Storm Quotes
More Storm Quotes
It is impossible for the mind which is not totally destitute of piety, to behold the sublime, the awful, the amazing works of creation and providence — the heavens with their luminaries, the mountains, the ocean, the storm, the earthquake, the volcano, the circuit of the seasons, and the revolutions of empires — without marking in them all the mighty hand of God, and feeling strong emotions of reverence toward the Author of these stupendous works.
dwight, timothy, iv— Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 273.
The disciples seem alone; but up yonder, in some hidden cleft of the hills, their Master looks down on all the weltering storm, and lifts His voice in prayer. Then when the need is sorest, and the hope least, He comes across the waves, making their surges His pavement, and using all opposition as the means of His approach; and His presence brings calmness; and immediately they are at the land.
alexander maclaren— Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895, p. 110)
Thy spirit, Independence, let me share! Lord of the lion-heart and eagle-eye thy steps I follow with my bosom bare, nor heed the storm that howls along the sky.
tobias smollett— Tobias Smollett, Ode to Independence, line 1.
The long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run, we are all dead. Economists set themselves too easy, too useless a task if in tempestuous seasons they can only tell us that when the storm is long past the ocean is flat again.
— 1923 A Tract on Monetary Reform.
If any one owe a debt for a loan, and a storm prostrates the grain, or the harvest fail, or the grain does not grow for lack of water; in that year he need not give his creditor any grain, he washes his debt-tablet in water and pays no rent for this year.
hammurabi— Section 48 of the Code of Hammurabi (translated by Leonard William King, 1910).
— Alternately translated as: If a man owe a debt and Adad inundate his field and carry away the produce, or, though lack of water, grain have not grown in the field, in that year he shall not make any return of grain to the creditor, he shall alter his contract-tablet and he shall not pay the interest for that year.
When we contemplate the whole globe as one great dewdrop, striped and dotted with continents and islands, flying through space with other stars all singing and shining together as one, the whole universe appears as an infinite storm of beauty.
john muir— Travels in Alaska (1915), chapter 1: Puget Sound and British Columbia
I know there is a God, and that He hates injustice and slavery. I see the storm coming, and I know that His hand is in it. If he has a place and work for me and I think He has I believe I am ready.
— Attributed to Abraham Lincoln in Joseph Gilbert Holland, The Life of Abraham Lincoln (1886), p. 237; reported as unverified in Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations (1989). This comment was alleged to have been made in a private conversation with Newton Bateman, superintendent of public instruction for the state of Illinois, a few days before the election of 1860. During the election of 1960, Senator John F. Kennedy recited this in a speech to the United Steelworkers of America convention, Atlantic City, New Jersey (September 19, 1960), as reported in Freedom of Communications (1961), final report of the Committee on Commerce, United States Senate, part 1, p. 286. Senate Rept. 87–994. As president, Kennedy used a variation of these words at the 10th annual presidential prayer breakfast (March 1, 1962). Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: John F. Kennedy, 1962, p. 176.
A little gale will soon disperse that cloud … for every cloud engenders not a storm.
william shakespeare— William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part III (c. 1591), Act V, scene 3, line 9
Whare sits our sulky sullen dame, Gathering her brows like gathering storm, Nursing her wrath to keep it warm.
Robert Burns— 1790 'Tam o' Shanter. A Tale'.
L'amour, croyait-elle, devait arriver tout a' coup, avec de grands e clats et des fulgurations. She believed that love should appear instantaneously, with the brilliance of a lightning storm.
Gustave Flaubert— 1857 Madame Bovary, pt.1, ch.8.
When we contemplate the whole globe as one great dewdrop, striped and dotted with continents and islands, flying through space with other stars all singing and shining togetheras one, the whole universe appears as an infinite storm of beauty.
john muir— Travels in Alaska, ch.1,'The Puget Sound and British Columbia' (published1915).
Justice is not to be taken by storm. She is to be wooed by slow advances. Substitute statute for decision, and you shift the center of authority, but add no quota of inspired wisdom.
benjamin n. cardozo— Lecture at Yale University Law School (1923) as quoted in The American Journal of International Law Vol. 29 (1935), p. 32.
I feeling pretty sensibly that it was not going by the right door and knocking desperately at the wrong one, I told him of it: "Pooh," says he "my dear, any port in a storm."
john cleland— Page 178 (Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure)
The idea that a game is anything more than a game… You know, there are people who are basically unbalanced who are going to misuse a game and have bad results. If a golfer who insists on playing during a lightning storm gets hit by a stroke of lightning and is killed nobody says, 'There's golfers dying by the droves being hit by lightning!' You can overdo what you really like, and if you're unbalanced you go overboard.
gary gygax— GameSpy interview, Pt. 1 (15 August 2004)
The night is my best friend. It calms the storm in my soul and it lets the guiding stars rise.
joseph goebbels— Die Nacht ist meine beste Freundin. Sie glättet den Sturm in der Seele und lässt die weisenden Sterne aufgehen.
Times of great calamity and confusion have been productive for the greatest minds. The purest ore is produced from the hottest furnace . The brightest thunder-bolt is elicited from the darkest storm .
— Charles Caleb Colton, in History of Logan County and Ohio: Containing a History of the State of Ohio ..., O.L. Baskin, 1880, p.577
It was a touching answer of a Christian sailor, when asked why he remained so calm in a fearful storm, when the sea seemed ready to devour the ship. He was not sure that he could swim. "But," he said, "though I sink I shall only drop into the hollow of my Father's hand; for He holds all these waters there."
— William Arnot, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 281.
E'en in mid-harvest, while the jocund swain Pluck'd from the brittle stalk the golden grain, Oft have I seen the war of winds contend, And prone on earth th' infuriate storm descend, Waste far and wide, and by the roots uptorn, The heavy harvest sweep through ether borne, As the light straw and rapid stubble fly In dark'ning whirlwinds round the wintry sky.
— Virgil, Georgics (c. 29 BC), I, line 351. Sotheby's translation.
You have such a February face, So full of frost, of storm, of cloudiness.
william shakespeare— William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing (1598-99), Act V, scene 4, line 41.
God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform; He plants his footsteps in the sea and rides upon the storm.
william cowper— William Cowper, Hymn, Light Shining out of Darkness.
"When the storm came, he stepped up. You’re going to go through storms; you can’t get away from them. It’s how you handle them, and what our team got a chance to see is how our leader handled the storm. He handled it well and steadied the ship."
rex grossman— Lovie Smith's response after Grossman and Devin Hester lead the Bears to victory.
— [2]
The storm approaches its thunderhead, and it is apparent that the boat drifts ever closer to shore. So the blind will lead the blind, and the deaf shout warnings to one another until their voices are lost.
norman mailer— Michael Lovett, in Ch. 33
Situations emerge in the process of creative destruction in which many firms may have to perish that nevertheless would be able to live on vigorously and usefully if they could weather a particular storm.
joseph schumpeter— Part II, Chapter VIII, pg.90
Times of great calamity and confusion have been productive for the greatest minds. The purest ore is produced from the hottest furnace. The brightest thunder-bolt is elicited from the darkest storm.
— Charles Caleb Colton, in History of Logan County and Ohio: Containing a History of the State of Ohio ..., O.L. Baskin, 1880, p.577
But this long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead. Economists set themselves too easy, too useless a task if in tempestuous seasons they can only tell us that when the storm is long past the ocean is flat again.
john maynard keynes— A Tract on Monetary Reform (1923) Ch. 3
Thou and I are but the blind instruments of some irresistible fatality, that hurries us along, like goodly vessels driving before the storm, which are dashed against each other, and so perish.
walter scott— Ch. 39, De Bois-Guilbert speaking to Rebecca.
Like the ostrich, head under wing When the roaring storm breaks, So many people take refuge Under the soft pillow Of specious arguments.
georges rouault— Georges Rouault, Le Cirque de l'étoile filante. (1938).
Now voe me I can zing on my business abrode: Though the storm do beat down on my poll, There's a wife brighten'd vire at the end of my road, An' her love, voe the jaÿ o' my soul.
william barnes— William Barnes, Don't Ceare, Stanza 5.
storm clouds of terror and dictatorship are gathering over the whole country... They must not be allowed to bring eternal night.
Boris Yeltsin— Appeal to citizens of Russia to oppose the 1991 coup attempt against Mikhail Gorbachev. (19 August 1991)
