Fire Quotes - page 73
`Who are they?' I asked.
`Why,' said he, `they are the men who hired working-girls, and paid 'em five or six dollars a week to live on. Are you one of the bunch?'
`Not on your immortality,' said I. `I'm only the fellow that set fire to an orphan asylum, and murdered a blind man for his pennies.'
O. Henry
For many years he has not breathed the air,
The wholesome open air; the sun, the moon,
The stars, the clouds, the fair blue heaven, the spring,
The flowers, the trees, and the sweet face of man,
Song, or words yet more musical than song,
Affections, feelings, social intercourse
(Unless remembered in his fairy dreams)
Have all been strangers to his solitude! -
A curse is set on him, like poverty,
Or leprosy, or the red plague, but worse, -
The heart has sent its fire up to the brain,
And he is mad.
Letitia Elizabeth Landon
An Alma girl! oh shame, deep shame,
To Brahma's race and Brahma's name!
Unmarked, unpitied, she turned aside,
For a moment her bursting tears to hide.
None thought of the Bayadere, till the fire
Blazed redly and fiercely the funeral pyre,
Then like a thought she darted by,
And sprang on the burning pile to die!
Letitia Elizabeth Landon
[From Ernest von Hermanstadt]; Action-action in the sunshine-passion-but little feeling, and less thought: such was meant to be our existence. But we refine-we sadden and we subdue-we call up the hidden and evil spirits of the inner world-we wake from their dark repose those who will madden us. The heart is like the wood on yonder flickering hearth: green and fresh, haunted by a thousand sweet odours, bathed in the warm air, and gladdened by the summer sunshine-so grew it at first upon its native soil. But nature submitteth to art, and man has appointed for it another destiny: it is gathered, and cast into the fire. It seems, then, as if its life had but just begun. A new spirit has crept into the kindled veins-a brilliant light dances around it-it is bright-it is beautiful-and it is consumed! What remains?-A warmth on the atmosphere soon passing away, and a heap of blackened ashes! What more will remain of the heart?
Letitia Elizabeth Landon
It is a curious thing, after years have elapsed, to go back upon the pages of a favourite author. Nothing shows us more forcibly the change that has taken place in ourselves. The book is a mental mirror - the mind starts from its own face, so much freshness, and so much fire has passed away. The colours and the light of youth have gone together. The judgment of the man rarely confirms that of the boy. What was once sweet has become mawkish, and the once exquisite simile appears little more than an ingenious conceit. The sentiment which the heart once beat to applaud has now no answering key-note within, and the real is perpetually militating against the imagined. It is a great triumph to the poet when we return to the volume, and find that our early creed was, after all, the true religion.
Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Alas! for him whose youthful fire
Is vowed and wasted on the lyre,-
Alas! for him who shall essay,
The laurel's long and dreary way!
Mocking will greet, neglect will chill
His spirit's gush, his bosom's thrill;
And, worst of all, that heartless praise
Echoed from what another says.
Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Other sorrows soften the heart, - poverty hardens it. Nothing like poverty for chilling the affections and repressing the spirits. Its annoyances are all of the small and mean order ; its regrets all of a selfish kind ; its presence is perpetual ; and the scant meal, and the grudged fire, are repeated day by day, yet who can become accustomed to them ?
Letitia Elizabeth Landon
After the one extravagant gesture of creation in the first place, the universe has continued to deal exclusively in extravagances, flinging intricacies and colossi down aeons of emptiness, heaping profusions on profligacies with ever-fresh vigor. The whole show has been on fire from the word go. I come down to the water to cool my eyes. But everywhere I look I see fire; that which isn't flint is tinder, and the whole world sparks and flames.
Annie Dillard
Storytelling in general is a communal act. Throughout human history, people would gather around, whether by the fire or at a tavern, and tell stories. One person would chime in, then another, maybe someone would repeat a story they heard already but with a different spin. It's a collective process.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt
