Reeds Quotes

• Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature, but he is a thinking reed.

  Blaise Pascal

  Inspiring, Nature, Men

  Blaise Pascal (2016). “Pensées”, p.135, Open Road Media

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• A harvest mouse goes scampering by, With silver claws and silver eye; And moveless fish in the water gleam, By silver reeds in a silver stream.

  Walter de La Mare

  Eye, Water, Gleam

  Walter De la Mare (1932). “Old rhymes and new”

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• In the firm expectation that when London shall be a habitation of bitterns, when St. Paul and Westminster Abbey shall stand shapeless and nameless ruins in the midst of an unpeopled marsh, when the piers of Waterloo Bridge shall become the nuclei of islets of reeds and osiers, and cast the jagged shadows of their broken arches on the solitary stream, some Transatlantic commentator will be weighing in the scales of some new and now unimagined system of criticism the respective merits of the Bells and the Fudges and their historians.

  Percy Bysshe Shelley

  Bridges, Broken, Expectations

  Percy Bysshe Shelley (2008). “The Narrative Poems of Percy Bysshe Shelley”, p.136, Wildside Press LLC

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• The green reed which bends in the wind is stronger than the mighty oak which breaks in a storm.

  Confucius

  Wind, Storm, Stronger

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• The little reed, bending to the force of the wind, soon stood upright again when the storm had passed over.

  Aesop

  Life, Motivational, Encouragement

  Joseph Jacobs, Aesop (2002). “The Fables of Aesop”, p.89, Courier Corporation

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• There's music in the sighing of a reed; There's music in the gushing of a rill; There's music in all things, if men had ears; The earth is but the music of the spheres.

  Lord Byron

  Music, Men, Ears

  George Gordon Byron, “Don Juan: Canto The Fifteenth”

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• It is not solid wood that can become a flute, but the empty reed.

  Hazrat Inayat Khan

  Woods, Flutes, Empty

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• To me, there is spirit in a reed. It's a living thing, a weed, really, and it does contain spirit of a sort. It's really an ancient vibration.

  Steve Lacy

  Weed, Marijuana, Doe

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• When I am in danger of bursting, I will go and whisper among the reeds.

  Jonathan Swift

  Secrecy, Danger, Bursting

  Jonathan Swift (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Jonathan Swift (Illustrated)”, p.1516, Delphi Classics

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• An oak and a reed were arguing about their strength. When a strong wind came up, the reed avoided being uprooted by bending and leaning with the gusts of wind. But the oak stood firm and was torn up by the roots.

  Aesop

  Strength, Strong, Wind

  Aesop, Lloyd W. Daly (1961). “Aesop without morals: the famous fables, and a life of Aesop, newly translated and edited by Lloyd W. Daly. Illustrated by Grace Muscarella”

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• Woman is like the reed which bends to every breeze, but breaks not in the tempest.

  Richard Whately

  Women, Tempest, Break

  Richard Whately (1856). “Thoughts and Apophthegms: From the Writings of Archbishop Whateley”, p.309

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• Braying of arrogant brass, whimper of querulous reeds.

  William Watson

  Arrogant, Brass

  William Watson (1936). “The Poems of Sir William Watson: 1878-1935”

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• The beauty of the landscape - where sand, water, reeds, birds, buildings, and people all somehow flowed together - has never left me.

  Zaha Hadid

  People, Water, Bird

  "I don't do nice". Interview with Jonathan Glancey, www.theguardian.com. October 9, 2006.

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• Earthly riches are like the reed. Its roots are sunk in the swamp, and its exterior is fair to behold; but inside it is hollow. If a man leans on such a reed, it will snap off and pierce his soul.

  Anthony of Padua

  Faith, Inspiration, Men

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• Many a genius has been slow of growth. Oaks that flourish for a thousand years do not spring up into beauty like a reed.

  George Henry Lewes

  Life, Beauty, Wisdom

  'A Spanish Drama' ch. 2

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• He who stands like a pilar dies in battle. He who bends like a reed is triumphant!

  Christopher Paolini

  Battle, Triumphant, Dies

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• We Are All the Same
  Listen to the reeds as they sway apart;
  Hear them speak of lost friends.
  At birth, you were cut from your bed,
  Crying and grasping in separation.
  Everyone listens, knowing your song.
  You yearn for others who know your name,
  And the words to your lament.
  We are all the same, all the same,
  Longing to find our way back;
  Back to the one, back to the only one.

  Rumi

  Love, Song, Cutting

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• All life has emptiness at its core; it is the quiet hollow reed through which the wind of God blows and makes the music that is our life.

  Wayne Muller

  Blow, Wind, Emptiness

  Wayne Muller (2013). “Sabbath: Finding Rest, Renewal, and Delight in Our Busy Lives”, p.46, Bantam

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• There is eloquence in the tongueless wind, and a melody in the flowing brooks and the rustling of the reeds beside them, which by their inconceivable relation to something within the soul, awaken the spirits to a dance of breathless rapture, and bring tears of mysterious tenderness to the eyes, like the enthusiasm of patriotic success, or the voice of one beloved singing to you alone.

  Percy Bysshe Shelley

  Patriotic, Eye, Wind

  Percy Bysshe Shelley (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley (Illustrated)”, p.1818, Delphi Classics

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• Images provide a knowledge that we can interiorize rather than 'apply,' can take to that place in ourselves where there is water and where reeds and grasses grow.

  Christine Downing

  Knowledge, Water, Grass

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• Some say love it is a river that drowns the tender reeds. Some say love, it is a razor that leaves your heart to bleed. Some say love, it is a hunger, an endless aching need. I say love, it is a flower and you, its only seed.

  Bette Midler

  Flower, Heart, Rivers

  Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

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• As concerning faith we ought to be invincible, and more hard, if it might be, than the adamant stone; but as touching charity, we ought to be soft, and more flexible than the reed or leaf that is shaken with the wind, and ready to yield to everything.

  Martin Luther

  Yield, Wind, Touching

  Martin Luther, Johann Friedrich Wilhelm Tischer, Samuel Simon Schmucker (1860). “A Commentary on St. Paul's Epistle to the Galatians”, p.215

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• Ever since I was a little kid and first heard Jimmy Reed's 'Honey, Don't Let Me Go,' the blues has been in my blood.

  Billy Gibbons

  Kids, Blood, Littles

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• The smell of manure, of sun on foliage, of evaporating water, rose to my head; two steps farther, and I could look down into the vegetable garden enclosed within its tall pale of reeds - rich chocolate earth studded emerald green, frothed with the white of cauliflowers, jeweled with the purple globes of eggplant and the scarlet wealth of tomatoes.

  Doris Lessing

  Summer, Garden, Eggplant

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• When I was growing up, I fetishised New York City. It was the land of Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground, it was where Leonard Cohen wrote 'Chelsea Hotel', it was CBGBs and all the punk rock clubs. Artists and musicians lived there, and it was cheap and dangerous.

  Moby

  New York, Growing Up, Artist

  "'The Humility That Comes From Being Hated': Moby Interviewed". Interview with Stephen Dalton, thequietus.com. May 9, 2011.

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