Quotes about wind
page 3

“Death is not yet dead everywhere. Some points and surfaces still resist and budge and cry out, doubtless because it is dawn; and once the wind swept away a muffled bugle-call. There are some who still burn with the invisible fire of fever, in spite of the frozen periods they have crossed. But the cold is working into them. The immobility of lifeless things is passing into them, and the wind empties itself as it goes by.”

Henri Barbusse (1873–1935) French novelist

Light (1919), Ch. XV - An Apparition

Death, Cry, Dead

“Knowst thou the land where the lemon trees bloom,
Where the gold orange glows in the deep thicket's gloom,
Where a wind ever soft from the blue heaven blows,
And the groves are of laurel and myrtle and rose?”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German writer, artist, and politician

Bk. III, Ch. 1
Wilhelm Meister's Lehrjahre (Apprenticeship) (1786–1830)

Tree

“If doubtful whether to end with “yours faithfully”, or “yours truly”, or “your most truly”, &c. (there are at least a dozen varieties, before you reach “yours affectionately”), refer to your correspondent’s last letter, and make your winding-up at least as friendly as his: in fact, even if a shade more friendly, it will do no harm!”

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

Eight or Nine Wise Words About Letter-Writing (1890)

“The little engine labors and grows, performs more and more involved operations, becomes sensitive to ever subtler influences and now there manifests itself in the fully developed being — Man — a desire mysterious, inscrutable and irresistible: to imitate nature, to create, to work himself the wonders he perceives.
Inspired to this task he searches, discovers and invents, designs and constructs, and covers with monuments of beauty, grandeur and awe, the star of his birth. He descends into the bowels of the globe to bring forth its hidden treasures and to unlock its immense imprisoned energies for his use. He invades the dark depths of the ocean and the azure regions of the sky. He peers in the innermost nooks and recesses of molecular structure and lays bare to his gaze worlds infinitely remote. He subdues and puts to his service the fierce, devastating spark of Prometheus, the titanic forces of the waterfall, the wind and the tide. He tames the thundering bolt of Jove and annihilates time and space. He makes the great Sun itself his obedient toiling slave. Such is his power and might that the heavens reverberate and the whole earth trembles by the mere sound of his voice.”

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor

Man's Greatest Achievement (1908; 1930)

World, Beauty, Search, Star

“Lord: it is time. The summer was immense.
Let thine shadows upon the sundials fall,
and unleash the winds upon the open fields.”

Rainer Maria Rilke book The Book of Images

Herr: es ist Zeit. Der Sommer war sehr groß.
Leg deinen Schatten auf die Sonnenuhren,
und auf den Fluren laß die Winde los.
Herbsttag (Autumn Day) (as translated by Cliff Crego)
Das Buch der Bilder (The Book of Images) (1902)

Time, Summer

“Oh! Death will find me, long before I tire
Of watching you; and swing me suddenly
Into the shade and loneliness and mire
Of the last land! There, waiting patiently,
One day, I think, I'll feel a cool wind blowing,
See a slow light across the Stygian tide,
And hear the Dead about me stir, unknowing,
And tremble. And I shall know that you have died,
And watch you, a broad-browed and smiling dream,
Pass, light as ever, through the lightless host,
Quietly ponder, start, and sway, and gleam—
Most individual and bewildering ghost!—
And turn, and toss your brown delightful head
Amusedly, among the ancient Dead.”

Rupert Brooke (1887–1915) British poet

Sonnet http://books.google.com/books?id=SDgOAQAAMAAJ&q=&quot;Oh+Death+will+find+me+long+before+I+tire+Of+watching+you&quot;&pg=PA47#v=onepage (1908-1910)

Death, Smile, Dreams, Feeling

“The anatomy of self-propelling objects is subject to universal laws. Those of cars and animals are similar in many ways. First of all, there's the stomach. Stomachs are like petrol tanks. It takes energy to move around, and that energy must accompany its user. All self-propelling objects carry provisions with them in a sealed-off space, a stomach or a tank. Self-propelling beach animals like Animaris Percipiere have a stomach too. This consists of recycled plastic bottles containing air that can be pumped up to a high pressure by the wind.”

Theo Jansen (1948) artist

Source: The Great Pretender. (2007), p. 153

Law, Cars, Way, Universe

“The wind which passes through the skins of animals will make men leap up: That is the bagpipes, which cause men to dance.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci (1938), XLV Prophecies

Men, Animals, Dance

“I felt a joy in my heart, which seemed filled with love, love for the sun, the snow, the wind and the hills, love for everything around me.”

Ba Jin (1904–2005) Chinese novelist

"When the Snow Melted" http://www.wordswithoutborders.org/article.php?lab=BaJin [Hua-Hsueh Ti Jih-Tzu] (1962), as translated by Tang Sheng at Words Without Borders Context: I felt a joy in my heart, which seemed filled with love, love for the sun, the snow, the wind and the hills, love for everything around me. It was in this mood that I walked down the snow-covered path dotted with black footprints. Further down the footprints mingled and made dirty little puddles. I picked my way over the thickest snow because I loved the crunching of snow underfoot. With the sunlight pouring down and a breeze in my face I felt that balmy spring was coming to meet me.

Love, Sun, Heart, Joy

“The heart of man is a labyrinth, whose windings are very difficult to be discovered.”

Heloise (1101–1164) French nun, writer, scholar, and abbess

Letter IV : Heloise to Abelard
Letters of Abelard and Heloise
Context: The heart of man is a labyrinth, whose windings are very difficult to be discovered. The praises you give me are the more dangerous, in regard that I love the person who gives them. The more I desire to please you, the readier am I to believe all the merit you attribute to me. Ah, think rather how to support my weaknesses by wholesome remonstrances! Be rather fearful than confident of my salvation: say our virtue is founded upon weakness, and that those only will be crowned who have fought with the greatest difficulties: but I seek not for that crown which is the reward of victory, I am content to avoid only the danger. It is easier to keep off than to win a battle. There are several degrees in glory, and I am not ambitious of the highest; those I leave to souls of great courage, who have been often victorious. I seek not to conquer, out of fear lest I should be overcome. Happy enough, if I can escape shipwreck, and at last gain the port. Heaven commands me to renounce that fatal passion which unites me to you; but oh! my heart will never be able to consent to it. Adieu.

Heart

“At present I shall only give you my Opinion that tho’ your Reasonings are subtle, and may prevail with some Readers, you will not succeed so as to change the general Sentiments of Mankind on that Subject, and the Consequence of printing this Piece will be a great deal of Odium drawn upon your self, Mischief to you and no Benefit to others. He that spits against the Wind, spits in his own Face.”

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

Letter to unknown recipient (13 December 1757) http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?document=473. The letter was published as early as 1817 (William Temple Franklin, The Works of Benjamin Franklin, volume VI, pp. 243-244). In 1833 William Wisner ("Don't Unchain the Tiger," American Tract Society, 1833) identified the recipient as probably Thomas Paine, which was echoed by Jared Sparks in his 1840 edition of Franklin's works (volume x, p. 281). (Presumably it would have been directed against The Age of Reason, his deistic work which criticized orthodox Christianity.) Calvin Blanchard responded to Wisner's tract in The Life of Thomas Paine (1860), pp. 73-74, by noting that Franklin died in 1790, while Paine did not begin writing The Age of Reason until 1793, and incorrectly concluded that the letter did not exist. Paul F. Boller, Jr., and John George, included it in They Never Said It: A Book of Fake Quotes, Misquotes, & Misleading Attributions (1989), on p. 28. Moncure Daniel Conway pointed out (The Life of Thomas Paine, 1892, vol I, p. vii) that the recipient could not be Thomas Paine, in that he, unlike Paine, denied a "particular providence". The intended recipient remains unidentified. Parts of the above have also been rearranged and paraphrased: I would advise you not to attempt Unchaining The Tiger, but to burn this piece before it is seen by any other person. If men are so wicked with religion, what would they be if without it? If men are so wicked with religion, what would they be Without it? Think how many inconsiderate and inexperienced youth of both sexes there are, who have need of the motives of religion to restrain them from vice, to support their virtue, and retain them in the practice of it till it becomes habitual. Epistles Context: I have read your Manuscript with some Attention. By the Arguments it contains against the Doctrine of a particular Providence, tho’ you allow a general Providence, you strike at the Foundation of all Religion: For without the Belief of a Providence that takes Cognizance of, guards and guides and may favour particular Persons, there is no Motive to Worship a Deity, to fear its Displeasure, or to pray for its Protection. I will not enter into any Discussion of your Principles, tho’ you seem to desire it; At present I shall only give you my Opinion that tho’ your Reasonings are subtle, and may prevail with some Readers, you will not succeed so as to change the general Sentiments of Mankind on that Subject, and the Consequence of printing this Piece will be a great deal of Odium drawn upon your self, Mischief to you and no Benefit to others. He that spits against the Wind, spits in his own Face. But were you to succeed, do you imagine any Good would be done by it? You yourself may find it easy to live a virtuous Life without the Assistance afforded by Religion; you having a clear Perception of the Advantages of Virtue and the Disadvantages of Vice, and possessing a Strength of Resolution sufficient to enable you to resist common Temptations. But think how great a Proportion of Mankind consists of weak and ignorant Men and Women, and of inexperienc’d and inconsiderate Youth of both Sexes, who have need of the Motives of Religion to restrain them from Vice, to support their Virtue, and retain them in the Practice of it till it becomes habitual, which is the great Point for its Security; And perhaps you are indebted to her originally that is to your Religious Education, for the Habits of Virtue upon which you now justly value yourself. You might easily display your excellent Talents of reasoning on a less hazardous Subject, and thereby obtain Rank with our most distinguish’d Authors. For among us, it is not necessary, as among the Hottentots that a Youth to be receiv’d into the Company of Men, should prove his Manhood by beating his Mother. I would advise you therefore not to attempt unchaining the Tyger, but to burn this Piece before it is seen by any other Person, whereby you will save yourself a great deal of Mortification from the Enemies it may raise against you, and perhaps a good deal of Regret and Repentance. If Men are so wicked as we now see them with Religion what would they be if without it?

Change

“O killing north wind, cease!
Come, south wind, that awakenest love!”

John of the Cross (1542–1591) Spanish mystic and Roman Catholic saint

Spiritual Canticle of The Soul and The Bridegroom
Context: O killing north wind, cease!
Come, south wind, that awakenest love!
Blow through my garden,
And let its odours flow,
And the Beloved shall feed among the flowers. ~ 17

Love

“Gone, lost, scattered to the four winds. It still surprises me
how little now remains”

Wisława Szymborska (1923–2012) Polish writer

"A Speech at the Lost-and-Found"
Poems New and Collected (1998), Could Have (1972)
Context: Gone, lost, scattered to the four winds. It still surprises me
how little now remains, one first person sing., temporarily
declined in human form, just now making such a fuss
about a blue umbrella left yesterday on a bus.

“I am a being of Heaven and Earth,
of thunder and lightning,
of rain and wind,
of the galaxies,
of the suns and the stars
and the void through which they travel.”

Eden ahbez (1908–1995) American songwriter and recording artist

Tape recording declaring how he recited one of his poems in response to a question "What is your background?" (1992)
Shadowbox Studio
Context: I am a being of Heaven and Earth,
of thunder and lightning,
of rain and wind,
of the galaxies,
of the suns and the stars
and the void through which they travel.
The essence of nature,
eternal, divine that all men seek to know to hear,
known as the great illusion time,
and the all-prevailing atmosphere.
And now you know my background.

Travel, Star, Sun

“Of strange, discordant, and even hostile elements, we gathered from the four winds, and formed and fought the battle through, under the constant hot fire of a disciplined, proud, and pampered enemy. Did we brave all them to falter now?”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

now, when that same enemy is wavering, dissevered, and belligerent? The result is not doubtful. We shall not fail — if we stand firm, we shall not fail. Wise counsels may accelerate, or mistakes delay it, but, sooner or later, the victory is sure to come.
1850s, The House Divided speech (1858)

Hostility

“Who rides, so late, through night and wind?
It is the father with his child.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Der Erlkönig

Der Erlkönig (1782)
Context: Who rides, so late, through night and wind?
It is the father with his child.
He holds the boy in the crook of his arm
He holds him safe, he keeps him warm.

Night

“If it rains, let it rain, if the wind blows, let it blow.”

Ikkyu (1394–1481) Japanese Buddhist monk

As quoted in The Essence of Zen : Zen Buddhism for Every Day and Every Moment (2002) by Mark Levon Byrne, p. 28.
Context: From the world of passions returning to the world of passions:
There is a moment's pause.
If it rains, let it rain, if the wind blows, let it blow.

“In battles, when the armies are in confrontation, attack the enemy's strong points and, when you see that they are beaten back, quickly separate and attack yet another strong point on the periphery of his force. The spirit of this is like a winding mountain path.
This is an important fighting method for one man against many. Strike down the enemies in one quarter, or drive them back, then grasp the timing and attack further strong points to right and left, as if on a winding mountain path, weighing up the enemies' disposition. When you know the enemies' level, attack strongly with no trace of retreating spirit.”

Miyamoto Musashi (1584–1645) Japanese martial artist, writer, artist

Go Rin No Sho (1645), The Fire Book

Fight

“When I lie on the beach there naked, which I do sometimes, and I feel the wind coming over me and I see the stars up above and I am looking into this very deep, indescribable night, it is something that escapes my vocabulary to describe.”

Marlon Brando (1924–2004) American screen and stage actor

New York Times (July 2, 2004)
Context: When I lie on the beach there naked, which I do sometimes, and I feel the wind coming over me and I see the stars up above and I am looking into this very deep, indescribable night, it is something that escapes my vocabulary to describe. Then I think: 'God, I have no importance. Whatever I do or don't do, or what anybody does, is not more important than the grains of sand that I am lying on, or the coconut that I am using for my pillow.' So I really don't think in the long sense.

Lie, Feeling, Star, Night

“There will be great winds by reason of which things of the East will become things of the West”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), XX Humorous Writings
Context: There will be great winds by reason of which things of the East will become things of the West; and those of the South, being involved in the course of the winds, will follow them to distant lands.

“It was the cause of America that made me an author. The force with which it struck my mind and the dangerous condition the country appeared to me in, by courting an impossible and an unnatural reconciliation with those who were determined to reduce her, instead of striking out into the only line that could cement and save her, A Declaration Of Independence, made it impossible for me, feeling as I did, to be silent: and if, in the course of more than seven years, I have rendered her any service, I have likewise added something to the reputation of literature, by freely and disinterestedly employing it in the great cause of mankind, and showing that there may be genius without prostitution. Independence always appeared to me practicable and probable, provided the sentiment of the country could be formed and held to the object: and there is no instance in the world, where a people so extended, and wedded to former habits of thinking, and under such a variety of circumstances, were so instantly and effectually pervaded, by a turn in politics, as in the case of independence; and who supported their opinion, undiminished, through such a succession of good and ill fortune, till they crowned it with success. But as the scenes of war are closed, and every man preparing for home and happier times, I therefore take my leave of the subject. I have most sincerely followed it from beginning to end, and through all its turns and windings: and whatever country I may hereafter be in, I shall always feel an honest pride at the part I have taken and acted, and a gratitude to nature and providence for putting it in my power to be of some use to mankind.”

Thomas Paine (1737–1809) English and American political activist

The Crisis No. XIII
1770s, The American Crisis (1776–1783)

War, People, World, Feeling

“In twenty to thirty thousand years memories become legends and legends become superstitions and even the superstitions become lost. Metals rust and corrode back into earth while the wind, the rain and the jungle erode and cover stone. The contours of the very continents change—and glaciers come and go, and a city of twenty thousand years before is under miles of earth or miles of water.”

Fredric Brown book Letter to a Phoenix

Letter to a Phoenix (p. 337)
Short fiction, From These Ashes (2000)

Water, Memory, Change

“But listen: If anyone here should wind up on a gurney in a lethal-injection facility, maybe the one at Terre Haute, here is what your last words should be: "This will certainly teach me a lesson."”

Kurt Vonnegut book Armageddon in Retrospect

"At Clowes Hall, Indianapolis, April 27 2007" - p.22 [Page numbers per the 2008 Jonathan Cape hardback edition.]
(From a speech written by Kurt Vonnegut before his death but delivered posthumously on his behalf by son Mark Vonnegut.)
Armageddon in Retrospect (2008)

“Purpose necessitates one has a vision into their future. Without purpose and vision, your life will resemble a windmill without wind. Devoid of wind, the windmill cannot do its job and has ceased to function.”

Gandolfo – (RJ Intindola)

1973

Life, Future

“I've had the wind knocked out of me, but never the hurricane”

Jeffrey McDaniel (1967) American writer

“This wind is mystical yet tame, and it sings to me.”

Marianne Curley book Old Magic

Source: Old Magic

Singing

“A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) American poet

My Lost Youth, refrain (1858), quoting Olaus Sirma
Source: The Complete Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Youth, Boy

“No wind favors he who has no destined port.”

Michel De Montaigne (1533–1592) (1533-1592) French-Occitan author, humanistic philosopher, statesman

Book II, Ch. 1
Attributed
Variant: No wind serves him who addresses his voyage to no certain port.
Source: The Complete Essays

“Nothing is ever truly set by fate. In one blink, everything changes. Even though it should be a clear, sunny day, the softest whisper into the wind can become a hurricane that destroys everything it touches. (Acheron)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Sins of the Night

Fate, Change

“How do our lives ravel out
into the no-wind, no-sound,
the weary gestures wearily recapitulant:
echoes of old compulsions with no-hand on no-string:
in sunset we fall into furious attitudes,
dead gestures of dolls.”

William Faulkner book As I Lay Dying

Source: As I Lay Dying

Dead

“Jamie saved my life. She taught me everything. About life, hope and the long journey ahead. I'll always miss her. But our love is like the wind. I can't see it, but I can feel it.”

Nicholas Sparks book A Walk to Remember

Variant: Jamie saved my life. She taught me everything. About life, hope and the long journey ahead. I'll always miss her. But our love is like the wind. I can't see it, but I can feel it." - Landon Carter
Source: A Walk to Remember

Love, Life, Hope, Feeling

“I've got a library copy of Gone with the Wind, a quart of milk and all these cookies. Wow! What an orgy!”

Jacqueline Susann book Valley of the Dolls

Source: Valley of the Dolls

“Close your eyes and turn your face into the wind.

Feel it sweep along your skin in an invisible ocean of exultation.

Suddenly, youyou are.”

Vera Nazarian (1966) American writer

Source: The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration

Feeling

“may you kiss
the wind then turn from it
certain that it will
love your back”

Lucille Clifton (1936–2010) American poet

Love, Kiss

“Isn't man but a blossom taken by wind, and only the mountains and the sea and the stars and this land of the gods everlasting?”

James Clavell book Shōgun

Source: Shōgun

God, Mountain, Star, Sea

“I danced along a colored wind/
Dangled from a rope of sand”

Tom Waits (1949) American singer-songwriter and actor

Source: Lyrics of Tom Waits: The Early Years, 1971-1983

Color, Dance

“I'll always miss her. But our love is like the wind: I can't see it, but I can feel it.”

Nicholas Sparks book A Walk to Remember

Variant: Our love is like the wind... I cant see it, but I sure can feel it.
Source: A Walk to Remember

Love, Feeling

“Walk away quietly in any direction and taste the freedom of the mountaineer. Camp out among the grass and gentians of glacier meadows, in craggy garden nooks full of Nature's darlings. Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves. As age comes on, one source of enjoyment after another is closed, but Nature's sources never fail. … The petty discomforts that beset the awkward guest, the unskilled camper, are quickly forgotten, while all that is precious remains. Fears vanish as soon as one is fairly free in the wilderness.”

John Muir (1838–1914) Scottish-born American naturalist and author

" The Yellowstone National Park http://books.google.com/books?id=smQCAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA509", The Atlantic Monthly, volume LXXXI, number 486 (April 1898) pages 509-522 (at pages 515-516); modified slightly and reprinted in Our National Parks http://www.sierraclub.org/john_muir_exhibit/writings/our_national_parks/ (1901), chapter 2: The Yellowstone National Park 1900s, Our National Parks (1901)

Age, Fear, Peace, Mountain

“There are winds of destiny that blow when we least expect them. Sometimes they gust with the fury of a hurricane, sometimes they barely fan one’s cheek. But the winds cannot be denied, bringing as they often do a future that is impossible to ignore.”

Nicholas Sparks book Message in a Bottle

Source: Message in a Bottle

Future

“Never seek to tell thy love
Love that never told can be;
For the gentle wind does move
Silently, invisibly.

I told my love, I told my love,
I told her all my heart;
Trembling, cold, in ghastly fears—
Ah, she doth depart.

Soon as she was gone from me
A traveler came by
Silently, invisibly—
Oh, was no deny.”

William Blake (1757–1827) English Romantic poet and artist

Never Seek to Tell
1790s, Poems from Blake's Notebook (c. 1791-1792)

Love, Fear, Travel, Heart

“If you were coming in the fall,
I'd brush the summer by,
With half a smile and half a spurn,
As housewives do a fly.

If I could see you in a year,
I'd wind the months in balls,
And put them each in separate drawers,
Until their time befalls.”

Emily Dickinson book The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson

Source: The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson

Smile, Time, Summer, Flying

“People in the real world would kill for a happily ever after, and you're willing to just throw it away?"
I look away from her. "It's hardly a happily ever after when you wind up right at the beginning.”

Jodi Picoult (1966) Author

Source: Between the Lines

People, World

“Little solace comes
to those who grieve
when thoughts keep drifting
as walls keep shifting
and this great blue world of ours
seems a house of leaves

moments before the wind.”

Mark Z. Danielewski book House of Leaves

Source: House of Leaves

World, Housing

“Sometimes when I'm with you, I remember things I lost when I was your age. Like I remember the sound of the rain and the smell of the wind.”

Haruki Murakami book Dance Dance Dance

Source: Dance Dance Dance

Age

“Laura felt a warmth inside her. It was very small, but it was strong. It was steady, like a tiny light in the dark, and it burned very low but no winds could make it flicker because it would not give up.”

Laura Ingalls Wilder book The Long Winter

Source: The Long Winter

Light, Strong

“It’s because of you when I’m in bed in the morning that I can wind my spring and tell myself I have to live another good day.”

Haruki Murakami book Norwegian Wood

Variant: It's because of you when I'm in bed in the morning that I can wind my spring and tell myself I have to live another good day.
Source: Norwegian Wood

Spring

“Be still:
There is no longer any need of comment.
It was a lucky wind
That blew away his halo with his cares,
A lucky sea that drowned his reputation.”

Thomas Merton (1915–1968) Priest and author

Sea

“You sent him to the sky to die, assassin," Kaladin said, Stormlight puffing from his lips, "but the sky and the winds are mine. I claim them, as I now claim your life.”

Brandon Sanderson book Words of Radiance

Source: Words of Radiance

Life

“If it's ka it'll come like a wind, and your plans will stand before it no more than a barn before a cyclone”

Stephen King book Wizard and Glass

Source: Wizard and Glass

“Inigo Montoya: He's right on top of us. I wonder if he is using the same wind we are using.”

William Goldman book The Princess Bride

Source: The Princess Bride

“Listen to the trees as they sway in the wind.

Their leaves are telling secrets. Their bark sings songs of olden days as it grows around the trunks. And their roots give names to all things.

Their language has been lost.

But not the gestures.”

Vera Nazarian (1966) American writer

Source: The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration

Secret, Tree, Singing

“Other men are strong like bricks - firm, unyielding, but if you pound on them long enough, they crack. You… you're strong like the wind. Always there, so willing to bend, but never apologetic for the times when you must be firm.”

Brandon Sanderson (1975) American fantasy writer

Source: The Well of Ascension

Men, Strong, Time

“She is like the wind, open and free. If I cage the wind, would it die?
-Then don't cage it, Mikhail. Trust it to stay beside you.”

Christine Feehan book Dark Prince

Source: Dark Prince

“May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view.”

Edward Abbey (1927–1989) American author and essayist

“The rain to the wind said,
'You push and I'll pelt.'
They so smote the garden bed.
That the flowers actually knelt,
And lay lodged -- though not dead.
I know how the flowers felt.”

Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet

Variant: The rain to the wind said,
You push and I'll pelt.'
They so smote the garden bed
That the flowers actually knelt,
And lay lodged--though not dead.
I know how the flowers felt.
Source: The Poetry of Robert Frost

Flowers, Dead

“We say that Columbus discovered America and Newton discovered gravity, as though America and gravity weren't there until Columbus and Newton got wind of them.”

Susanna Kaysen book Girl, Interrupted

Source: Girl, Interrupted

“The melody faded like a rainbow after a storm, or like winds calming down at last; and what was left was calm, and possibility, and relief.”

Gregory Maguire book Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West

Source: Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West

“As is the generation of leaves, so is that of humanity.
The wind scatters the leaves on the ground, but the live timber
Burgeons with leaves again in the season of spring returning.
So one generation of men will grow while another dies.”

Homér Iliad

VI. 146–149 (tr. R. Lattimore); Glaucus to Diomed.
Alexander Pope's translation:
: Like leaves on trees the race of man is found,
Now green in youth, now withering on the ground:
Another race the following spring supplies,
They fall successive, and successive rise:
So generations in their course decay;
So flourish these, when those are past away.
Iliad (c. 750 BC)
Source: The Iliad

Men, Spring, Season

“I have felt the wind on the wing of madness.”

Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867) French poet

Madness

“She was as forthright and simple as the winds that blew over Tara and the yellow river that wound around it.”

Margaret Mitchell book Vom Winde verweht (1937 German edition)

Source: Gone with the Wind

“I found a sad little fairy
Beneath the shade of a paper tree.
I know a sad little fairy
Who was blown away by the wind one night.”

Khaled Hosseini book And the Mountains Echoed

Source: And the Mountains Echoed

Sadness, Tree, Night

“What is hardest to accept about the passage of time is that the people who once mattered the most to us wind up in parentheses.”

John Irving book The Cider House Rules

Source: The Cider House Rules

People, Time, Sad, Depressing

“If you want to find the trail, if you want to find yourself, you must explore your dreams alone. You must grow at a slow pace in a dark cocoon of loneliness so you can fly like wind, like wings, when you awaken.”

Francesca Lia Block book Dangerous Angels

Source: Dangerous Angels

Dreams, Loneliness, Flying

“We the mortals touch the metals,
the wind, the ocean shores, the stones,
knowing they will go on, inert or burning,
and I was discovering, naming all the these things:
it was my destiny to love and say goodbye.”

Pablo Neruda (1904–1973) Chilean poet

Source: Still Another Day

Love

“it's doors I'm afraid of because I can't see through them, its the door opening by itself in the wind I'm afraid of.”

Margaret Atwood book Surfacing

Source: Surfacing

“a wind has blown the rain away & the sky away & all the leaves away, & the trees stand. i think i, too, have known autumn too long.”

E.E. Cummings (1894–1962) American poet

Autumn, Thinking, Tree, Beauty

“Tell me Zach.” I don’t know if it was the wind or the adrenaline, but I shivered. “And don’t lie to me.”

Ally Carter Out of Sight, Out of Time

Source: Out of Sight, Out of Time

Lie

“That word is 'willing.' It's an attitude and spirit of cooperation that should permeate our conversations. It's like a palm tree by the ocean that endures the greatest winds because it knows how to gracefully bend.”

Stephen Kendrick book The Love Dare

Source: The Love Dare

Tree

“Take me with you. I want a doomed love. I want streets at night, wind and rain, no one wondering where I am.”

Michael Cunningham book The Hours

Source: The Hours

Love, Night

“We came in the wind of the carnival. A wind of change, or promises. The merry wind, the magical wind, making March hares of everyone, tumbling blossoms and coat-tails and hats; rushing towards summer in a frenzy of exuberance.”

Joanne Harris book The Lollipop Shoes

Source: The Lollipop Shoes

Change, Summer

“Anyone who imagines they can work alone winds up surrounded by nothing but rivals, without companions. The fact is, no one ascends alone.”

Lance Armstrong book It's Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life

Source: It's Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life

Imagination, For Team

“A girl doesn't always want to go out, you know, Mr. Wind-Up Bird. Sometimes she feels like being nasty--like, if the guy's gonna wait, let him really wait.”

Haruki Murakami book The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

Source: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

Guy, Feeling, Girl, Bird

“The willow submits to the wind and prospers until one day it is many willows - a wall against the wind.”

Frank Herbert book Dune

Source: Dune

“Within its gates I heard the sound
Of winds in cypress caverns caught
Of huddling tress that moaned, and sought
To whisper what their roots had found.
(“A Dream of Fear”)”

George Sterling (1869–1926) American poet and playwright

Source: The Thirst of Satan: Poems of Fantasy and Terror

Fear, Dreams

“I think that when we look for love courageously, it reveals itself, and we wind up attracting even more love. If one person really wants us, everyone does. But if we’re alone, we become even more alone. Life is strange.”

Paulo Coelho book By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept

Variant: I think that if we look for love courageously, it reveals itself, and we wind up attracting even more love. If one person really wants us, everyone does. But if we’re alone, we become even more alone. Life is strange.
Source: By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept

Love, Life, Courage, Thinking

“The winds and waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators.”

Edward Gibbon (1737–1794) English historian and Member of Parliament

Vol. 1, Chap. 68. Compare: "On dit que Dieu est toujours pour les gros bataillons" (translated: "It is said that God is always on the side of the heaviest battalions"), Voltaire, Letter to M. le Riche. 1770; "J'ai toujours vu Dieu du coté des gros bataillons (translated: "I have always noticed that God is on the side of the heaviest battalions"), De la Ferté to Anne of Austria.
The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire: Volume 1 (1776)