Gunpowder Quotes - Page 2

• Metaphor is no argument, though it be sometimes the gunpowder to drive one home, and imbed it in the memory.

  James Russell Lowell

  Memories, Home, Argument

  James Russell Lowell (1910). “Essays, English and American”

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• All civilization in a sense exists only in the mind. Gunpowder, textile arts, machinery, laws, telephones are not themselves transmitted from man to man or from generation to generation, at least not permanently. It is the perception, the knowledge and understanding of them, their ideas in the Platonic sense, that are passed along. Everything social can have existence only through mentality.

  Alfred L. Kroeber

  Art, Men, Law

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• There was a young man of Herne Bay
  who was making some fireworks one day:
  but he dropped his cigar
  in the gunpowder jar.
  There was a young man of Herne Bay.

  Ogden Nash

  Funny, Men, Smoking

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• The humour of the Chinese people in inventing gunpowder and finding its best use in making firecrackers for their grandfathers' birthdays is merely symbolical of their inventiveness along merely pacific lines.

  Lin Yutang

  People, Chinese, Grandfather

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• GUNPOWDER, n. An agency employed by civilized nations for the settlement of disputes which might become troublesome if left unadjusted. By most writers the invention of gunpowder is ascribed to the Chinese, but not upon very convincing evidence. Milton says it was invented by the devil to dispel angels with, and this opinion seems to derive some support from the scarcity of angels.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Angel, Science, Agency

  Ambrose Bierce (2001). “The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary”, p.102, University of Georgia Press

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• Girls were born knowing how destructive the truth could be. They learned to hold it in, tamp it down, like gunpowder in an old fashioned gun. Then it exploded in your face on a November day in the rain.

  Janet Fitch

  Girl, Rain, Gun

  Janet Fitch (2013). “Paint It Black”, p.120, Hachette UK

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• Remember, remember the 5th of November.

  Guy Fawkes

  November, Remember, Vendetta

  "V for Vendetta". Comisc book by Alan Moore, 1982-986.

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• The peoples of the old world have their cities built for times gone by, when railroads and gunpowder were unknown. We can have cities for the new age that has come, adopted to its better conditions of use and ornament. We want, therefore, a city planning profession.

  Horace Bushnell

  Cities, Age, Ornaments

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• By his machines man can dive and remain under water like a shark; can fly like a hawk in the air; can see atoms like a gnat; can see the system of the universe of Uriel, the angel of the sun; can carry whatever loads a ton of coal can lift; can knock down cities with his fist of gunpowder; can recover the history of his race by the medals which the deluge, and every creature, civil or savage or brute, has involuntarily dropped of its existence; and divine the future possibility of the planet and its inhabitants by his perception of laws of nature.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Angel, Men, Sharks

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2010). “Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Volume VIII: Letters and Social Aims”, p.74, Harvard University Press

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• The proverb answers where the sermon fails.

  William Gilmore Simms

  Inspirational, Answers, Failing

  William Gilmore Simms (1853). “Egeria: Or Voices of Thought and Counsel, for the Woods and Wayside”, p.15

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• Remember, remember the fifth of November of gunpowder treason and plot. I know of no reason why the gun powder treason should ever be forgot.

  Alan Moore

  Gun, Plot, Reason Why

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• I had been right: freedom smelled like ozone and thunderstorms and gunpowder all at once, like snow and bonfires and cut grass, it tasted like seawater and oranges.

  Tana French

  Cutting, Ozone, Orange

  Tana French (2008). “The Likeness: Dublin Murder Squad: 2”, p.345, Hachette UK

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• And if the problem [with contraception] is promiscuity, then why does the immense popularity of Viagra go unchecked? Doesn't it make more sense to leave the bullets out of the gun than to try to avoid being shot? Especially when the gun is an old musket, and you have to clean it out and tamp down gunpowder, melt down scraps of lead and pour it into a mold, wait for it to cool - only to have it take forever to finally go off?

  Margaret Cho

  Gun, Waiting, Forever

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• There is no harm in anybody thinking that Christ is in bread. The harm is in the expectation of His presence in gunpowder.

  John Ruskin

  Jesus, Thinking, Expectations

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• Remember, remember, the Fifth of November, the Gunpowder Treason and Plot. I know of no reason why the Gunpowder Treason should ever be forgot... But what of the man? I know his name was Guy Fawkes and I know, in 1605, he attempted to blow up the Houses of Parliament.

  Alan Moore

  Kings, Dark, Blow

  "Fictional character: Evey Hammond". "V for Vendetta", www.imdb.com. 2005.

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• The world has been printing books for 450 years, and yet gunpowder still has a wider circulation. Never mind! Printer's ink is the greater explosive: it will win.

  Christopher Morley

  Book, Winning, Years

  Christopher Morley (2013). “The Haunted Bookshop”, p.11, Melville House

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• All her life she'd been warned that men were slaves to their desires, that they held their impulses in barely controlled check. A woman--a lady--must be very, very careful of her actions so she did not put spark to the gunpowder that was a man's libido.

  Elizabeth Hoyt

  Men, Desire, Sparks

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• Guilt is to danger, what fire is to gunpowder; a man need not fear to walk among many barrels of powder, if he have no fire about him.

  John Flavel

  Men, Fire, Guilt

  John Flavel (1826). “A saint indeed: or, The great work of a Christian in keeping the heart in the several conditions of life”, p.127

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• Support for Saddam, including within his military organization, will collapse after the first whiff of gunpowder.

  Richard Perle

  Military, Organization, Support

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• And though it be their sin and vanity that is the cause, it is nevertheless your sin to be the unnecessary occasion: for you must consider that you live among diseased souls. And you must not lay a stumblingblock in their way, nor blow up the fire of their lust, nor make your ornaments their snares; but you must walk among sinful persons, as you would do with a candle among straw or gunpowder; or else you may see the flame which you would not foresee, when it is too late to quench it.

  Richard Baxter

  Block, Blow, Fire

  "The Christian directory".

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• The Meeting is actually like the Gunpowder Meeting, or some of the earlier American Quaker MeetingsThe long house form is something that was traditionthat's what I started with as an idea. But then making this in terms of the sizing and the use that was asked for by Live Oak Meeting- I mean it's a very traditional form, except it's convertible. The top opens, and it makes a sky space where sky is really brought down to you; your awareness of it is made quite different. It was a little bit of a novel idea, that it's a roof that opens.

  James Turrell

  Mean, Sky, Ideas

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• The greatest Inventions were produced in Times of Ignorance; as the Use of the Compass, Gunpowder, and Printing; and by the dullest Nation, as the Germans.

  Jonathan Swift

  Ignorance, Science, Ignorant

  Jonathan Swift (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Jonathan Swift (Illustrated)”, p.894, Delphi Classics

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• To evade such temptations is the first duty of the poet. For as the ear is the antechamber to the soul, poetry can adulterate and destroy more surely then lust or gunpowder. The poet's, then, is the highest office of all. His words reach where others fall short. A silly song of Shakespeare's has done more for the poor and the wicked than all the preachers and philanthropists in the world.

  Virginia Woolf

  Song, Silly, Fall

  Virginia Woolf (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Virginia Woolf (Illustrated)”, p.1221, Delphi Classics

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• They fought their first action in March of 1775. Embarked on eight small ships, they sailed to the Bahamas and captured a British fort near Nassau, seizing gunpowder and supplies. Later, during the Revolutionary War, Marines fought several engagements in their distinctive green coats, such as helping George Washington to cross the Delaware River, and assisting John Paul Jones on the Bonhomme Richard to capture the British frigate Serapis during their famous sea fight.

  Tom Clancy

  War, Marine, Fighting

  "Marine". Book by Tom Clancy, 1996.

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• Cursing themselves in ragged dreamsfire has singed the edges of,they know a slow dying the fields have come to terms with.Shimmering fans work against the heat& smell of gunpowder, making moneyfloat from hand to hand. The next momenta rocket pushes a white fistthrough night sky, & they scatter like birds& fall into the shape their liveshave become.

  Yusef Komunyakaa

  Fall, Night, White

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