Moths Quotes - Page 2

• The delicate muses lose their head if their attention is once diverted. Perhaps if you were successful abroad in talking and dealing with men, you would not come back to your bookshelf and your task. When the spirit chooses you for its scribe to publish some commandment, it makes you odious to men and men odious to you, and you shall accept that loathsomeness with joy. The moth must fly to the lamp, and you must solve those questions though you die.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Successful, Men, Talking

  "Letters and social aims". Inspiration. Book by Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1875.

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• Words betrayed her: beautiful butterflies in her mind; dead moths when she opened her mouth for their release into the world.

  Glen Duncan

  Beautiful, Butterfly, Mind

  Glen Duncan (2007). “I, Lucifer: Finally, the Other Side of the Story”, p.46, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• The curtain of the universe is moth-eaten, and through its holes we see nothing now but mask and ghost.

  Emile M. Cioran

  Ghost, Mask, Curtains

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• Moths are the ones that freak me out. It's something to do with the way that, if they get squashed, they turn to dust. There's something very wrong about that. It all feels a bit Gothic.

  David Tennant

  Dust, Way, Gothic

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• Consider the stars. Among them are no passions, no wars. They know neither love nor hatred. Did man but emulate the stars, would not his soul become clear and radiant as they are? But man's spirit draws him like a moth to the ephemera of this world, and in their heat he is consumed entire.

  Sarah Monette

  Stars, War, Passion

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• Hearts are like tapers, which at beauteous eyes Kindle a flame of love that never dies; And beauty is a flame, where hearts, like moths, Offer themselves a burning sacrifice.

  Omar Khayyam

  Love, Eye, Heart

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• She was drawn to damaged souls like a moth to a flame.

  Anna McPartlin

  Flames, Soul

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• The moth settled onto the curtain and sat still. It was an astonishing creature, with black and white wings patterned in geometric shapes, scarlet underwings, and a fat white body with black spots running down it like a snowman's coal buttons. No human eye had looked at this moth before; no one would see its friends. So much detail goes unnoticed in the world.

  Barbara Kingsolver

  Running, Eye, Black And White

  Barbara Kingsolver (2008). “Prodigal Summer”, p.140, Faber & Faber

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• Announcing your death should be like announcing that you are a lunar moth: It must be done quietly or it will not be believed.

  Daniel Handler

  Done, Should, Announcing

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• Electricity is of two kinds, positive and negative. The difference is, I presume, that one comes a little more expensive, but is more durable; the other is a cheaper thing, but the moths get into it.

  Stephen Leacock

  Science, Two, Differences

  Stephen Leacock (1910). “Literary Lapses: A Book of Sketches”

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• Pleasure's a Moth, that sleeps by day And dances by false glare at night; But Joy's a Butterfly, that loves To spread its wings in Nature's light.

  W. H. Davies

  Sleep, Butterfly, Night

  William Henry Davies, “Joy And Pleasure”

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• And I'll bury my soul in a scrapbook, with the photographs there and the moths.

  Leonard Cohen

  Soul, Scrapbooking, Vienna

  Leonard Cohen, “Take This Waltz”

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• I can't smell moth balls, I find it too difficult to get their tiny legs apart

  Steve Martin

  Smell, Balls, Legs

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• Nature is full of by-ends. A moth feeds on a petal, in a moment the pollen caught on its breast will be wedding this blossom to another in the next county.

  George Iles

  Nature, Science, Next

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• The eastern light our spires touch at morning, The light that slants upon our western doors at evening, The twilight over stagnant pools at batflight, Moon light and star light, owl and moth light, Glow-worm glowlight on a grassblade. O Light Invisible, we worship Thee!

  T. S. Eliot

  Morning, Stars, Twilight

  T. S. Eliot (2015). “The Poems of T. S. Eliot Volume I: Collected and Uncollected Poems”, p.175, Faber & Faber

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• Moths, and all sorts of ugly creatures, hover about a lighted candle. Can the candle help it?

  Charles Dickens

  Expectations, Ugly, Helping

  Charles Dickens (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Charles Dickens (Illustrated)”, p.7354, Delphi Classics

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• Hurt no living thing: Ladybird, nor butterfly, Nor moth with dusty wing.

  Christina Rossetti

  Hurt, Butterfly, Animal

  Christina Rossetti (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Christina Rossetti (Illustrated)”, p.379, Delphi Classics

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• Look to your heart that flutters in and out like a moth. God is not indifferent to your need. You have a thousand prayers but God has one.

  Anne Sexton

  Prayer, Heart, Needs

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• The moth don't care when he sees the flame
  He might get burned, but he's in the game
  And once he's in, he can't go back
  He'll beat his wings till he burns them black
  No, the moth don't care when he sees the flame
  The moth don't care if the flame is real
  'Cause flame and moth got a sweetheart deal
  And nothing fuels a good flirtation
  Like need and anger and desperation
  No, the moth don't care if the flame is real.

  Aimee Mann

  Real, Games, Wings

  "Song: 'The Moth'". 2002.

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• The atoms become like a moth, seeking out the region of higher laser intensity.

  Steven Chu

  Atoms, Lasers, Intensity

  "Lasers Slow Atom for Scrutiny". The New York Times, July 13, 1986.

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• What a place to be in is an old library! It seems as though all the souls of all the writers that have bequeathed their labours to these Bodleians were reposing here as in some dormitory, or middle state. I do not want to handle, to profane the leaves, their winding-sheets. I could as soon dislodge a shade. I seem to inhale learning, walking amid their foliage; and the odor of their old moth-scented coverings is fragrant as the first bloom of the sciential apples which grew amid the happy orchard.

  Charles Lamb

  Apples, Soul, Library

  Charles Lamb (1867). “Works: Including His Most Intesesting Letters”, p.320

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• From 'the lesson of the moth': and before i could argue him out of his philosophy he went and immolated himself on a patent cigar lighter i do not agree with him myself i would rather have half the happiness and twice the longevity but at the same time i wish there was something i wanted as badly as he wanted to fry himself

  Don Marquis

  Philosophy, Wish, Patents

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• She was clean": no piercings, tattoos, or scarifications. All the kids were now. And who could blame them, Alex thought, after watching three generations of flaccid tattoos droop like moth-eaten upholstery over poorly stuffed biceps and saggy asses?

  Jennifer Egan

  Tattoo, Kids, Biceps

  Jennifer Egan (2010). “A Visit from the Goon Squad”, p.258, Anchor

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• Moth: I gave you my life. Flame: I allowed you to kiss me.

  Hazrat Inayat Khan

  Kissing, Flames, Kiss Me

  Hazrat Inayat Khan “The Sayings of Hazrat Inayat Khan”, Library of Alexandria

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• Then your fingers moved down to my chin. You pushed it up with your thumb to look at me, almost like you were studying me in the artificial lights above my head. And, I mean, you really looked at me … with eyes like two stars. [...] And I had wings fluttering away inside me all right. Big fat moth wings. You trapped me easily, drew me toward you like I was already in the net.

  Lucy Christopher

  Stars, Mean, Eye

  Lucy Christopher (2014). “Stolen”, p.10, Scholastic Inc.

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