Odor Quotes

• Self-esteem and self-contempt have specific odors; they can be smelled.

  Eric Hoffer

  Self Esteem, Literature, Contempt

  Eric Hoffer (1996). “The Passionate State of Mind”

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• Nothing can beat the smell of dew and flowers and the odor that comes out of the earth when the sun goes down.

  Ethel Waters

  Flower, Smell, Dew

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• The act of smelling something, anything, is remarkably like the act of thinking. Immediately at the moment of perception, you can feel the mind going to work, sending the odor around from place to place, setting off complex repertories through the brain, polling one center after another for signs of re recognition, for old memories and old connection.

  Lewis Thomas

  Memories, Thinking, Smell

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• We grow like flowers, and bear desire, the odor of the human flowers.

  Richard Henry Stoddard

  Flower, Desire, Bears

  Richard Henry Stoddard (1857). “Songs of Summer”, p.152

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• Smell is a potent wizard that transports you across thousands of miles and all the years you have lived.

  Helen Keller

  Nature, Food, Years

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• There is no odor so bad as that which arises from goodness tainted.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Corruption, Goodness, Arise

  1854 Walden, or Life in the Woods,'Economy'.

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• The burnt odor in Washington is from the disintegrating authority of the governing classes.

  William Greider

  Class, Authority, Governing

  "All the King’s Media". www.thenation.com. November 3, 2005.

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• There is nothing like an odor to stir memories.

  William McFee

  Memories, Good Memories

  "Modern Essays" edited by Christopher Morley, ("The Market"), 1921.

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• Hatred, for the man who is not engaged in it, is a little like the odor of garlic for one who hasn't eaten any.

  Jean Rostand

  Men, Hatred, Atheism

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• There is a peculiar burning odor in the room, like explosives. the kitchen fills with smoke and the hot, sweet, ashy smell of scorched cookies. The war has begun.

  Alison Lurie

  Sweet, War, Smell

  Alison Lurie (2012). “The War Between the Tates: A Novel”, p.35, Open Road Media

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• Many baseball fans look upon an umpire as a sort of necessary evil to the luxury of baseball, like the odor that follows an automobile.

  Christy Mathewson

  Sports, Baseball, Umpires

  Christy Mathewson (2013). “Pitching in a Pinch: Baseball from the Inside”, p.76, Penguin

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• Best way to get rid of kitchen odors: Eat out.

  Phyllis Diller

  Inspirational, Funny, Witty

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• So great is the economy of nature, that most flowers which are fertilised by crepuscular or nocturnal insects emit their odour chiefly or exclusively in the evening.

  Charles Darwin

  Nature, Flower, Smell

  "The Effects of Cross and Self Fertilisation in the Vegetable Kingdom".

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• Odors have an altogether peculiar force, in affecting us through association; a force differing essentially from that of objects addressing the touch, the taste, the sight or the hearing.

  Edgar Allan Poe

  Sight, Smell, Peculiar

  Edgar Allan Poe, Rufus Wilmot Griswold, Nathaniel Parker Willis, James Russell Lowell (1858). “The literati”, p.515

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• I went out into the garden in the morning dusk, When sorrow enveloped me like a cloud; And the breeze brought to my nostril the odor of spices, As balm of healing for a sick soul.

  Moses ibn Ezra

  Morning, Healing, Garden

  Moses Ibn Ezra (1945). “‏מחברת משירי משה בן יעקב אבן עזרא /‏”

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• No coffee can be good in the mouth that does not first send a sweet offering of odor to the nostrils.

  Henry Ward Beecher

  Sweet, Coffee, Offering

  Henry Ward Beecher (1862). “Eyes and Ears”, p.60

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• Can words describe the fragrance of the very breath of spring - that delicious commingling of the perfume of arbutus, the odor of pines, and the snow - soaked soil just warming into life.

  Neltje Blanchan

  Life, Nature, Spring

  Neltje Blanchan (1901). “Wild Flowers: An Aid to Knowledge of Nature's Garden ..”

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• This is precisely the reason for the dissatisfaction of some, who end up sad - sad priests - in some sense becoming collectors of antiques or novelties, instead of being shepherds living with 'the odor of the sheep.' This I ask you: Be shepherds, with the 'odor of the sheep,' make it real, as shepherds among your flock, fishers of men.

  Pope Francis

  Real, Men, Sheep

  Pope Francis (2016). “Men of Mercy: Pope Francis Speaks to Priests”, p.12, BookBaby

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• Veneration of Mark Twain is one of the roots of our current intellectual stalemate.

  John Kennedy Toole

  Roots, Intellectual, Rotting

  John Kennedy Toole (2004). “A Confederacy of Dunces”, p.70, LSU Press

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• All finite things reveal infinitude: The mountain with its singular bright shade Like the blue shine on freshly frozen snow, The after-light upon ice-burdened pines; Odor of basswood upon a mountain slope, A scene beloved of bees; Silence of water above a sunken tree: The pure serene of memory of one man,- A ripple widening from a single stone Winding around the waters of the world.

  Theodore Roethke

  Memories, Men, Shine On

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• Over the city lies the sweet, rotting odor of yesterday's unrecollected sins.

  Hilary Mantel

  Sweet, Lying, Cities

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• Many prayers are declined because of the rank odor of a corrupt heart, rising through the beautiful words. Let the words be wrong but the meaning right. . . .
  That flawed utterance is dearer to God!

  Rumi

  Beautiful, Prayer, Heart

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• It smells terrible in here.' Well, what do you expect? The human body, when confined, produces certain odors which we tend to forget in this age of deodorants and other perversions. Actually, I find the atmosphere of this room rather comforting. Schiller needed the scent of apples rotting in his desk in order to write. I, too, have my needs. You may remember that Mark Twain preferred to lie supinely in bed while composing those rather dated and boring efforts which contemporary scholars try to prove meaningful. Veneration of Mark Twain is one of the roots of our current intellectual stalemate.

  John Kennedy Toole

  Meaningful, Lying, Writing

  John Kennedy Toole (2004). “A Confederacy of Dunces”, p.70, LSU Press

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• It is universally allowed that, though nothing can be more interesting in itself than the conversation of two lovers, yet nothing can be more insipid in detail - just as the heavenly fragrance of the rose becomes vapid and sickly under all the attempts made to retain and embody its exquisite odor.

  Susan Edmonstone Ferrier

  Two, Rose, Interesting

  Susan Edmonstone Ferrier (1841). “The inheritance, by the author of Marriage. By the author of 'Marriage'. Revised by the author”, p.138

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• The scent of flowers does not travel against the wind; but the odor of good people travels; even against the wind: a good man pervades every place.

  Max Muller

  Flower, Men, Wind

  Max Muller (2013). “Sacred Books of the East: Including Selections from the Vedic Hymns, Zend-Avesta, Dhammapada, Upanishads, the Koran, and the Life of Buddha”, p.130, Lulu Press, Inc

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