Marble Quotes - Page 9

• In creation myths, a god shapes mud or clay into living form, much like a potter throws a pot or a sculptor reveals the statue within a block of marble. But a writer has to create his own clay or stone before he can begin shaping life from it.

  Stuart Dybek

  Block, Writing, Clay

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• The round towers of the castles looked as if they were so firmly encrusted in the sky that, to get to their other side, one would have to hew out a passage through the celestial marble.

  Hope Mirrlees

  Sky, Castles, Towers

  Hope Mirrlees (2012). “Lud-in-the-Mist”, p.62, F+W Media, Inc.

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• There is always, in the fine arts, a physical interface between the artist's esthetic vision and the material result he seeks. The interface may be the application of brush to canvas, chisel to marble, bow to string... It may be the control of voice in song or the control of body in dance. It is the mastery of the interface that comprises the artistry; it is what constitutes the 'art' in fine art.

  Robert Breault

  Song, Art, Voice

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• I've read in many a novel, that unless they've souls that grovel-- Folks prefer in fact a hovel to your dreary marble halls.

  Charles Stuart Calverley

  Home, Soul, Facts

  Charles Stuart Calverley (1872). “Fly leaves, by C.S.C.”, p.11

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• I can remember the lush spring excitement of language in childhood. Sitting in church, rolling it around my mouth like marbles--tabernacle and pharisee and parable, tresspass and Babylon and covenant.

  Penelope Lively

  Spring, Childhood, Church

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• As far as the game of marbles is concerned, there is therefore no contradiction between the egocentric practice of games and the mystical respect entertained for rules. This respect is the mark of a mentality fashioned, not by free cooperation between equals, but by adult constraint.

  Jean Piaget

  Practice, Games, Adults

  Jean Piaget (1997). “The Moral Judgement of the Child”, p.62, Simon and Schuster

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• I know in London a Welsh hairdresser who has striven so vehemently to abolish his accent that he sounds like a man speaking with the Elgin marbles in his mouth.

  Dylan Thomas

  Men, Sound, Mouths

  Dylan Thomas (1968). “Quite Early One Morning”, p.94, New Directions Publishing

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• Really,' thought I, 'we call Baltimore the 'Monumental City' for its two marble columns, and here is Edinburg with one at every street-corner!

  Bayard Taylor

  Cities, Two, Baltimore

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• Alas for him who never sees The stars shine through his cypress-trees Who, hopeless, lays his dead away, Nor looks to see the breaking day Across the mournful marbles play!

  John Greenleaf Whittier

  Stars, Play, Shining

  John Greenleaf Whittier (1873). “The Complete Poetical Works of John Greenleaf Whittier”, p.288

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• Youth dreams a bliss on this side of death. It dreams a rest, if not more deep, More grateful than this marble sleep; It hears a voice within it tell: Calm's not life's crown, though calm is well. 'Tis all perhaps which man acquires, But 'tis not what our youth desires.

  Matthew Arnold

  Dream, Grateful, Sleep

  Matthew Arnold (1867). “New Poems”, p.141

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• Authors can write stories without people assuming that they are autobiographies, but songwriters and poets are often considered to be the characters in their works. I like Michelangelo's vision, 'I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.

  Criss Jami

  Character, Angel, Writing

  Criss Jami (2011). “Salomé: In Every Inch in Every Mile”, p.158, Criss Jami

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• Sleep sweetly in your humble graves,Sleep, martyrs of a fallen cause;Though yet no marble column cravesThe pilgrim here to pause.Stoop, angels, hither from the skies!There is no holier spot of groundThan where defeated valor lies,By mourning beauty crowned!

  Henry Timrod

  Lying, Humble, Sleep

  Henry Timrod, “Ode:Sung On The. Occasion Of Decorating The Graves Of The Confederate Dead”

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• Hard floorings such as marble, wood, terrazzo and linoleum, have become fashionable of late, but I believe they create a characterless "international" style that is as opposed to interpretation as it is repellent to the foot.

  George Pendle

  Believe, Feet, Style

  Source: www.cnn.com

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• A strong will deals with the hard facts of life as a sculptor with his marbles, making them facile and yielding to his purposes, and conquering their stubbornness by a greater stubbornness in himself.

  Christian Nestell Bovee

  Strong, Purpose, Facts

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• I laid my face to the smooth face of the marble and howled my loss into the cold salt rain.

  Sylvia Plath

  Rain, Loss, Salt

  Sylvia Plath (2008). “The Bell Jar”, p.124, Faber & Faber

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• OH NO YOU DON’T, LADDIE!” Harry spun around. Professor Moody was limping down the marble staircase. His wand was out and it was pointing right at a pure white ferret, which was shivering on the stone-flagged floor, exactly where Malfoy had been standing.

  J. K. Rowling

  White, Funny Harry Potter, Ferrets

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• I've decided to call him Norbert,' said Hagrid, looking at the dragon with misty eyes. 'He really knows me now, watch. Norbert! Norbert! Where's Mummy?' 'He's lost his marbles,' Ron muttered in Harry's ear. 'Hagrid,' said Harry loudly, 'give it a fortnight and Norbert's going to be as big as your house. Malfoy could go to Dumbledore at any moment. Hagrid bit his lip. 'I- I know I can't jus' dump him, I can't.' Harry suddenly turned to Ron. 'Charlie,' he said. 'You're losing it too,' said Ron. 'I'm Ron, remember?

  J. K. Rowling

  Eye, Dragons, Giving

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• I feel closer ties and more intimate bonds with certain characters in books, with certain images I’ve seen in engravings, than with many supposedly real people with the metaphysical absurdity known as ‘flesh and blood’. In fact, ‘flesh and blood’ describes them very well: they resemble cuts of meat laid out on the butcher’s marble slab, dead creatures bleeding as though still alive.

  Fernando Pessoa

  Real, Book, Character

  Fernando Pessoa (2010). “The Book of Disquiet”, p.47, Profile Books

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• Schoolboy days are no happier than the days of afterlife, but we look back upon them regretfully because we have forgotten our punishments at school and how we grieved when our marbles were lost and our kites destroyed – because we have forgotten all the sorrows and privations of the canonized ethic and remember only its orchard robberies, its wooden-sword pageants, and its fishing holidays.

  Mark Twain

  School, Holiday, Fishing

  Mark Twain (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Mark Twain (Illustrated)”, p.4550, Delphi Classics

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• Christ alone, of all the philosophers, magicians, etc., has affirmed eternal life as the most important certainty, the infinity of time, the futility of death, the necessity and purpose of serenity and devotion. He lived serenely, as an artist greater than all other artists, scorning marble and clay and paint, working in the living flesh. In other words, this peerless artist, scarcely conceivable with the blunt instrument of our modern, nervous and obtuse brains, made neither statues nor paintings nor books. He maintained in no uncertain terms that he made ... living men, immortals.

  Vincent Van Gogh

  Book, Artist, Men

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• The world values the seer above all men, and has always done so. Nay, it values all men in proportion as they partake of the character of seers. The Elgin Marbles and a decision of John Marshall are valued for the same reason. What we feel in them is a painstaking submission to facts beyond the author's control, and to ideas imposed on him by his vision. So with Beethoven's Symphonies, with Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations - with any conceivable output of the human mind of which you approve. You love them because you say, These things were not made, they were seen.

  John Jay Chapman

  Character, Men, Ideas

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• Up and away for life! be fleet!-
  The frost-king ties my fumbling feet,
  Sings in my ears, my hands are stones,
  Curdles the blood to the marble bones,
  Tugs at the heart-strings, numbs the sense,
  And hems in life with narrowing fence.
  Well, in this broad bed lie and sleep,-
  The punctual stars will vigil keep,-
  Embalmed by purifying cold;
  The winds shall sing their dead-march old,
  The snow is no ignoble shroud,
  The moon thy mourner, and the cloud.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Stars, Kings, Lying

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.234, Delphi Classics

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• As when, O lady mine, With chiselled touch, The stone unhewn and cold, Becomes a living mould, The more the marble wastes, The more the statue grows.

  Michelangelo

  Inspiration, Sculpture, Stones

  Michelangelo's sonnet addressed to Vittoria Colonna as quoted in Mrs. Henry Roscoe "Vittoria Colonna: Her Life and Poems" (p. 169), 1868.

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• If Michaelangelo made a marble sculpture of a defensive end it would look like Mario Williams.

  Dan Dierdorf

  Looks, Sculpture, Ends

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• I dreamt that I dwelt in marble halls, With vassals and serfs at my side, And of all who assembled within those walls, That I was the hope and the pride.

  Alfred Bunn

  Wall, Pride, Sides

  Michael William Balfe, Alfred Bunn (1856). “The Bohemian Girl: An Opera in Three Acts Performed by the Pyne and Harrison English Opera Troupe”, p.14

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