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 poorest man may in his cottage bid defiance to all the forces of the Crown. It may be frail—its roof may shake—the wind may blow through it—the storm may enter—the rain may enter—but the King of England cannot enter—all his force dares not cross the threshold of the ruined tenement." So be it—unless he has justification by law.
denning, alfred, baron denning— Southam v Smout [1964] 1 QB 308 at 320
— Denning was quoting William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham
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)
Look for me in the whirlwind or the storm, look for me all around you, for, with God's grace, I shall come and bring with me countless millions of black slaves who have died in America and the West Indies and the millions in Africa to aid you in the fight for Liberty, Freedom and Life.
Marcus Garvey— First Message to the Negroes of the World from Atlanta Prison" (10 February 1925).
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 soon I sail from here, I may again run into such a storm as the one in Kvasefjord. But this time I shall clearly understand that it is not a play in the theatre, but it is death. and it seems too that then, in the last moment before we go down, I can in in all truth be yours...
karen blixen— "Tempests"
Though it lash the shallows that line the beach,Afar from the great sea-deeps,There is never a storm whose might can reachWhere the vast leviathan sleeps.Like a mighty thought in a mighty mindIn the clear cold depths he swims;Whilst above him the pettiest form of his kindWith a dash o'er the surface skims.
john boyle o'reilly— Prelude to the amber whale.
If your path had been smooth, you would have depended upon your own surefootedness; but God roughened the path, so you have to take hold of His hand. If the weather had been mild, you would have loitered along the watercourses, but at the first howl of the storm you quickened your pace heavenward and wrapped around you the warm robe of Saviour’s righteousness.
thomas de witt talmage— Thomas De Witt Talmage (1832-1902), The Pathway of Life, New York: The Christian Herald, 1894 p 100
Among all the large and small nations of Austria, only three standard-bearers of progress took an active part in history, and still retain their vitality the Germans, the Poles and the Magyars.… All the other large and small nationalities and peoples are destined to perish before long in the revolutionary world storm ( Weltsturm ).
Friedrich Engels— "The Magyar Struggle." Weltsturm is sometimes translated as "holocaust."
A zealous soul without meekness is like a ship in a storm, in danger of wrecks. A meek soul without zeal, is like a ship in a calm, that moves not so fast as it ought.
— John M. Mason, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 625.
"Hope" is the thing with feathers That perches in the soul And sings the tune without the words And never stops at all And sweetest in the Gale is heard And sore must be the storm That could abash the little Bird That kept so many warm
— Emily Dickinson, Poem 254 in The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson (1960), edited by Thomas H. Johnson
On Tropical storm Zeta in 2005/2006:
lixion avila— As you can see...I ran out [of] things to say.
