1950) Ukrainian politician who was the President of Ukraine
Source: [2011-06-23, Янукович хочет понять, куда движется Украина, https://news.liga.net/economics/news/yanukovich-khochet-ponyat-kuda-dvizhetsya-ukraina, 2022-06-12, LIGA, ru]