Brass Quotes

• 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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• 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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• 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

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• 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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• 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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• Brass, stay down all summer.

  Eugene Ormandy

  Funny, Summer, Orchestra

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

  Horace

  Raised, Monument

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• Life's just a merry-go-round. Come on up. You might get a brass ring.

  Mae West

  Life, Might, Merry Go Round

  Mae West (1967). “The wit and wisdom of Mae West”

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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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• Creative people tend to pass the responsibility for getting down to brass tacks to others.

  Theodore Levitt

  Responsibility, People, Creative

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