Furnaces Quotes

• The most disastrous times have produced the greatest minds. The purest metal comes of the most ardent furnace; the most brilliant lightning come of the darkest clouds.

  François-René de Chateaubriand

  Clouds, Mind, Lightning

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• The furnace which melts gold, also hardens clay. Before blaming thy fate, therefore, find whether thou art gold or clay.

  Ivan Panin

  Art, Fate, Gold

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• Heat not a furnace for your foe so hot that it do singe yourself.

  William Shakespeare

  Revenge, Anger, Enemy

  'Henry VIII' (1613) act 1, sc. 1, l. 140

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• Tzu Li went to see Tzu Lai who was dying. Leaning against the door, he said, 'Great is the Creator! What will he make of you now? Will he make you into a rat's liver? Will he make you into an insect's leg?' Tzu-Lai replied, 'The universe gave me my body so I may be carried, my life so I may work, my old age so I may repose, and my death so I may rest. To regard life as good is the way to regard death as good. . . . If I regard the universe as a great furnace and creation as a master foundryman, why should anywhere I go not be all right?'

  Zhuangzi

  Life, Doors, Dying

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• For gold is tried in the fire and acceptable men in the furnace of adversity.

  George Santayana

  Adversity, Men, Fire

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• Solitude is the furnace of transformation.

  Henri Nouwen

  Solitude, Transformation

  Henri J. M. Nouwen (2016). “The Spiritual Life: Eight Essential Titles by Henri Nouwen”, p.18, HarperCollins

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• The furnace of affliction refines us from earthly drossiness, and softens us for the impression of God's own stamp.

  Pierre Bayle

  Affliction, Stamps, Impression

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• After all, the universe required ten billion years of evolution before life was even possible; the evolution of the stars and the evolving of new chemical elements in the nuclear furnaces of the stars were indispensable prerequisites for the generation of life.

  John Polkinghorne

  Stars, Years, Generations

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• Be advised; Heat not a furnace for your foe so hot That it do singe yourself: we may outrun, By violent swiftness, that which we run at, And lose by over-running. Know you not, The fire that mounts the liquor til run o'er, In seeming to augment it wastes it?

  William Shakespeare

  Running, Anger, Fire

  William Shakespeare (2013). “Histories of Shakespeare in Plain and Simple English (a Modern Translation and the Original Version)”, p.1716, BookCaps Study Guides

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• Just as gold tarnished in depth (cf. Jms. 5:3) cannot be properly purified and restored to its proper brightness unless it is cast in the fire and thoroughly hammered with mallets, so when the soul has been tarnished with the rust of sin and become thoroughly useless it cannot be cleansed and recover its original beauty unless it meets many trials and enter into the furnace of tribulations.

  Symeon the New Theologian

  Christian, Fire, Cfs

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• Through every trial we grow. All suffering we experience has a meaning. Though it seems very cruel, it is like the fire that smelts the iron ore: the steel that emerges from that furnace is beautifully strong, useful for many purposes.

  Paramahansa Yogananda

  Strong, Iron Ore, Fire

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• That was what he wanted, to be baked dry and hard, to feel the vaporous worries evaporating one by one, to know finally that all the damp little doubts and hesitations that covered the floor of his being were curling up and expiring in the great furnace-blast of the sun.

  Paul Bowles

  Worry, Doubt, Dry

  Paul Bowles (2002). “The Sheltering Sky: Let it Come Down ; The Spider's House”

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• You couldn't be here if stars hadn't exploded, because the elements - the carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, iron, all the things that matter for evolution - weren't created at the beginning of time. They were created in the nuclear furnaces of stars, and the only way they could get into your body is if the stars were kind enough to explode. So, forget Jesus. The stars died so that you could be here today.

  Lawrence M. Krauss

  Jesus, Stars, Oxygen

  "A Universe From Nothing". Lawrence M. Krauss' speech at the Atheist Alliance International Convention at the Marriot Hotel Convention Center in Burbank, California, www.youtube.com. 2009.

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• Iron till it be thoroughly heated is incapable to be wrought; so God sees good to cast some men into the furnace of affliction, and then beats them on His anvil into what frame He desires.

  Anne Bradstreet

  Men, Iron, Grace

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• A man may take care of a furnace for twenty-five years and still forget to duck his head when he starts going down the cellar stairs.

  Robert Benchley

  Fun, Men, Years

  Robert Benchley, Gluyas Williams (1949). “Chips Off the Old Benchley”, New York : Harper

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• Wealth is nothing more or less than a tool to do things with. It is like the fuel that runs the furnace or the belt that runs the wheel - only a means to an end.

  Henry Ford

  Running, Money, Mean

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• It is not as a child that I believe and confess Jesus Christ. My hosanna is born of a furnace of doubt.

  Fyodor Dostoevsky

  Faith, Jesus, Children

  "Kierkegaard, the Melancholy Dane". Book by Harold Victor Martin, 1950.

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• We must have the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless furnace of this world.

  Jack Gilbert

  Acceptance, World, Ruthlessness

  Jack Gilbert (2009). “Refusing Heaven”, p.3, Knopf

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• Calpurnia evidently remembered a rainy Sunday when we were both fatherless and teacherless. Let to its own devices, the class tied Eunice Ann Simpson to a chair and placed her in the furnace room. We forgot her, trooped upstairs to church, and were listening quietly to the sermon when a dreadful banging issued from the radiator pipes, persisting until someone investigated and brought forth Eunice Ann saying she didn't want to play Shadrach any more - Jem Finch said she wouldn't get burnt if she had enough faith, but it was hot down there.

  Harper Lee

  Sunday, Play, Class

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• Do you suppose the St. Swithin's furnace-man was my one true love? Since I never spoke to him, it seems unlikely, but at least it was a passion unscathed by disappointment.

  Mary Ann Shaffer

  Disappointment, Passion, Unlikely

  Mary Ann Shaffer, Annie Barrows (2009). “The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society”, p.11, A&C Black

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• Suppose the hellfire of the orthodox really existed! We have no assurance that it does not! It seems incredible, but many incredible things are true. We do not know that God is not as cruel as a Spanish inquisitor. Suppose, then, He is! If, after Death, we wicked ones were shovelled into a furnace of fire- we should have to burn. There would be no redress. It would simply be the Divine Order of things. It is outrageous that we should be so helpless and so dependent on any one- even God.

  W.N.P. Barbellion

  Fire, Divine Order, Should Have

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• I wonder if I don't give too much of myself to writing: I am always half where I am; the other half is feeding the furnace, kick-starting the heat of creativity. I am making love with someone but at the same time I'm noticing how this graceful hand across my belly might just fit in with the memory of lilacs in Albuquerque in 1974.

  Natalie Goldberg

  Memories, Writing, Creativity

  Natalie Goldberg (2011). “Thunder and Lightning: Cracking Open the Writer’s Craft”, p.41, Open Road Media

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• Nearly all runners do their slow runs too fast, and their fast runs too slow." Ken Mierke says. "So they're just training their bodies to burn sugar, which is the last thing a distance runner wants. You've got enough fat stored to run to California, so the more you train your body to burn fat instead of sugar, the longer your limited sugar tank is going to last." -The way to activate your fat-burning furnace is by staying below your aerobic threshold--your hard-breathing point--during your endurance runs.

  Christopher McDougall

  Running, Distance, California

  Christopher McDougall (2010). “Born to Run: The hidden tribe, the ultra-runners, and the greatest race the world has never seen”, p.207, Profile Books

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• Those that go gold into the furnace will come out no worse.

  Matthew Henry

  Gold

  Matthew Henry (1839). “An Exposition of the Old and New Testament: Wherein Each Chapter is Summed Up in Its Contents: Job-Solomon's Song. 1839”, p.132

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• It is the burning lava of the soul that has a furnace within--a very volcano of grief and sorrow-it is that burning lava of prayer that finds its way to God. No prayer ever reaches God's heart which does not come from our hearts.

  Charles Spurgeon

  Prayer, Grief, Heart

  Charles H. Spurgeon (2012). “The Spurgeon Series 1859 & 1860: Unabridged Sermons In Modern Language”, p.577, New Leaf Publishing Group

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