Fire Quotes
More Fire Quotes
Zeal is that pure and heavenly flame,The fire of love supplies ;While that which often bears the name,Is self in a disguise.True zeal is merciful and mild,Can pity and forbear ;The false is headstrong, fierce and wild,And breathes revenge and war.
john newton— Hymn 70 : True and False Zeal
Softly the evening came. The sun from the western horizon like a magician extended his golden wand o'er the landscape; Twinkling vapors arose; and sky and water and forest seemed all on fire at the touch, and melted and mingled together.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow— Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie (1847), Part II, Section II.
Zeal is that pure and heavenly flame, The fire of love supplies:;; While that which often bears the name, Is self in a disguise. True zeal is merciful and mild, Can pity and forbear:;; The false is headstrong, fierce and wild, And breathes revenge and war.
john newton— Olney Hymns, Hymn 70: "True and False Zeal"
Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast, Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round, And while the bubbling and loud-hissing urn Throws up a steamy column, and the cups, That cheer but not inebriate, wait on each, So let us welcome peaceful evening in.
william cowper— The Task (1785), Book IV, line 36.
May the Yuletide log slip from your fire and burn your house down.
— Lord Melchett from Blackadder
Courage to strengthen, fire to blind, music to daze, iron to bind.
robert jordan— Snakes and Foxes Game
In the primitive church were not prayers simple, unpremeditated, united; prayers of the well-taught apostle; prayers of the accomplished scholar; prayers of the rough but fervent peasant; prayers of the new and zealous convert; prayers which importuned and wrestled with an instant and irrepressible urgency; were they not an essential part of that religion, which holy fire had kindled; and which daily supplications alone could fan?
— William Arthur, p. 473. (Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895))
The rendering of useful service is the common duty of mankind, and?only in the purifying fire of sacrifice is the dross of selfishness consumed and the greatness of the human soul set free.
— Credo engraved in Rockefeller Center Plaza, NewYork.
I can never look now at the Milky Way without wondering from which of those banked clouds of stars the emissaries are coming. If you will pardon so commonplace a simile, we have set off the fire alarm and have nothing to do but to wait. I do not think we will have to wait for long.
arthur c. clarke— "The Sentinel" (1948), originally titled "Sentinel of Eternity" this is the short story which later provided the fundamental ideas for 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) written by Clarke and Stanley Kubrick.
When first under fire an' you're wishful to duck, Don't look nor take 'eed at the man that is struck, Be thankful you're livin', and trust to your luck And march to your front like a soldier. Front, front, front like a soldier...
rudyard kipling— Young British Soldier, Stanza 9.
The love of man and woman is as fire To warm, to light, but surely to consume And self-consuming die… But comrade-love is as a welding blast Of candid flame and ardent temperature: Glowing more fervent, it doth bind more fast; And melting both but makes the union sure. The dross alone is burnt till at the last The steel, if cold, is one and strong and pure.
james jeffrey roche— My Comrade, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
May the Yuletide log slip from your fire and burn your house down.
— Lord Melchett from Blackadder
Come watch with me the shaft of fire that glows In yonder West: the fair, frail palaces, The fading Alps and archipelagoes, And great cloud-continents of sunset-seas.
thomas bailey aldrich— Thomas Bailey Aldrich, Sonnet, Miracles.
[The assault units] were disorganized, had suffered heavy casualties and were handicapped by losses of valuable equipment.... They were pinned down along the beach by intense enemy fire.... Personnel and equipment were being piled ashore... where congested groups afforded food targets for the enemy.
— An American officer at the landing beach at Normandy, June 6, 1944.
Can a man take fire in his bosom and his clothes not be burned? Can one go upon hot coals, and his feet not be burned?
Bible (Old Testament)— Proverbs 6:27-8.
It is therefore not an exaggeration to say that if the city of New York were replaced by a ball of fire, some significant percentage of the American population would see a silver lining in the subsequent mushroom cloud, as it would suggest to them that the best thing that is ever going to happen was about to happen: the return of Christ. It should be blindingly obvious that beliefs of this sort will do little to help us create a durable future for ourselves- socially, economically, environmentally, or geopolitically.
sam harris— p. xii (Letter to a Christian Nation (2006))
Boys flying kites haul in their white winged birds; You can't do that way when you're flying words. "Careful with fire," is good advice we know "Careful with words," is ten times doubly so. Thoughts unexpressed may sometimes fall back dead; But God Himself can't kill them when they're said.
will carleton— Will Carleton, The First Settler's Story, Stanza 21
Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon the host. But anger is like fire. It burns it all clean.
maya angelou
fire that's closest kept burns most of all.
william shakespeare— William Shakespeare, The Two Gentlemen of Verona (1590s), Act I, scene 2, line 30.
We should have a glorious conflagration, if all who cannot put fire into their works would only consent to put their works into the fire.
Charles Caleb Colton— Lacon, Or, Many Things in Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think, "Preface", pp. vii-viii (1820)
I've said consistently that no employer ever really accepts a union. They tolerate the unions. The very minute they can get a pool of unemployment they'll challenge the unions and try to get back what they call managements prerogatives, meaning hire, fire, pay what you want.
jimmy hoffa— Chapter 13, Outside Again, p. 213
I will on thee as on a comet look, A comet, the sad world's ill-boding book; Thy light as luctual and stain'd with woes I'll judge, where penal flames sit mixt and close. But though some think thou shin'st but to restrain Bold storms, and simply dost attend on rain; Yet I know well, and so our sins require, Thou dost but court cold rain, till rain turns fire.
Henry Vaughan— "The Rainbow".
I am a mariner of Odysseus with heart of fire but with mind ruthless and clear.
Nikos Kazantzakis— Toda Raba (1934)
At Tara today in this fateful hour I place all Heaven with its power, And the sun with its brightness, And the snow with its whiteness, And fire with all the strength it hath, And lightning with its rapid wrath, And the winds with their swiftness along their path, And the sea with its deepness, And the rocks with their steepness, And the earth with its starkness All these I place, By God's almighty help and grace, Between myself and the powers of darkness.
— "The Rune of St. Patrick", derived from "The Lorica", both traditionally attributed to St. Patrick, published in Lyrica Celtica (1896); also in Celtic Christianity : Ecology and Holiness (1987) by Christopher Bamford and William Parker Marsh, p. 54
The broken soldier, kindly bade to stay; Sat by his fire, and talked the night away, Wept o'er his wounds, or tales of sorrow done, Shoulder'd his crutch, and show'd how fields were won.
Oliver Goldsmith— Oliver Goldsmith, The Deserted Village (1770), line 155.
Double, double toil and trouble, fire burn, and cauldron bubble.
william shakespeare— Macbeth (1606), Act 4, Scene 1
Thee, bold Longinus! all the Nine inspire, And bless their Critick with a Poet's fire. An ardent Judge, who Zealous in his Trust, With Warmth gives Sentence, yet is always Just; Whose own Example strengthens all his Laws, And Is himself that great Sublime he draws.
— Alexander Pope An Essay on Criticism, line 675.
