gem quotes

Full manya gem of purest ray serene The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear: Full manya flower is born to blush unseen And waste its sweetness on the desert air.

-Thomas Gray
Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, l.52^6.

Let Erin remember the days of Old, Ere her faithless sons betrayed her; When Malachi wore the collar of gold Which he won from her proud invader; When her kings, with standards of green unfurled, Led the Red-Branch Knights to danger; Ere the emerald gem of the western world Was set in the crown of a stranger.

-Thomas Moore
  Irish Melodies,'Let Erin Remember'.

Football is like a religion to me. I worship the ball, and I treat it like a god. Too many players thinkof a football as something to kick.They should be taught to caress it and to treat it like a precious gem.

-Pele   pseudonym of  Edson Arantes do Nascimento
Quoted in David PickeringThe Cassell Soccer Companion (1994).

His big tears, for he wept well, Turned to mill-stones as they fell. And the little children, who Round his feet played to and fro, Thinking every tear a gem, Had their brains knocked out by them.

- Percy Bysshe Shelley
  Of Fraud (ie, Lord Eldon).'The Mask of Anarchy'.