Mildew Quotes

• You talk of the scythe of Time, and the tooth of Time: I tell you, Time is scytheless and toothless; it is we who gnaw like the worm - we who smite like the scythe. It is ourselves who abolish - ourselves who consume: we are the mildew, and the flame.

  John Ruskin

  Time, Flames, Teeth

  John Ruskin (2006). “A Joy for Ever, And Its Price in the Market”, p.83, Cosimo, Inc.

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• Among gardeners, enthusiasm and experience rarely exist in equal measures. The beginner dreams of home-grown bouquets and baskets of ripe fruit, the veteran of many seasons has learned to expect slugs, mildew, and frost.

  Roger Swain

  Education, Dream, Home

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• I do value my work awfully; but in reality only consider this: all this world of ours is nothing but a speck of mildew, which has grown up on a tiny planet. And for us to suppose we can have something great - ideas, work - it's all dust and ashes.

  Leo Tolstoy

  Reality, Dust, Ideas

  Leo Tolstoy (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Leo Tolstoy (Illustrated)”, p.2468, Delphi Classics

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• As you deal with thumb-crossings, or fingerings for the F-sharp-minor scale, or chromatic scales in double thirds, it is hard to accept that these will eventually allow you to probe eternity in the final movement of Beethoven's last sonata. Imagine that you are scrubbing the grout in your bathroom and are told that removing every last particle of mildew will somehow enable you to deliver the Gettysburg Address.

  Jeremy Denk

  Finals, Movement, Thumbs

  "Every Good Boy Does Fine" by Jeremy Denk, www.newyorker.com. April 8, 2013.

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• I'll tell you truly: I value my thought and work terribly, but in essence - think about it - this whole world of ours is just a bit of mildew that grew over a tiny planet. And we think we can have something great - thoughts, deeds! They're all grains of sand

  Leo Tolstoy

  Thinking, Essence, World

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• Do not let the bread of the hungry mildew in your larder! Do not let moths eat the poor man's cloak. Do not store the shoes of the barefoot. Do not hoard the money of the needy. Things you possess in too great abundance belong to the poor and not to you. You are the thief who steals from God if you are able to help your neighbor and refuse to do it.

  Christine de Pizan

  Men, Shoes, Giving

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• I am in favor of deliberately spreading methodically prepared bacteria among people and animals -- mildew ... to destroy the harvests, anthrax to destroy horses and livestock, and the plague, in order to kill not only entire armies, but also the inhabitants of large regions.

  Winston Churchill

  Horse, Army, Animal

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• When I stand in a library where is all the recorded wit of the world, but none of the recording, a mere accumulated, and not trulycumulative treasure; where immortal works stand side by side with anthologies which did not survive their month, and cobweb and mildew have already spread from these to the binding of those; and happily I am reminded of what poetry is,--I perceive that Shakespeare and Milton did not foresee into what company they were to fall. Alas! that so soon the work of a true poet should be swept into such a dust-hole!

  Henry David Thoreau

  Fall, Dust, Poetry

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.256, Delphi Classics

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• If we address frankly what is evoked by cheese, I think it becomes clear why so little is said. So what does cheese evoke? Damp dark cellars, molds, mildews and mushrooms galore, dirty laundry and high school locker rooms, digestive processes and visceral fermentations, he-goats which do not remind of Chanel ... In sum, cheese reminds of dubious, even unsavory places, both in nature and in our own organisms. And yet we love it.

  Michael Pollan

  Dirty, School, Dark

  Michael Pollan (2013). “Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation”, p.222, Penguin

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• Life appears: a complex dampness, destined to an intricate future and charged with secret virtues, capable of challenge and creation. A kind of precarious slime, of surface mildew, in which a ferment is already working. A turbulent, spasmodic sap, a presage and expectation of a new way of being, breaking with mineral perpetuity and boldly exchanging it for the doubtful privilege of being able to tremble, decay, and multiply.

  Roger Caillois

  Expectations, Challenges, Secret

  Roger Caillois (1985). “The writing of stones”, Univ of Virginia Pr

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• In the process of making the record, I was just so bored all the time working whatever stupid job. I felt like a stagnant pond that has algae and mildew and weird animal cells, and I felt like if I sat around not doing anything long enough, that I'd probably end up going a little bit crazy.

  Josh Jones

  Jobs, Crazy, Stupid

  "Evangelicals". Interview with Stuart Berman, pitchfork.com. August 28, 2006.

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