Incense Quotes

• Light the incense! You have to burn to be fragrant.

  Rumi

  Light

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• At the end of our lives we hope we will look back and, like an incense stick completely burned away, will have poured forth all our fragrance into the world.

  Prem Prakash

  Looks, World, Sticks

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• Let your thoughts be psalms, your prayers incense, and your breath praise.

  Charles Spurgeon

  Prayer, Psalms, Praise

  Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1885). “Sermons of Rev. C.H. Spurgeon of London ...”

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• Better do a good deed near at home than go far away to burn incense.

  Amelia Earhart

  Home, Reality, Chinese

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• Good strong thick stupefying incense-smoke!

  Robert Browning

  Strong, Catholicism, Thick

  'The Bishop Orders his Tomb' (1845) l. 80

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• No ashes are lighter than those of incense, and few things burn out sooner.

  Walter Savage Landor

  Ashes, Burn Out, Lighters

  Walter Savage Landor (1933). “Classical conversations: being imaginary conversations among Greek, Roman and Modern personages of classic consequence in the history of human culture”

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• The groves were God's first temples.

  William C. Bryant

  Nature, Tree, Firsts

  William Cullen Bryant, Thomas G. Voss (1975). “The Letters of William Cullen Bryant: 1865-1871”, p.49, Fordham Univ Press

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• Nothing is true but Love, nor aught of worth; Love is the incense which doth sweeten earth.

  Richard Chenevix Trench

  Love, Love Is, Earth

  Richard Chenevix Trench (1865). “Poems: Collected and Arranged Anew”, p.33

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• I do not feel like writing verses; but as I light my perfume burner with myrrh and jasmine incense, they suddenly burgeon from my heart, like flowers in a garden.

  Hafez

  Flower, Writing, Heart

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• Orchidbreathing incense into butterfly's wings

  Matsuo Basho

  Butterfly, Wings

  c.1689 On Love and Barley: Haiku of Basho, no.166 (translated by Lucien Stryk).

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• I take a baths all the time. I'll put on some music and burn some incense and just sit in the tub and think, Wow, life is great right now.

  Brian Austin Green

  Thinking, Tubs, Wow

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• The praise of a fool is incense to the wisest of us . . .

  Benjamin Disraeli

  Fool, Praise, Wisest

  Benjamin Disraeli (1833). “Vivian Grey”, p.205

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• ...you meditate and you got the candles, you got the incense and you've been chanting, and all of a sudden you hear this voice: 'Write this down'

  Carlos Santana

  Writing, Voice, Satanic

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• The green earth sends her incense up. From many a mountain shrine; From folded leaf and dewey cup She pours her sacred wine.

  John Greenleaf Whittier

  Wine, Mountain, Cups

  John Greenleaf Whittier, “The Worship Of Nature”

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• I'm in awe of the universe, but I don't necessarily believe there's an intelligence or agent behind it. I do have a passion for the visual in religious rituals, though, even though they may be completely empty and bereft of substance. The incense is powerful and provocative, whether Buddhist or Catholic.

  David Bowie

  Religious, Buddhist, Powerful

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• I cannot see what flowers are at my feet, Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs, But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet.

  John Keats

  Sweet, Flower, Feet

  'Ode to a Nightingale' (1820) st. 5

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• One grain of incense with devotion offer'd
  'S beyond all perfumes of Sabaean spices.

  Philip Massinger

  Spices, Devotion, Perfume

  Philip Massinger (1813). “The Plays”, p.365

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• You might sooner get lightning out of incense smoke than true action or passion out of your modern English religion.

  John Ruskin

  Passion, Lightning, Might

  John Ruskin, John D. Rosenberg (1964). “The Genius of John Ruskin: Selections from His Writings”, p.312, University of Virginia Press

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• I sing the sweets I know, the charms I feel, my morning incense, and my evening meal, the sweets of hasty pudding.

  Joel Barlow

  Sweet, Morning, Meals

  1796 'The Hasty-Pudding', canto1

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• In Nepal, the phenomenon is reversed. Time is a stick of incense that burns without being consumed. One day can seem like a week; a week, like months. Mornings stretch out and crack their spines with the yogic impassivity of house cats. Afternoons bulge with a succulent ripeness, like fat peaches. There is time enough to do everything - write a letter, eat breakfast, read the paper, visit a shrine or two, listen to the birds, bicycle downtown to change money, buy postcards, shop for Buddhas - and arrive home in time for lunch.

  Jeff Greenwald

  Morning, Cat, Home

  Jeff Greenwald (2014). “Shopping for Buddhas: An Adventure in Nepal”, p.16, Travelers' Tales

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• I like cinnamon rolls, but I don't always have time to make a pan. That's why I wish they would sell cinnamon roll incense. After all I'd rather light a stick and have my roommate wake up with false hopes.

  Mitch Hedberg

  Funny, Humor, Light

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• It is by far the most elegant worship, hardly excepting the Greek mythology. What with incense, pictures, statues, altars, shrines, relics, and the real presence, confession, absolution, - there is something sensible to grasp at. Besides, it leaves no possibility of doubt; for those who swallow their Deity, really and truly, in transubstantiation, can hardly find any thing else otherwise than easy of digestion.

  Lord Byron

  Real, Greek, Doubt

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• All philanthropy ... is only a savory fumigation burning at the mouth of a sewer. This incense offering makes the air more endurable to passers-by, but it does not hinder the infection in the sewer from spreading.

  Ellen Key

  Air, Offering, Doe

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• Men professing godliness offer their bodies upon Satan's altar, and burn the incense of tobacco to his satanic majesty. Does this statement seem severe? The offering must be presented to some deity. Since God is pure and holy, and will accept nothing defiling in its character, He refuses this expensive, filthy, and unholy sacrifice; therefore we conclude that Satan is the one who claims the honor.

  Ellen G. White

  Character, Sacrifice, Men

  Ellen G. White (2000). “Steps to Christ for a Joy-Filled Life”

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• I loved every second of Catholic church. I loved the sickly sweet rotting-pomegranate smells of the incense. I loved the overwrought altar, the birdbath of holy water, the votive candles; I loved that there was a poor box, the stations of the cross rendered in stained glass on the windows.

  Anne Lamott

  Sweet, Glasses, Smell

  Anne Lamott (2000). “Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith”, p.10, Anchor

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