Floats Quotes - Page 9

• My age fallen away like white swaddling
  Floats in the middle distance, becomes
  An inhabited cloud.

  Philip Larkin

  Distance, Clouds, White

  Philip Larkin (2014). “Collected Poems”, p.51, Faber & Faber

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• Actual creativeness is a matter of moments. One has to piece together the minute grains to make a lump. And it is so easy to miss the momentary flashes, it is like sluicing in placer mining. He who lets the flakes float by has nothing to show for his trouble.

  Eric Hoffer

  Missing, Together, Pieces

  "Eric Hoffer and the Art of the Notebook" by Tom Bethell in Harper's Magazine, July 2005.

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• The idea of safety had shrunk into particles - one snug moment, then the next. Meanwhile, the brain piped fugues of worry and staged mind-theaters full of tragedies and triumphs, because unfortunately, the fear of death does wonders to focus the mind, inspire creativity, and heightens the senses. Trusting one's hunches only seems gamble if one has time for seem; otherwise the brain goes on autopilot and trades the elite craft of analysis for the best rapid insights that float up from its danger files and ancient bag of tricks.

  Diane Ackerman

  Creativity, Ideas, Worry

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• Come hither, all ye empty things,
  Ye bubbles rais'd by breath of Kings;
  Who float upon the tide of state,
  Come hither, and behold your fate.
  Let pride be taught by this rebuke,
  How very mean a thing's a Duke;
  From all his ill-got honours flung,
  Turn'd to that dirt from whence he sprung.

  Jonathan Swift

  Kings, Mean, Fate

  Jonathan Swift, Thomas Sheridan (1812). “The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift...”, p.283

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• To anybody who can hold the Present at its worth without being inappreciative of the Past, it may be forgiven, if to such an one the solitary old hulk at Portsmouth, Nelson's Victory, seems to float there, not alone as the decaying monument of a fame incorruptible, but also as a poetic approach, softened by its picturesqueness, to the Monitors and yet mightier hulls of the European ironclads.

  Herman Melville

  Past, Victory, Hull

  Herman Melville (2016). “Billy Budd, Bartleby, and Other Stories”, p.166, Penguin

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• My sleeping pill is white.
  It is a splendid pearl;
  it floats me out of myself,
  my stung skin as alien
  as a loose bolt of cloth.

  Anne Sexton

  Sleep, White, Skins

  Anne Sexton, Diane Wood Middlebrook, Diana Hume George (2000). “Selected Poems of Anne Sexton”, p.24, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• [E]lections amount to little more than choosing between the scum that floats to the top of the barrel and the dregs that settle to the bottom.

  L. Neil Smith

  Scum, Littles, Settling

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• Clouds of flavors and savors float around the thing-in-itself.

  Mason Cooley

  Clouds, Essence, Flavor

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• The larch... is not only preserved from decay and the worm by the great bitterness of its sap, but also it cannot be kindled with fire nor ignite of itself, unless like stone in a limekiln it is burned with other wood... This is because there is a very small proportion of the elements of fire and air in its composition, which is a dense and solid mass of moisture and the earthy, so that it has no open pores through which fire can find its way... Further, its weight will not let it float in water.

  Marcus Vitruvius Pollio

  Fire, Air, Water

  "De architectura (Ten Books on Architecture)". Book by Marcus Vitruvius Pollio (Book II, Chapter IX, Section 14), circa 15 BC.

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• A beautiful woman without fixed principles may be likened to those fair but rootless flowers which float in streams, driven by every breeze.

  Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington

  Beautiful, Women, Flower

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• I had often stood on the banks of the Concord, watching the lapse of the current, an emblem of all progress, following the same law with the system, with time, and all that is madeand at last I resolved to launch myself on its bosom and float whither it would bear me.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Travel, Law, Progress

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• Have you not budged an inch, then? Such is the daily news. Its facts appear to float in the atmosphere.... We should wash ourselves clean of such news. Of what consequence, though our planet explode, if there is no character involved in the explosion? In health we have not the least curiosity about such events. We do not live for idle amusement. I would not run round a corner to see the world blow up.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Running, Character, Blow

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• Clouds float in the same pattern only once.

  Wayne Shorter

  Music, Clouds, Patterns

  Twitter post from May 15, 2017

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• I do not yet know why plants come out of the land or float in streams, or creep on rocks or roll from the sea. I am entranced by the mystery of them and absorbed by their variety and kinds. Everywhere, they are visible yet everywhere occult.

  Liberty Hyde Bailey

  Rocks, Sea, Land

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• It is like a dream to feel the machine lift you gently up in the air, float smoothly over one spot.

  Igor Sikorsky

  Dream, Air, Machines

  Igor Ivan Sikorsky (1964). “Recollections and Thoughts of a Pioneer: Presented at the Wings Club on November 16, 1964, New York City”

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• Life is a tide; float on it. Go down with it and go up with it, but be detached. Then it is not difficult.

  Prem Rawat

  Tides, Life Is, Difficult

  Speech at Fernbank, London, February, 1972.

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• None of us are bad people. We float around and we run across each other and we learn about ourselves, and we make mistakes and we do great things. We hurt others, we hurt ourselves, we make others happy and we please ourselves. We can and should forgive ourselves and each other for that.

  Dan Harmon

  Forgiveness, Running, Hurt

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• If it flies, floats or fornicates, always rent it.. it's cheaper in the long run.

  Felix Dennis

  Running, Money, Long

  Felix Dennis (2008). “How to Get Rich: One of the World's Greatest Entrepreneurs Shares His Secrets”, p.14, Penguin

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• The labor of rising from the ground will be great, ... but as we mount higher, the earth's attraction, and the body's gravity, will be gradually diminished till we arrive at a region where the man will float in the air without any tendency to fall.

  Samuel Johnson

  Fall, Men, Air

  Samuel Johnson (1940). “The reader's Johnson: a representative selection from his writings”

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• As a singer, I float around. I'm kind of scatty, bouncing around a lot. I try to adapt to what's going on around me in the song and the arrangement.

  Daryl Hall

  Song, Trying, Singers

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• He that floats lazily down the stream, in pursuit of something borne along by the same current, will find himself indeed moved forward; but unless he lays his hand to the oar, and increases his speed by his own labour, must be always at the same distance from that which he is following.

  Samuel Johnson

  Distance, Hands, Effort

  Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy (1820). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: A New Edition in Twelve Volumes, to which is Prefixed, an Essay on His Life and Genius, by Arthur Murphy, Esq. Containing Adventurer and Rasselas”, p.186

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• Once more their weird laughter of the loons comes to my ear, the distance lends it a musical, melancholy sound. For a dangerous ledge off the lighthouse island floats in on the still air the gentle trolling of a warning bell as it swings on the rocking buoy; it might be tolling for the passing of summer and sweet weather with that persistent, pensive chime.

  Celia Thaxter

  Summer, Sweet, Laughter

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• You know that if you get in the water and have nothing to hold on to, but try to behave as you would on dry land, you will drown. But if, on the other hand, you trust yourself to the water and let go, you will float. And this is exactly the situation of faith.

  Alan Watts

  Faith, Letting Go, Hands

  Alan Watts (2011). “Eastern Wisdom, Modern Life: Collected Talks: 1960-1969”, p.67, New World Library

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• While you live your life aboard the ship of life be aware of the sea of life on which it floats and on which it moves forward; be aware of the prevailing winds and currents that influence your progress as the master of the ship.

  Ian Gardner

  Life, Moving, Wind

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• Man is like the foam of the sea, that floats upon the surface of the water. When the wind blows, it vanishes, as if it had never been. Thus are our lives blown away by Death.

  Khalil Gibran

  Life, Blow, Men

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