Desert Quotes - Page 4

• It's no wonder most religions are born in the desert, because when men lay beneath that boundless night sky and look up at the infinite expanse of creation they have an uncontrollable urge to put something in the way .

  Terry Pratchett

  Night, Men, Sky

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• Let both sides seek to invoke the wonders of science instead of its terrors. Together let us explore the stars, conquer the deserts, eradicate disease, tap the ocean depths, and encourage the arts and commerce.

  John F. Kennedy

  Art, Stars, Ocean

  Inaugural Address, delivered 20 January 1961

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• I have never been in a natural place and felt that it was a waste of time. I never have. And it's a relief. If I'm walking around a desert or whatever, every second is worthwhile.

  Viggo Mortensen

  Hair, Waste, Wildlife

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• It is like being in the desert. At first you listen to the absence of sounds and call it silence. Then suddenly you may be taken by the presence of stillness where you are one with listening itself.

  Jean Klein

  Taken, Silence, Listening

  Jean Klein (2006). “Who Am I?: The Sacred Quest”, p.92, New Harbinger Publications

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• Poets say science takes away from the beauty of the stars - mere globs of gas atoms. I, too, can see the stars on a desert night, and feel them. But do I see less or more?

  Richard P. Feynman

  Stars, Science, Night

  Richard P. Feynman, Robert B. Leighton, Matthew Sands (2013). “The Feynman Lectures on Physics, vol. 1 for tablets”, Basic Books

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• To wake in that desert dawn was like waking in the heart of an opal. ... See the desert on a fine morning and die - if you can!

  Gertrude Bell

  Morning, Heart, Dawn

  Gertrude Bell (2012). “The Desert and the Sown: Travels in Palestine and Syria”, p.64, Courier Corporation

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• I saw the desert, it grew upon me. There are times, when I have sorrows, that I hunger and thirst for it.

  Isabel Burton

  Sorrow, Hunger And Thirst, Saws

  Lady Isabel Burton (1875). “The Inner Life of Syria, Palestine, and the Holy Land: From My Private Journal”, p.2

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• The desert sky is encircling, majestic, terrible.

  Paul Shepard

  Sky, Majestic, Terrible

  Paul Shepard (2010). “Man in the Landscape: A Historic View of the Esthetics of Nature”, p.43, University of Georgia Press

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• I think the American West really attracts me because it's romantic. The desert, the empty space, the drama.

  Ang Lee

  Drama, Thinking, Romantic Love

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• Like looking through a telescope into the Milky Way and wondering if we're alone in the universe, it made me realize with the glaring clarity of desert light how scarce and delicate life is, how insignificant we are compared with the forces of nature and the dimensions of space.

  Aron Ralston

  Delicate Life, Space, Light

  Aron Ralston (2011). “127 Hours: Between a Rock and a Hard Place”, p.21, Simon and Schuster

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• Water, water, water....There is no shortage of water in the desert but exactly the right amount , a perfect ratio of water to rock, water to sand, insuring that wide free open, generous spacing among plants and animals, homes and towns and cities, which makes the arid West so different from any other part of the nation. There is no lack of water here unless you try to establish a city where no city should be.

  Edward Abbey

  Home, Animal, Cities

  Edward Abbey (1968). “Desert Solitaire”, p.126, Simon and Schuster

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• Right now I am preparing for another art exhibit in November in Palm Desert.

  Dwayne Hickman

  Art, November, Palms

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• It is easier to accept the message of the stars than the message of the salt desert. The stars speak of man's insignificance in the long eternity of time; the desert speaks of his insignificance right now.

  Edwin Way Teale

  Stars, Men, Long

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• For, to make deserts, God, who rules mankind, Begins with kings, and ends the work by wind.

  Victor Hugo

  Kings, Wind, Ruins

  Victor Hugo (1900*). “Works”

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• Do you imagine the universe is agitated? Go into the desert at night and look out at the stars. This practice should answer the question..... The master settles her mind as the universe settles the stars in the sky. By connecting her mind with the subtle origin, she calms it. Once calmed, it naturally expands, and ultimately her mind becomes as vast and immeasurable as the night sky.

  Laozi

  Stars, Night, Practice

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• [On the desert:] The wind was a constant, and when you paid attention, it seemed like the earth's own breathing.

  Sonia Sotomayor

  Wind, Breathing, Attention

  Sonia Sotomayor (2013). “My Beloved World”, p.186, Vintage

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• Be surprised by joy, be surprised by the little flower that shows its beauty in the midst of a barren desert, and be surprised by the immense healing power that keeps bursting forth like springs of fresh water from the depth of our pain.

  Henri Nouwen

  Pain, Spring, Flower

  Henri J.M. Nouwen (2017). “You Are the Beloved: Daily Meditations for Spiritual Living”, Convergent Books

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• Let me tell you something that we Israelis have against Moses. He took us 40 years through the desert in order to bring us to the one spot in the Middle East that has no oil!

  Golda Meir

  Funny, Humorous, Oil

  Speech at state dinner forWilly Brandt, Jerusalem, 10 June 1973

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• Let each man have according to his deserts.

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  Men

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• First, the desert is the country of madness. Second, it is the refuge of the devil, thrown out into the "wilderness of upper Egypt" to "wander in dry places." Thirst drives man mad, and the devil himself is mad with a kind of thirst for his own lost excellence--lost because he has immured himself in it and closed out everything else. So the man who wanders into the desert to be himself must take care that he does not go mad and become the servant of the one who dwells there in a sterile paradise of emptiness and rage.

  Thomas Merton

  Country, Men, Egypt

  Thomas Merton (2011). “Thoughts In Solitude”, p.21, Macmillan

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• The brave man, inattentive to his duty, is worth little more to his country than the coward who deserts her in the hour of danger.

  Andrew Jackson

  Country, Courage, Military

  Andrew Jackson, David Maydole Matteson (1937). “Correspondence of Andrew Jackson: to April 30, 1814”

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• As a remedy to life in society I would suggest the big city. Nowadays, it is the only desert within our means.

  Albert Camus

  Life, Mean, Cities

  Albert Camus (1978). “Notebooks, 1935-1942”, Harcourt

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• May your rivers flow without end... down into a desert of red rock, blue mesas, domes and pinnacles and grottos of endless stone, and down again into a deep vast ancient unknown chasm where bars of sunlight blaze on profiled cliffs... where something strange and more beautiful and more full of wonder than your deepest dreams waits for you-beyond that next turning of the canyon walls.

  Edward Abbey

  Beautiful, Dream, Wall

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• Long before I ever saw the desert I was aware of the mystical overtones which the observation of nature made audible to me. But I have never been more frequently or more vividly aware of them than in connection with the desert phenomena.

  Joseph Wood Krutch

  Nature, Science, Long

  Joseph Wood Krutch (1955). “The Voice of the Desert: A Naturalist's Interpretation”, National Academies

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• If my love were an ocean, there would be no more land. If my love were a desert, you would see only sand. If my love were a star- late at night, only light. And if my love could grow wings, I'd be soaring in flight.

  Jay Asher

  Love, Romantic, Stars

  Jay Asher (2016). “Thirteen Reasons Why 10th Anniversary Edition”, p.94, Penguin

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