Iron Quotes - Page 36

• The iron rule of nature is: you get what you reward for.
  If you want ants to come, you put sugar on the floor.

  Charlie Munger

  Want, Sugar, Rewards

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• Poetry is about as much a 'criticism of life' as red-hot iron is a criticism of fire.

  Ezra Pound

  Fire, Criticism, Hot

  The Spirit of Romance ch. 9 (1910)

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• In Sardinia one summer my best friend Marisa Berenson and I ironed each other's hair. We used a hot laundry iron and took turns putting our hair on the ironing board, literally ironing it. That's a recipe for straightening that may be highly successful, but is definitely not recommended.

  Diane von Furstenberg

  Summer, Successful, Hair

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• My child, what I want is muscles of iron and nerves of steel, inside which dwells a mind of the same material as that of which the thunderbolt is made.

  Swami Vivekananda

  Children, Mind, Steel

  Swami Vivekananda (2015). “The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda”, p.2090, Manonmani Publishers

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• Here is tragedy - and here is America. For the curse of the country, as well of all democracies, is precisely the fact that it treats its best men as enemies. The aim of our society, if it may be said to have an aim, is to iron them out. The ideal American, in the public sense, is a respectable vacuum.

  H. L. Mencken

  Country, Men, America

  "More Tips for Novelists". "Chicago Tribune" Newspaper, May 2, 1926.

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• Pain reconciles one to existence. Infinite resignation is that shirt in the old fable. The thread is spun with tears, bleached by tears, the shirt sewn in tears, but then it also gives better protection than iron. The secret in life is that everyone must sew it for himself.

  Soren Kierkegaard

  Pain, Giving, Secret

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• It is true of course, that I have a will of iron, but it can be switched off if the circumstances seem to demand it.

  P. G. Wodehouse

  Demand, Circumstances, Courses

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• Believe me, it is a great deal better to find cast-iron proof that you're innocent than to languish in a cell hoping that the police---who already think you're guilty---will find it for you.

  Douglas Adams

  Believe, Thinking, Cells

  Douglas Adams (2016). “Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency Box Set: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency and The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul”, p.132, Simon and Schuster

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• Very slowly, she peeked around the tree trunk. Saw a slim, petite figure, flanked by two very large, very dangerous-looking soldier of fortune types picking their way through the bodies and the rubble. "Amy?" Oh, God. It was Amy. "Get away from her," Jenna ordered, stepping out from behind the conifer, wielding the iron pan like a club. Both men stopped. Glanced at her. Glanced at each other over Amy's head. "What?" The biggest one grunted out a surly laugh. "Or you'll souffle us?" Okay. She was definitely going after him first.

  Cindy Gerard

  Men, Two, Laughing

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• In the military, if we don't know something, we say we don't know and proceed to shut up until we do. Some highly paid charlatans in the media think it's absolutely fine to take a wild guess at the truth and then tell a couple of million people it's cast-iron fact, just in case they might be right...I hope they're proud of themselves, because they nearly broke my mom's heart.

  Marcus Luttrell

  Mom, Couple, Military

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  The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars. We are made of starstuff.

  Carl Sagan

  Stars, Apples, Pie

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Cosmos”, p.255, Ballantine Books

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• The earth will never be the same again Rock, water, tree, iron, share this greif As distant stars participate in the pain. A candle snuffed, a falling star or leaf, A dolphin death, O this particular loss A Heaven-mourned; for if no angel cried If this small one was tossed away as dross, The very galaxies would have lied. How shall we sing our love's song now In this strange land where all are born to die? Each tree and leaf and star show how The universe is part of this one cry, Every life is noted and is cherished, and nothing loved is ever lost or perished.

  Madeleine L'Engle

  Song, Stars, Pain

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• Simon, would you still care for me if you discovered I was not who I say I am?" What do you mean?" I mean would you still care for me, no matter what you came to know?" What a thing to ponder. I don't know what to say." The answer is no. He does not need to say it. With a sigh, Simon digs at the fire with the iron poker. Bits of the charred log fall away, revealing the angry insides. they flare orange for a moment, then quiet down again. After three tries, he gives up. I'm afraid this fire's had it." I can see a few embers remaining. "No, I think not. If..." He sighs, and it says everything.

  Libba Bray

  Giving Up, Fall, Mean

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• The iron heart that does not bleed The iron wing that does not break They exist, here and now

  Tsugumi Ohba

  Heart, Wings, Doe

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• I smiled,"Deoch, my heart is made of stronger stuff than glass. When she strikes she'll find it strong as iron-bound brass, or gold and adamant together mixed. Don't think I am unaware, some startled deer to stand transfixed by hunter's horns. It's she who should take care, for when she strikes, my heart will make a sound so beautiful and bright that it can't help but bring her back to me in winged light.

  Patrick Rothfuss

  Beautiful, Strong, Heart

  Patrick Rothfuss (2010). “The Name of the Wind: The Kingkiller Chonicle:”, p.367, Hachette UK

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• His brow is seamed with line and scar; His cheek is red and dark as wine; The fires as of a Northern star Beneath his cap of sable shine. His right hand, bared of leathern glove, Hangs open like an iron gin, You stoop to see his pulses move, To hear the blood sweep out and in. He looks some king, so solitary In earnest thought he seems to stand, As if across a lonely sea He gazed impatient of the land. Out of the noisy centuries The foolish and the fearful fade; Yet burn unquenched these warrior eyes, Time hath not dimmed, nor death dismayed.

  Walter de La Mare

  Lonely, Kings, Stars

  Walter De la Mare (1920). “Collected Poems, 1901-1918”

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• All the green in the planted world consists of these whole, rounded chloroplasts wending their ways in water. If you analyze a molecule of chlorophyll itself, what you get is one hundred thirty-six atoms of hydrogen, carbon, oxygen, and nitrogen arranged in an exact and complex relationship around a central ring. At the ring's center is a single atom of magnesium. Now: If you remove the atom of magnesium and in its exact place put an atom of iron, you get a molecule of hemoglobin. The iron atom combines with all the other atoms to make red blood, the streaming red dots in the goldfish's tail.

  Annie Dillard

  Oxygen, Blood, Water

  Annie Dillard (2011). “Pilgrim at Tinker Creek”, p.127, Hymns Ancient and Modern Ltd

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• Respectability, regularity, and routine - the whole cast-iron discipline of a modern industrial society - have atrophied the artistic impulse, and imprisoned love so that it can no longer be generous and free and creative, but must be either stuffy or furtive.

  Bertrand Russell

  Discipline, Creative, Routine

  Bertrand Russell (2004). “Sceptical Essays”, p.12, Psychology Press

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• Big lots,' I said, seeing the eighty-year-old oaks and shady lawns. The houses were set way back and had iron fences and stone drives. The harder to hear your neighbors scream, my dear,' was David’s answer, and I sent my head up and down in agreement.

  Kim Harrison

  Agreement, Years, House

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• Will you believe me when I tell you there was kindness in his heart? His left hand didn't know what his right hand was doing. It was only that certain important connections had been burned through. If I opened up your head and ran a hot soldering iron around in your brain, I might turn you into someone like that.

  Denis Johnson

  Kindness, Believe, Heart

  Denis Johnson (2009). “Jesus' Son: Stories”, p.31, Farrar, Straus and Giroux

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• We are all dying, every moment that passes of every day. That is the inescapable truth of this existence. It is a truth that can paralyze us with fear, or one that can energize us with impatience, with the desire to explore and experience, with the hope- nay, the iron-will!- to find a memory in every action. To be alive, under sunshine, or starlight, in weather fair or stormy. To dance with every step, be they through gardens of flowers or through deep snows.

  R. A. Salvatore

  Memories, Flower, Sunshine

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• If gold rusts, what then can iron do?

  Geoffrey Chaucer

  Gold, Rust, Canterbury Tales

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• But I am greedy for life. I do too much of everything all the time. Suddenly one day my heart will fail. The Iron Crab will get me as it got my father. But I am not afraid of The Crab. At least I shall have died from an honourable disease. Perhaps they will put on my tombstone. 'This Man Died from Living Too Much'.

  Ian Fleming

  Father, Tombstone, Heart

  Ian Fleming (1961). “gilt-edged bonds”

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• I could have clasped the red walls to my bosom as a garment of eternal peace. "Death," I said, "any death but that of the pit!" Fool! might I have not known that into the pit it was the object of the burning iron to urge me?

  Edgar Allan Poe

  Wall, Burning, Pits

  Edgar Allan Poe (2013). “The Tell-Tale Heart: And Other Stories - Purloined Letter, Descent into the Maelström, Von Kempelen and His Discovery, Mesmeric Revelation, Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar, Black Cat, Fall of the House of Usher, Masque of the Red Death and Many More”, p.255, Lulu Press, Inc

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• And when that crop grew, and was harvested, no man had crumbled a hot clod in his fingers and let the earth sift past his fingertips. No man had touched the seed, or lusted for the growth. Men ate what they had not raised, had no connection with the bread. The land bore under iron, and under iron gradually died; for it was not loved or hated, it had no prayers or curses.

  John Steinbeck

  Prayer, Men, Past

  John Steinbeck (2016). “The Grapes of Wrath”, p.29, Hamilton Books

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