Brass Quotes

• You don't need to be born with a silver spoon to reach for the brass ring

  Sandra Lee

  Needs, Spoons, Silver

  FaceBook post by Sandra Lee from Jan 14, 2013

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• Polished brass will pass upon more people than rough gold.

  Lord Chesterfield

  People, Gold, Appearance

  Lord Philip Dormer Stanhope Chesterfield, Philip Dormer Stanhope Earl of Chesterfield (1855). “The Works of Lord Chesterfield: Including His Letters to His Son, Etc : to which is Prefixed, an Original Life of the Author”, p.150

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• Brass shines as fair to the ignorant as gold to the goldsmiths.

  Elizabeth I

  Money, Shining, Ignorant

  Letter, 1581.

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• True love requires action. We can speak of love all day long, we can write notes or poems that proclaim it, sing songs that praise it, and preach sermons that encourage it but until we manifest that love in action, our words are nothing but sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.

  Dieter F. Uchtdorf

  Song, Writing, Long

  64 Copy quote

• Brass bands are all very well in their place - outdoors and several miles away.

  Thomas Beecham

  Funny, Music, Brass Bands

  “Readers recommend: best brass songs” by Peter Kimpton, www.theguardian.com. June 26, 2014.

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• Men admire the man who can organize their wishes and thoughts in stone and wood and steel and brass.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Organization, Wish

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.2499, Delphi Classics

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• You look like gold. I've been fooled before, but now I know I've made the mistake in the past. But now I, now I know the difference from gold and brass.

  Ben Harper

  Mistake, Past, Differences

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• I have raised for myself a monument more durable than brass.

  Horace

  Raised, Monument

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• Men's evil manners live in brass; their virtues we write in water.

  William Shakespeare

  Writing, Men, Evil

  'Henry VIII' (1613) act 4, sc. 2, l. 45

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• Swirls of antique stained glass, blazes of brass, forests of carved wood and waterfalls of crystal combine to make up the city's most fabulously festive interior.

  Mimi Sheraton

  Glasses, Cities, Antiques

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• Titles of honour are like the impressions on coin; — which add no value to gold and silver, but only render brass current.

  Laurence Sterne

  Honor, Gold, Titles

  "The Works of Laurence Sterne".

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• His locked, lettered, braw brass collar, Shewed him the gentleman and scholar.

  Robert Burns

  Gentleman, Apparel, Scholar

  Robert Burns (1863). “The Poetical Works”, p.228

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• I wrote about people who liked fake fireplaces in their parlor, who thought a brass horse with a clock embedded in its flank was wonderful.

  Betty Smith

  Fake People, Horse, Wonderful

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• He's arm'd without that's innocent within;
  Be this thy Screen, and this thy Wall of Brass.

  Horace

  Wall, Literature, Innocence

  "Imitations of Horace: With An Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot and the Epilogue to the Satires".

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• If you pinch the sea of its liberty, though it be walls of stone or brass, it will beat them down.

  John Cotton

  Wall, Sea, Liberty

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• One bites into the brass mouthpiece of his wooden cudgel, and the other blows his cheeks out on a French horn. Do you call that Art?

  Franz Schubert

  Art, Blow, Horny

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• In 'thinking up' music I usually have some kind of a brass band with wings on it in back of my mind.

  Charles Ives

  Thinking, Brass Bands, Wings

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• Some minds improve by travel, others, rather, resemble copper wire, or brass, which get the narrower by going farther.

  Thomas Hood

  Mind, Wire, Copper

  Thomas Hood (1847). “Poems”, p.204

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• Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,
  But bad mortality o'ersways their power,
  How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,
  Whose action is no stronger than a flower?

  William Shakespeare

  Flower, Science, Sea

  Sonnet 65

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• Birth, and copulation, and death; that's all the facts when you come to brass tacks.

  T. S. Eliot

  Life, Death, Dying

  Sweeney Agonistes (1932)

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• Faith and philosophy are air, but events are brass.

  Herman Melville

  Philosophy, Air, Events

  Herman Melville (2016). “Pierre; or The Ambiguities”, p.366, Herman Melville

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• Brass, stay down all summer.

  Eugene Ormandy

  Funny, Summer, Orchestra

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• Jazz is the music of the body. The breath comes through brass. It is the body's breath, and the strings' wails and moans are echoes of the body's music. It is the body's vibrations which ripple from the fingers. And the mystery of the withheld theme, known to jazz musicians alone, is like the mystery of our secret life. We give to others only peripheral improvisations.

  Anais Nin

  Echoes, Giving, Secret

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• Virtue's a stronger guard than brass.

  Edmund Waller

  Stronger, Virtue

  Edmund Waller (1854). “Poetical Works of Edmund Waller. Edited by Robert Bell”, p.226

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• And write whatever Time shall bring to pass
  With pens of adamant on plates of brass.

  John Dryden

  Time, Writing, Plates

  John Dryden, Joseph Warton, John Warton (1811). “The Poetical Works of John Dryden: Containing Original Poems, Tales, and Translations”, p.77

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