Stumps Quotes - Page 4

• Criminals are dumb as stumps. If they were smart they could go be investment bankers. Or judges.

  Jeff Abbott

  Smart, Judging, Dumb

  Jeff Abbott (2002). “Black Jack Point”, Signet

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• Every science is a mutilated octopus. If its tentacles were not clipped to stumps, it would feel its way into disturbing contacts.

  Charles Fort

  Octopus, Way, Tentacles

  Charles Fort (2006). “Wild Talents”, p.279, Cosimo, Inc.

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• For the author there is nothing but his pen, till that and life are worn to the stump: and then, with good fortune, perhaps on his death-bed he receives a pension and equals, it may be, for a few months, the income of a retired butler!

  Samuel Laman Blanchard

  May, Months, Bed

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• The redwood is one of the few conifers that sprout from the stump and roots, and it declares itself willing to begin immediately to repair the damage of the lumberman and also that of the forest-burner.

  John Muir

  Roots, Damage, Forests

  John Muir (1997). “Nature Writings: The Story of My Boyhood and Youth, My First Summer in the Sierra, the Mountains of California, Stickeen, Selected Essays”, p.711, Library of America

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• Where once stood the steadfast pines, great, beautiful, sweet, my hand touched raw, moist stumps. All about lay broken branches, like the antlers of stricken deer. The fragrant, piled-up sawdust swirled and tumbled about me. An unreasoning resentment flashed through me at the ruthless destruction of the beauty that I love.

  Helen Keller

  Beautiful, Sweet, Hands

  Helen Keller (2012). “The World I Live In and Optimism: A Collection of Essays”, p.28, Courier Corporation

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• The Conservatives played like England cricketers - too many rash strokes and run-outs, dropped catches and bowling anywhere but the stumps.

  Norman Tebbit

  Running, England, Bowling

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• Winter is the king of showmen, Turning tree stumps into snowmen And houses into birthday cakes And spreading sugar over lakes. Smooth and clean and frosty white, The world looks good enough to bite. That’s the season to be young, Catching snowflakes on your tongue. Snow is snowy when it’s snowing, I’m sorry it’s slushy when it’s going.

  Ogden Nash

  Kings, Sorry, Winter

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• How can you shorten the subject? That stern struggle with the multiplication table, for many people not yet ended in victory, how can you make it less? Square root, as obdurate as a hardwood stump in a pasturenothing but years of effort can extract it. You can't hurry the process. Or pass from arithmetic to algebra; you can't shoulder your way past quadratic equations or ripple through the binomial theorem. Instead, the other way; your feet are impeded in the tangled growth, your pace slackens, you sink and fall somewhere near the binomial theorem with the calculus in sight on the horizon.

  Stephen Leacock

  Fall, Struggle, Math

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• The best time to listen to a politician is when he's on a stump on a street corner in the rain late at night when he's exhausted. Then he doesn't lie.

  Theodore White

  Lying, Rain, Night

  1969 In the New York Times, 5 Jan.

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• Rhythm is best expressed in any swing directed at a cigar stump or a dandelion head.

  Grantland Rice

  Golf, Swings, Dandelions

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