Harps Quotes - Page 6

• Our life a harp is, with unnumbered strings, And tones and symphonies; but our poor skill Some shallow notes from its great music brings.

  John Boyle O'Reilly

  Life, Skills, Symphony

  John Boyle O'Reilly (1882). “Songs, Legends and Ballads”

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• Go ye, who rest so placidly upon the sacred Bard who had been young, and when he strung his harp was old, and had never seen the righteous forsaken, or his seed begging their bread; go, Teachers of content and honest pride, into the mine, the mill, the forge, the squalid depths of deepest ignorance, and uttermost abyss of man's neglect, and say can any hopeful plant spring up in air so foul that it extinguishes the soul's bright torch as fast as it is kindled!

  Charles Dickens

  Teacher, Spring, Ignorance

  Charles Dickens (1844). “The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit, His Relatives, Friends and Enemies: Comprising All His Wills and His Ways, with an Historical Record of what He Did, and what He Didn't ...”, p.245

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• What I'd like to do now - well, what I'd like to do now is grow my beard very long, weave it into my pubes and strum it like a harp.

  Bill Bailey

  Funny, Humor, Long

  "Cosmic Jam". Bill Bailey's live at London's Bloomsbury Theatre, 1995.

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• Andy Harp's RETRIBUTION is a stunner:  a blow to the gut and shot of adrenaline.  Here is a novel written with authentic authority and bears shocking relevance to the dangers of today.  It reminds me of Tom Clancy at his finest. Put this novel on your must-read list-anything by Harp is now on mine.

  James Rollins

  Blow, Today, Lists

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• It's defeatist to harp on what might have been, and yet, it's hard to resist considering what might have been.

  Christopher Reeve

  Might, Considering, Has Beens

  "Man of steel" by Oliver Burkeman, www.theguardian.com. September 17, 2002.

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• Christianity only hopes. It has hung its harp on the willows, and cannot sing a song in a strange land. It has dreamed a sad dream, and does not yet welcome the morning with joy. The mother tells her falsehoods to her child, but, thank heaven, the child does not grow up in its parent's shadow. Our mother's faith has not grown with her experience. Her experience has been too much for her. The lesson of life was too hard for her to learn.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Mother, Dream, Song

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.71, Delphi Classics

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• I've been unaware of how people react to the instrument. People have ideas of what a harp is supposed to sound like, and a lot of them are negative ideas.

  Joanna Newsom

  Ideas, People, Sound

  Interview with Andy Battaglia, www.avclub.com. October 13, 2004.

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• The receptivity of the masses is very limited, their intelligence is small, but their power of forgetting is enormous. In consequence of these facts, all effective propaganda must be limited to a very few points and must harp on these in slogans until the last member of the public understands what you want him to understand by your slogan.

  Adolf Hitler

  Mein Kampf, Want, Lasts

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• My music teacher offered twittering madrigals and something about how, in Italy, in Italy, the oranges hang on the tree. He treated me - the humiliation of it - as a soprano.These, by contrast, are the six elements of a Sacred Harp alto: rage, darkness, motherhood, earth, malice, and sex. Once you feel it, you can always do it. You know where to go for it, though it will cost you.

  Mary Rose O'Reilley

  Teacher, Sex, Motherhood

  Mary Rose O'Reilley (2014). “The Barn at the End of the World: The Apprenticeship of a Quaker, Buddhist Shepherd”, p.49, Milkweed Editions

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• I am no king, and I am no lord, And I am no soldier at-arms," said he. "I'm none but a harper, and a very poor harper, That am come hither to wed with ye." "If you were a lord, you should be my lord, And the same if you were a thief," said she. "And if you are a harper, you shall be my harper, For it makes no matter to me, to me, For it makes no matter to me." "But what if it prove that I am no harper? That I lied for your love most monstrously?" "Why, then I'll teach you to play and sing, For I dearly love a good harp," said she.

  Peter S. Beagle

  Kings, Play, Soldier

  Peter S. Beagle (1968). “The last unicorn”

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• But my body was like a harp and her words and gestures were like fingers running upon the wires.

  James Joyce

  Beautiful, Running, Wire

  James Joyce (2015). “Dubliners: Top 100 Classic Novels”, p.17, 谷月社

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• The thirst for something other than what we have…to bring something new, even if it is worse, some emotion, some sorrow; when our sensibility, which happiness has silenced like an idle harp, wants to resonate under some hand, even a rough one, and even if it might be broken by it.

  Marcel Proust

  Inspiration, Hands, Broken

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• The King beneath the mountains, The King of carven stone, The lord of silver fountains Shall come into his own! His crown shall be upholden, His harp shall be restrung, His halls shall echo golden To songs of yore re-sung. The woods shall wave on mountains. And grass beneath the sun; His wealth shall flow in fountains And the rivers golden run. The streams shall run in gladness, The lakes shall shine and burn, And sorrow fail and sadness At the Mountain-king’s return!

  J. R. R. Tolkien

  Running, Song, Kings

  J. R. R. Tolkien, “The King”

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• Where now are the horse and the rider? Where is the horn that was blowing? Where is the helm and the hauberk, and the bright hair flowing? Where is the harp on the harpstring, and the red fire glowing? Where is the spring and the harvest and the tall corn growing? They have passed like rain on the mountain, like a wind in the meadow; The days have gone down in the West behind the hills into shadow. Who shall gather the smoke of the deadwood burning, Or behold the flowing years from the Sea returning?

  J. R. R. Tolkien

  Horse, Spring, Rain

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• Some people can't physically hear things. A kid that listens to Metallica or something can't hear that, because he's filled himself up with this stuff, he physically can't hear a banjo or a harp or something.

  Elvis Costello

  Kids, People, Stuff

  "Summit Talk". Option magazine Interview with Tom Waits, tomwaitsfan.com. July 1989.

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• The home was a school. Farm and cabin households, though bookless save for the Family Bible and The Sacred Harp, taught the girls to spin, weave, quilt, cook, sew, and mind their manners; the boys to wield gun, ax, hammer and saw, to ride, plow, sow and reap, and to be men. Nobody need ever be bored. Amusement did not have to be bought.

  Richard M. Weaver

  Girl, Quilts, War

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• The more big business talks about something, the less of it there is. For example, it 'values' jobs just at the moment when they disappear; it revels in 'autonomy' when in fact you have to fill out forms in triplicate for the slightest trifle and ask the advice of six people to make insignificant decisions; it harps on 'ethics' while believing in absolutely nothing.

  Corinne Maier

  Jobs, Business, Believe

  Corinne Maier (2007). “Bonjour Laziness: Why Hard Work Doesn't Pay”, p.9, Vintage

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• Of all the difficulties in a state, the temper of a true government most felicifies and perpetuates it; too sudden alterations distemper it. Had Nero tuned his kingdom as he did his harp, his harmony had been more honorable, and his reign more prosperous.

  Francis Quarles

  Government, Nero, Kingdoms

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• As the profoundest philosophy of ancient Rome and Greece lighted her taper at Israel's altar, so the sweetest strains of the pagan muse were swept from harps attuned on Zion's hill.

  Edward Thomson

  Bible, Philosophy, Zion

  Edward Thomson (1856). “Essays, moral and religious”, p.35

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• Love's the only thing I've thought of or read about since I was knee-high. That's what I always dreamed of, of meeting somebody and falling in love. And when that remarkable thing happened, I was going to recite poetry to her for hours about how her heart's an angel's wing and her hair the strings of a heavenly harp. Instead I got drunk and hollered at her and called her a harpy.

  Ben Hecht

  Love, Fall, Heart

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• Sweet is the day of sacred rest;
  No mortal cares shall seize my breast;
  O may my heart in tune be found
  Like David's harp of solemn sound.

  Isaac Watts

  Sweet, Heart, Sound

  Isaac Watts (1821). “An arrangement of the Psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs of the Rev. Isaac Watts”, p.419

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• I don't mean to harp on this, but it's like the networks are a how-to manual for terrorists. You see them on the news. This reporter is standing outside a water treatment plant, going, 'If they poured the poison here it could wipe out thousands because the guard is off duty from noon until 1 every day!'

  Jay Leno

  Mean, Water, Noon

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• When Evanescence took time off, I bought a big concert harp and started taking lessons like I was in high school again, which was really, really fun. I felt like I was learning again.

  Amy Lee

  Fun, School, Lessons

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• No man can force the harp of his own individuality into the people's heart; but every man may play upon the chords of the people's heart, who draws his inspiration from the people's instinct.

  Lajos Kossuth

  Sympathy, Inspiration, Heart

  Lajos Kossuth (1852). “Kossuth in New England: A Full Account of the Hungarian Governor's Visit to Massachusetts ; with Speeches, and the Addresses that Were Made to Him ...”, p.89

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• I did not know whether I would ever speak to her or not or, if I spoke to her, how I could tell her of my confused adoration. But my body was like a harp and her words and gestures were like fingers running upon the wires.

  James Joyce

  Running, Confused, Wire

  James Joyce (2015). “Dubliners”, p.22, Booklassic

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