Quotes about wind
page 5

“We all wind up drawn to what we're afraid of, drawn to try to find a way to make ourselves safe from a thing by crawling inside of it, by loving it, by becoming it.”

Holly Black book The Coldest Girl in Coldtown

Source: The Coldest Girl in Coldtown

Love, Way

“Laila: Tell your secrets to the wind but don't blame it for telling the trees.”

Khaled Hosseini book A Thousand Splendid Suns

Source: A Thousand Splendid Suns (2007)

Secret, Tree

“And of course I'm in the press all the time. So many books have been written about me; Into thin air, up in the air, Gone with the wind”

Rick Riordan book The Lost Hero

Source: The Lost Hero

Books, Time

“Image: An Oak Tree. The oak that resists the wind loses its branches one by one, and with nothing left to protect it, the trunk fi nally snaps. The oak that bends lives long er, its trunk grow ing wider, its roots deeper and more tenacious.”

Robert Greene book The 48 Laws of Power

Source: The 48 Laws of Power

Tree

“Do I know what people say? Sure. I shrug it off. what else can you do? Stop people from talking? You might as well try to stop the wind from blowing.”

Stephen King book 11/22/63

Source: 11/22/63

People

“Just for fun I flew in huge banking arcs, taking deep breaths, enjoying the feel of my newly weightless hair. The stylist had called it “wind tossed.”
If only she knew.”

James Patterson (1947) American author

Source: The Angel Experiment

Feeling

“Gatsby turned out all right at the end; it is what preyed on Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams that temporarily closed out my interest in the abortive sorrows and short-winded elations of men.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby

Source: The Great Gatsby

Men, Dreams

“I spent uncounted hours sitting at the bow looking at the water and the sky, studying each wave, different from the last, seeing how it caught the light, the air, the wind; watching patterns, the sweep of it all, and letting it take me.
The sea.”

Gary Paulsen (1939) American writer and musher

Source: Caught by the Sea

Study, Light, Water, Sea

“When you can’t change the direction of the wind — adjust your sails”

H. Jackson Brown, Jr. (1940) American writer

Change, Attitude

“Absence is to love as wind is to fire: it extinguishes the little flame, it fans the big.”

Umberto Eco (1932–2016) Italian semiotician, essayist, philosopher, literary critic, and novelist

Love

“We need to be together."
"Why?" I asked softly. The word was carried away on the wind, but he heard.
"Because I want you."
I gave him a sad smile, wondering if we'd meet again in the land of the dead. "Wrong answer," I told him.
I let go”

Richelle Mead Blood Promise

Source: Blood Promise

Sadness, Smile, Dead

“The idealists and visionaries, foolish enough to throw caution to the winds and express their ardor and faith in some supreme deed, have advanced mankind and have enriched the world.”

Emma Goldman (1868–1940) anarchist known for her political activism, writing, and speeches

World, Faith

“Fire can warm or consume,
water can quench or drown,
wind can caress or cut.

And so it is with human relationshps;
we can both create and destroy,
nurture and terrorize,
traumatize and heal each other”

Bruce D. Perry (1955) American psychiatrist

Water

“This is where you can find your soul if you dare. Where you can touch that part of you that you've never dared look at before. Do not come here and ask me to show you how to draw a face. Ask me to help you find the wind.”

Laurie Halse Anderson Speak

Source: Speak

Soul, Help, Parting, Drawing

“Butterflies and zebras
And moonbeams and fairy tales
That's all she ever thinks about
Riding with the wind.”

Jimi Hendrix (1942–1970) American musician, singer and songwriter

Thinking

“The strongest oak tree of the forest is not the one that is protected from the storm and hidden from the sun. It’s the one that stands in the open where it is compelled to struggle for its existence against the winds and rains and the scorching sun.”

Napoleon Hill book Think and Grow Rich

Source: Think and Grow Rich (1938), p. 112

Sun

“Wherever you are, at any moment, try and find something beautiful. A face, a line out of a poem, the clouds out of a window, some graffiti, a wind farm. Beauty cleans the mind.”

Matt Haig book Reasons to Stay Alive

Source: Reasons to Stay Alive

Beauty

“It's only that ye looked so beautiful, wi' the fire on your face, and your hair waving in the wind. I wanted to remember it.”

Diana Gabaldon book Dragonfly in Amber

Source: Dragonfly in Amber

Beauty

“Part of doing something is listening. We are listening. To the sun. To the stars. To the wind.”

Madeleine L'Engle (1918–2007) American writer

Source: Swiftly Tilting Planet

Star, Sun, Parting

“I put my head
out of my window and see
how much the wind’s knife
wants to slice it off.
On this unseen
guillotine, I’ve placed
the eyeless head
of all my desires.”

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

“I believe one would write better if the climate were bad. If there were a lot of wind and storms for example…”

Aldous Huxley book Brave New World

Source: Brave New World

“To by held above the earth and be brushed by the wind," she said,"it's like your heart has been kissed by beauty.”

Wendelin Van Draanen Flipped

Source: Flipped

Beauty, Kiss, Heart

“To destroy abuses is not enough; Habits must also be changed. The windmill has gone, but the wind is still there."
~old man G--- to Monseigneur Bienvenu Myriel”

Victor Hugo book Les Misérables

Source: Les Misérables

Change

“Maple. Maypole
Catch and carry.
Ash and Ember.
Elderberry.
Woolen. Woman.
Moon at night.
Willow. Window.
Candlelight.
Fallow farrow.
Ash and oak.
Bide and borrow.
Chimney smoke.
Barrel. Barley.
Stone and stave.
Wind and water.
Misbehave.”

Patrick Rothfuss book The Wise Man's Fear

Source: The Wise Man's Fear

Water, Night

“The ocean makes its music; the wind does its dance. We hold on. At first we hold on to one another, but then it starts to feel like we are holding on to something even bigger than that. Greater.”

David Levithan book Every Day

Source: Every Day

Music, Feeling, Dance

“And our problems will crumble apart, the soul / blow through like a wind, and here where we live
will all be clean again, with fresh bread on the table.”

Pablo Neruda (1904–1973) Chilean poet

Source: 100 Love Sonnets

Soul, Problem

“I'm coming back for you Calypso," he said to the night wind. "I swear on the river Styx.”

Rick Riordan book The House of Hades

Source: The House of Hades

Night

“I am afraid that our eyes are bigger than our stomachs, and that we have more curiosity than understanding. We grasp at everything, but catch nothing except wind.”

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

Source: The Complete Essays

Understanding

“You don't want to become so open minded that the wind whistles between your ears.”

Terence McKenna (1946–2000) American ethnobotanist

“When love exists, nothing else matters, not life’s predicaments, not the fury of the years, not a physical winding down or scarcity of opportunity.”

Isabel Allende (1942) Chilean writer

Love, Life

“The land is the only thing in the world worth working for, worth fighting for, worth dying for, because it's the only thing that lasts"….. Gerald O'Hara, Gone With The Wind.”

Margaret Mitchell (1900–1949) American author and journalist

World, Fight

“You ask Why to a lot of things and you wind up very unhappy indeed, if you keep at it. The poor girl's better off dead”

Ray Bradbury book Fahrenheit 451

Source: Fahrenheit 451

Girl, Dead

“The wind blowing through my ripped clothes was so cold that I felt like a Percysicle.”

Rick Riordan book The Titan's Curse

Source: The Titan's Curse

Clothes

“We rode on the winds of the rising storm”

Robert Jordan The Dragon Reborn

Footer to the last chapter.
Crossroads of Twilight (7 January 2003)
Source: The Dragon Reborn

“O Wind,
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?”

Percy Bysshe Shelley book Ode to the West Wind

St. V
Source: Ode to the West Wind (1819)
Context: Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth
Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!
Be through my lips to unawakened earth
The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind,
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

Spring, Winter, Beauty

“Outside the windows the day was bright: golden sunshine, blue sky, pleasant wind… I wanted to punch the happy day in the face, grab it by the hair, and beat it until it told me what the hell it was so happy about.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Rises

Happiness, Hell

“He knew what the wind was doing to them, where it was taking them, to all the secret places that were never so secret again in life.”

Ray Bradbury book Something Wicked This Way Comes

Source: Something Wicked This Way Comes

Life, Secret

“And over it all, the butterflies swarmed, like a million yellow-pettalled flowers dancing on swirling winds.”

Steven Erikson book Deadhouse Gates

Source: Deadhouse Gates

Flowers, Dance

“What good is truth, at midnight, in the dark, when the wind is roaring like a bear in the chimney?”

Diane Setterfield book The Thirteenth Tale

Source: The Thirteenth Tale

Truth

“I have tried to write Paradise
Do not move
Let the wind speak.
that is paradise.
Let the Gods forgive what I
have made
Let those I love try to forgive
what I have made.”

Ezra Pound The Cantos

Canto CXX (the concluding Canto of the 1975 edition of The Cantos')
The Cantos

Love, God, Forgiveness

“He’s stronger than this. He’s always been stronger… (Vane)
Even the mightiest oak can be felled by a whisper of a wind if it comes on the heels of a powerful enough storm. (Carson)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Bad Moon Rising

“I kept staring into the blackness of the woods, drawn into the darkness as I always had been. I suddenly realized how alone I was. (But this is how you travel, the wind whispered back, this is how you've always lived.)”

Bret Easton Ellis book Lunar Park

Source: Lunar Park

Travel

“I didn't mean to come here…
And I didn't mean to stay…
It's just where the sea wind blew me
One accidental day…”

Cressida Cowell (1966) British writer

Sea

“The cloud is free only to go with the wind. The rain is free only in falling.”

Wendell Berry (1934) author

“Piece by piece, I fed my wardrobe to the night wind, and flutteringly, like a loved one’s ashes, the gray scraps were ferried off, to settle here, there, exactly where I would never know, in the dark heart of New York.”

Sylvia Plath book The Bell Jar

Source: The Bell Jar

Love, Heart, Night

“Ascente cha ores ri ve breazza."
"Turn your ear to the wind," she interpreted. "Stand strong.”

Mary E. Pearson book The Kiss of Deception

Source: The Kiss of Deception

Strong

“I finally felt myself lifted definitively away on the winds of adventure toward worlds I envisaged would be stranger than they were, into situations I imagined would be much more normal than they turned out to be.”

Ernesto Che Guevara (1928–1967) Argentine Marxist revolutionary

Source: The Motorcycle Diaries: Notes on a Latin American Journey

World, Imagination

“And who am I to blow against the wind?”

David Levithan (1972) American author and editor

Source: Dash & Lily's Book of Dares

“Sometimes my fancy gets to floating inside me, threatening to carry me away like a leaf on a wind. Better to be a stone.”

Shannon Hale book Book of a Thousand Days

Source: Book of a Thousand Days

“The word of Mohammad is a voice direct from nature's own heart - all else is wind in comparison.”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

Nature, Heart

“Wind is lord and change is sovereign of the strand.”

Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909) English poet, playwright, novelist, and critic

Change

“Defeat I can endure with cheerfulness, my lady. But betrayal is like taking the wind from my sails, or the earth from beneath my feet. It chills my spirits like a rainy day, and all I can do is draw the curtains and cry into my pillow.”

Margaret George (1943) American writer

Source: Mary Queen of Scotland and The Isles

Betrayal, Drawing, Cry

“The green reed which bends in the wind is stronger than the mighty oak which breaks in a storm.”

Confucius (-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher

“Forget everything. Open the windows. Clear the room. The wind blows through it. You see only its emptiness, you search in every corner and don’t find yourself.”

Franz Kafka (1883–1924) author

Source: Diaries of Franz Kafka

Search, Forgetting

“Come clean with a child heart
Laugh as peaches in the summer wind
Let rain on a house roof be a song
Let the writing on your face
be a smell of apple orchards on late June.”

Carl Sandburg (1878–1967) American writer and editor

Source: Honey and Salt

Heart, Summer, Housing

“And I will look down and see my murmuring bones and the deep water like wind, like a roof of wind, and after a long time they cannot distinguish even bones upon the lonely and inviolate sand.”

William Faulkner book The Sound and the Fury

Source: The Sound and the Fury

Water, Time

“… though I cannot promise to take you home," said North Wind, as she sank nearer and nearer to the tops of the houses, "I can promise you it will be all right in the end. You will get home somehow.”

George MacDonald book At the Back of the North Wind

Source: At the Back of the North Wind

Home, Housing

“Sand-strewn caverns, cool and deep,
Where the winds are all asleep.”

Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) English poet and cultural critic who worked as an inspector of schools

St. 3
The Forsaken Merman (1849)

“Go, view the settling sea: the stormy wind is laid. The billows still tremble on the deep. They seem to fear the blast.”

James Macpherson (1736–1796) Scottish writer, poet, translator, and politician

"Conlath and Cuthona"
The Poems of Ossian

Fear, Sea

“Gather leaves and grasses,
Love, to-day;
For the Autumn passes
Soon away.
Chilling winds are blowing.
It will soon be snowing.”

John Henry Boner (1845–1903) American writer

Gather Leaves and Grasses, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Love, Autumn, Grass

“Why may not a goose say thus: "All the parts of the universe I have an interest in: the earth serves me to walk upon, the sun to light me; the stars have their influence upon me; I have such an advantage by the winds and such by the waters; there is nothing that yon heavenly roof looks upon so favourably as me. I am the darling of Nature! Is it not man that keeps and serves me?"”

Michel De Montaigne book Essays

Book II, Ch. 12. Apology for Raimond Sebond
Essais (1595), Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Star, Nature, Light, Universe

“But high up on the mountain
When the wind is hitting it
If you're watching very closely
The rock slips a little bit…”

Harry Chapin (1942–1981) American musician

The Rock
Song lyrics, Portrait Gallery (1975)

Mountain

“I watch the boats go by
As the evening colours of the sand
The rain is bringing tears
From my lover's land
I watch the silver stars
melt in love with the sea
I cry to the wind:
– Bring back my lover to me!”

Mike Oldfield (1953) English musician, multi-instrumentalist

Song lyrics, Children of the Sun (1969)

Love, Star, Lovers, Tear

“Earth, left silent by the wind of night,
Seems shrunken 'neath the gray unmeasured height.”

William Morris (1834–1896) author, designer, and craftsman

"December".
The Earthly Paradise (1868-70)

Night

“The Westerly Wind asserting his sway from the south-west quarter is often like a monarch gone mad, driving forth with wild imprecations the most faithful of his courtiers to shipwreck, disaster, and death.”

Joseph Conrad book The Mirror of the Sea

Source: The Mirror of the Sea (1906), Ch. 26

Death, Faith, Madness

“Evolution is a process that never stops. Baboons who fail to exhibit moral behavior do not survive; they wind up as meat for leopards.”

Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) American science fiction author

The Pragmatics of Patriotism (1973)

Behavior

“From the simplest lyric to the most complex novel and densest drama, literature is asking us to pay attention. Pay attention to the frog. Pay attention to the west wind. Pay attention to the boy on the raft, the lady in the tower, the old man on the train. In sum, pay attention to the world and all that dwells therein and thereby learn at last to pay attention to yourself and all that dwells therein.”

Frederick Buechner (1926) Poet, novelist, short story writer, theologian

Whistling in the Dark: A Doubter's Dictionary (1988)

World, Boy, Literature, Learning

“The south wind searches for the flowers whose fragrance late he bore,
And sighs to find them in the wood and by the stream no more.”

William Cullen Bryant (1794–1878) American romantic poet and journalist

Death of the Flowers http://www.bartleby.com/248/85.html (1832), st. 4, lines 23-24

Search, Flowers

“Finally Jones came in with a blinding fastball, the way Sad Sam used to throw ’em, and Clemente unloaded. The wind was blowing in from left field that day, and blowing hard. This was 1960, remember, before the fences had been moved in, and nobody was hitting home runs at Candlestick. Not Mays, not Cepeda, not anybody. Clemente’s bat hit the ball, and the result absolutely clubbed the crowd into awed silence for a long moment. Right into that wet whipping wind the ball carried. Right on through, hit 120 feet high in a long soaring majestic parabola that came down finally over 450 feet away. There is just no way of telling how far Clemente’s home run blast would have traveled had it not been for that wind. Suffice it to say partisan Giant fans suddenly broke their shell-shocked silence and let loose a gagantic roar. For two innings the stadium buzzed. For days the Giants talked about it. Even today if you slip up behind a Giant pitcher and suddenly whisper in his ear: ‘Remember the home run Clemente hit?’ he’s likely to jump as high as if he’d been caught putting spit on baseballs.”

Arnold Hano (1922) American writer

From "Roberto Clemente: Arriba!" in Baseball Stars of 1962 (March 1962), edited by Ray Robinson, p. 115
Sports-related

Sadness, Way, Travel, Home

“She said, 'Don't I know you from the cinematographer's party?'
I said, 'Who am I to blow against the wind?”

Paul Simon (1941) American musician, songwriter and producer

I Know What I Know
Song lyrics, Graceland (1986)

“"You have everything, Karnus. Wealth. Power. Seven brothers and sisters. How many cousins? Nieces? Nephews? A father and mother who love you, yet… you are here, drinking alone, killing my friends. Setting the purpose of your life to ending me. Why?"
"Because you wronged my family. No one wrongs the Bellona and lives."
"So it's pride."
"It's always pride."
"Pride is just a shout into the wind."
He shakes his head, voice deepening. "I will die. You will die. We will all die and the universe will carry on without care. All that we have is that shout into the wind - how we live. How we go. And how we stand before we fall." He leans forward. "So you see, pride is the only thing."”

Pierce Brown book Golden Son

Source: Golden Son (2015), Ch. 11: Red; Karnus and Darrow

Love, Life, Family, Drink

“All the dust the wind blew high
Appeared like god in the sunset sky,
But I was one of the children told
Some of the dust was really gold.”

Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet

1920s, A Peck of Gold (1926)

God, Children, Appearance

“It's a warm wind, the west wind, full of birds' cries;
I never hear the west wind but tears are in my eyes.
For it comes from the west lands, the old brown hills,
And April's in the west wind, and daffodils.”

John Masefield (1878–1967) English poet and writer

Salt-Water Ballads (1902), "The West Wind"

Bird, Tear

“Have mercy on the criminal
Who is running from the law.
Are you blind to the winds of change?
Don't you hear him any more?”

Elton John (1947) English rock singer-songwriter, composer and pianist

Have Mercy on the Criminal
Song lyrics, Don't Shoot Me I'm Only the Piano Player (1973)

Law, Change

“For the Spanish Armada to have conquered England in 1588 would not have been easy. King Philip's fleet would have needed several pieces of good fortune it did not get: a friendlier wind at Calais, perhaps, one that might have kept the English from launching their fireships against the Armada; and a falling-out between the Dutch and English that could have let the Duke of Parma put to sea from Dunkirk and join his army to the Duke of Medina Sidonia's fleet for the invasion of England. Getting Spanish soldiers across the Channel would have been the hard part. Had it been accomplished, the Spanish infantry, the best in the world at the time and commanded by a most able officer, very probably could have beaten Elizabeth's forces on land.”

Harry Turtledove book Ruled Britannia

Historical Note, p. 457
Ruled Britannia (2002)

World, Time, Parting, Sea

“Nature, with equal mind,
Sees all her sons at play
Sees man control the wind,
The wind sweep man away.”

Matthew Arnold book Empedocles on Etna

Act I, sc. ii
Empedocles on Etna (1852)

Nature

“I will ask them all, I will ask them all their dreams,
I will hold my light above them and seek their faces.
I will hear them whisper, invisible in their veins…'
The eternal asker of answers becomes as the darkness,
Or as a wind blown over a myriad forest,
Or as the numberless voices of long-drawn rains.”

Conrad Aiken (1889–1973) American novelist and poet

The House of Dust (1916 - 1917)

Dreams, Light

“All is gone, all is gone, admit it, take flight.
I gagged twice, doubled, tears blinding my sight.
My mind it was mangled, I ran into the night
Leaving all of love's ashes behind me.
The wind knocks my window, the room it is wet.
The words to say I'm sorry, I haven't found yet.
I think of her often and hope whoever she's met
Will be fully aware of how precious she is.
Ah, my friends from the prison, they ask unto me,
"How good, how good does it feel to be free?"”

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

And I answer them most mysteriously,
"Are birds free from the chains of the skyway?"
Song lyrics, Another Side of Bob Dylan (1964), Ballad In Plain D

Love, Hope, Feeling, Bird

“How wonderful is Cold Mountain
Climbers are all afraid
The moon shines on clear water twinkle twinkle
Wind rustles the tall grass
Plum trees flower in the snow
Bare twisted trees have clouds for foliage
A touch of rain brings it all alive
Unless you see clearly do not approach”

Han-shan Chinese monk and poet

Cold Mountain Transcendental Poetry

Mountain, Flowers, Tree, Grass

“I joined the Conservatives at Oxford. I didn't consider it a particularly important decision at the time. I was a young Indian boy at a university many in my country would have dreamed to go to, but very few would have fitted into. I became a Conservative, therefore to gain entry into this new elite world. I felt justified in my decision slightly later on when Harold Macmillian gave his Winds of Change speech in South Africa, a speech I thought was very brave. Later on the the 1980s I gave up my membership because of disagreements with the parties views, and I remain a Liberal Democrat voter to this day. Though, I don't see them as very much better.”

Munir Butt (1940–2015) British diplomat

Source: Interview in The Cherwell, Oxford University newspaper, 1997.

World, Dreams, Boy, Decision

“As when about the silver moon, when air is free from wind,
And stars shine clear; to whose sweet beams, high prospects, and the brows
Of all steep hills and pinnacles, thrust up themselves for shows;
And even the lowly valleys joy, to glitter in their sight,
When the unmeasured firmament bursts to disclose her light,
And all the signs in heaven are seen that glad the shepherd's heart.”

George Chapman (1559–1634) English dramatist, poet, and translator

Book VIII, line 487, p. 115 https://books.google.com/books?id=ashjAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA115&dq=%22As+when+about%22 <br class="br">The Iliads of Homer, Prince of Poets (1611)

Star, Light, Heart, Joy

“[The] chief [of the gods of Cimmeria] is Crom. He dwells on a great mountain. What use to call on him? Little he cares if men live or die. Better to be silent than to call his attention to you; he will send you dooms, not fortune! He is grim and loveless, but at birth he breathes power to strive and slay into a man's soul. What else shall men ask of the gods? … There is no hope here or hereafter in the cult of my people. In this world men struggle and suffer vainly, finding pleasure only in the bright madness of battle; dying, their souls enter a gray misty realm of clouds and icy winds, to wander cheerlessly throughout eternity.”

Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) American author

"Queen of the Black Coast" (1934)

Men, God, People, Pleasure

“There are moments when the Spirit moves among men and the breath of the Lord is abroad upon the waters of our being; there are others when it retires and men are left to act in the strength or the weakness of their own egoism. The first are periods when even a little effort produces great results and changes destiny; the second are spaces of time when much labour goes to the making of a little result. It is true that the latter may prepare the former, may be the little smoke of sacrifice going up to heaven which calls down the rain of God's bounty…. Unhappy is the man or the nation which, when the divine moment arrives, is found sleeping or unprepared to use it, because the lamp has not been kept trimmed for the welcome and the ears are sealed to the call. But thrice woe to them who are strong and ready, yet waste the force or misuse the moment; for them is irreparable loss or a great destruction…. In the hour of God cleanse thy soul of all self-deceit and hypocrisy and vain self-flattering that thou mayst look straight into thy spirit and hear that which summons it. All insincerity of nature, once thy defence against the eye of the Master and the light of the ideal, becomes now a gap in thy armour and invites the blow. Even if thou conquer for the moment, it is the worse for thee, for the blow shall come afterwards and cast thee down in the midst of thy triumph. But being pure cast aside all fear; for the hour is often terrible, a fire and a whirlwind and a tempest, a treading of the winepress of the wrath of God; but he who can stand up in it on the truth of his purpose is he who shall stand; even though he fall, he shall rise again; even though he seem to pass on the wings of the wind, he shall return. Nor let worldly prudence whisper too closely in thy ear; for it is the hour of the unexpected, the incalculable, the immeasurable. Mete not the power of the Breath by thy petty instruments, but trust and go forward…. But most keep thy soul clear, even if for a while, of the clamour of the ego. Then shall a fire march before thee in the night and the storm be thy helper and thy flag shall wave on the highest height of the greatness that was to be conquered.”

Sri Aurobindo (1872–1950) Indian nationalist, freedom fighter, philosopher, yogi, guru and poet

1918 (The Hour of God)
India's Rebirth

Men, God, Truth, Fear

“You can blow out a candle
But you can't blow out a fire
Once the flames begin to catch
The wind will blow it higher”

Peter Gabriel (1950) English singer-songwriter, record producer and humanitarian

Biko
Song lyrics, Peter Gabriel (III) (1980)

“A culture is like the upright strands that you begin with in basket-making, round which you wind the texture of the basket itself: no sticks, no basket; no culture, no community. It is the grammar, the story, humour and good faith that identifies a community and gives it existence. It is both the parent and child of social capital. And the social capital of a community is its social life – the links of cooperation and friendship between its members. It is the common culture and ceremony, the good faith and reciprocal obligations the civility and citizenship, the play, humour and conversation which make a living community, the cooperation that builds its institutions. It is the social ecosystem in which a culture lives.”

David Fleming (1940–2010) British activist

Lean Logic, (2016), p. xxi, introduction http://www.flemingpolicycentre.org.uk/lean-logic-surviving-the-future/

Life, Friendship, Faith, Communication

“p>A bird in the gusty wind
Deftly changes directionA youth tries to pick up
A pennyThe grapevine in fantasy
Stretches its tentaclesThe Wave in retreat
Arches its back.”

Gu Cheng (1956–1993) Chinese poet

"Curve" [Huxian]

Youth, Bird, Change

“Sweet stream that winds through yonder glade,
Apt emblem of a virtuous maid
Silent and chaste she steals along,
Far from the world's gay busy throng:
With gentle yet prevailing force,
Intent upon her destined course;
Graceful and useful all she does,
Blessing and blest where'er she goes;
Pure-bosom'd as that watery glass,
And Heaven reflected in her face.”

William Cowper (1731–1800) (1731–1800) English poet and hymnodist

"To a Young Lady" (1782).

World, Business

“We pulled for you when the wind was against us and the sails were low.
Will you never let us go?”

Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) English short-story writer, poet, and novelist

Song of the Galley-Slaves http://whitewolf.newcastle.edu.au/words/authors/K/KiplingRudyard/verse/p4/galleyslaves.html, l. 1-2 (1893). <br class="br">Other works

“Ten thousand branches of tall trees begin to sprout,
They droop like fringes of a robe made of green jade.
But do you know by whom these young leaves are cut out?
The early spring wind is as sharp as scissor blade.”

He Zhizhang (659–744) Chinese writer

"Willow Trees" (《咏柳》), in 150 Tang Poems, trans. Xu Yuan-zhong

Spring, Tree

“Jesus says God isn't like a gumball machine; he's more like the wind: unpredictable, uncontrollable, no more containable than wind in a bottle.”

Skye Jethani

The Divine Commodity: Discovering A Faith Beyond Consumer Christianity (2009, Zondervan)

God

“I remember distinctly, during the summer of 1901, at Les Andelys-on-Seine, that upon two days and for two hours in the afternoons of those days all Nature, animate and inanimate, bore the aspect of things seen under a strong glare of violet light, exactly as though a tinted glass were suspended between the sun's rays and the earth. The effect was most curious and disturbing. Nature appears to be toneless and flat. Highlights and shadows are attenuated almost to extinction, whilst in this dull purple glare the heat became more intense than ever, possibly through lack of wind, for all was still.”

Wynford Dewhurst (1864–1941) British artist

Wynford Dewhurst, 'What is Impressionism?' in Contemporary Review. vol. XCIX, 1911, p. 300.

Nature, Light, Strong, Appearance