Gemstones

"He who owns this diamond Koh-I-Noor will own the world, but will also know all its misfortunes. Only God, or a woman, can wear it with impunity."

"The Koh-i-Noor has been of ill-fortune only to the few who have lost it. To the long line of emperors, conquerors and potentates who through successive centuries have possessed it, it has been the symbol of victory and empire. And sure never more than to our Queen. However, if Her Majesty thinks it brings bad luck, let her give it back to me. I will take it and its ill-luck as speculation."

"The gem called Koh-i-Noor which was taken from Shah Shuja-ul-Mulk by Maharajah Ranjit Singh shall be surrendered by the Maharajah of Lahore to the Queen of England."

"Reborn, the stone was first mounted in a tiara for the Queen containing more than 2,000 diamonds, before being incorporated in the coronation crown of Queen Mary in 1911. In 1937 the Koh-i-Noor was transferred to a crown made for the Queen Elizabeth, the consort of George VI. There it remains to this day, set into a Maltese Cross. When the Queen Mother died in 2002 the crown was placed on her coffin for her lying in state."

"Adversity is the diamond dust Heaven polishes its jewels with."

"There is smoke and grease there is the wrist exhaustion, there is laughter, there is the letter seized in the clock and the apple's tang, the river sliding along its banks. darker now than the sky descending a last time to scatter its diamonds into these black waters that contain the day that passed, the night to come."

"Is not a diamond that flashes all its colours into the heart of a poet as useful as the diamond with which the glazier divides the sheet of glass into panes of our windows?"

"All is beautiful and unceasing, all is music and reason, and all, like diamond, is carbon first, then light."

"For a life where diamonds really are forever."

"Diamond is the hardest natural substance known. It is formed deep in the mantle, and is only brought to the surface via kimberlite pipes, lamprophyres, eclogites and other rocks that originate deep within the mantle. It is also found in alluvial deposits, along with quartz, corundum,zircon and other minerals, derived from such rocks, and in certain meteorites."

"It has the greatest thermal conductivity known. A sizeable stone held in the hand feels cold, hence the slang name "ice""

"Splendid, too, was the Queen's tale of the Cullinan diamond which caused the Dutch diamond cutter to faint as he split the stone. 'My Grandmother,' Her Majesty told us, 'always referred to the two sizeable chunks hived off from the centre block as the "chips".'"

"Imagine you are walking along, and you trip over something and you turn around and find that it is a huge diamond. You would pick it up and do everything in your power to take care of that diamond because it might take care of you for the rest of your life."

"A diamond doesn't start out polished and shining. It once was nothing special, but with enough pressure and time, becomes spectacular. I'm that diamond."

"A diamond is a pure crystal of carbon which those in the know believe started life deep in the earth many thousands of years ago. The carbon dislodged from the ledge by volcanic disturbances, mingled with molten rock and made its way under pressure along cracks and fissures towards the earth’s surface. Then more volcanic action probably occurred and the whole process repeated itself: break, fold, remelt and rise. The carbon finally transformed into a diamond and settled in a rocky mix of soil called “Blue Earth”, along with Pyrope, Garnets, Olivines, shiny flakes of Mica and a few other gems formed under similar pressure and heat."

"Diamond is the hardest, natural susbstance known to man, with a top count of 10 to match the sun’s given number. Its name is derived from the Greek word adamas, meaning “Invincible” or Unbrekable, its structure is ultra-complex, and its atomic composition is held together by powerful bonding."

"Yellow diamond can be cut in countless styles from the modern round “brilliant” with 58 facets and the appearance of a spider’s web when viewed from above to the 25 faceted “full Dutch rose”."

"In the opinion of gemologists, the yellow Diamond is coloured by nitrogen impurity, which according to Scientists was gifted to our solar system by the incarnation of a once massive Star over ten times the size of our Sun more than a few billion years ago."

"The gem is appropriate as first half of Leo’ precious crystal, because Jupiter, the mutable influence on the sign at this point, seems, when viewed from Earth, to give a yellow light."

"Yellow diamond is well chosen because it is the Sun’s own crystal having no affinity with water, and also because Mars, the mutable planet in this area of the zodiac, has been observed to have its soil coated with a thin layer of white."

"White (clear) diamond is the flawless gem which is sometimes referred to as “of the first water”, meaning a Diamond of the purest kind. Traded by Indian merchants in the fourth century, it was called by them as “fragment of eternity”, and from Indian mythology comes the legend of Koh-I-Noor, which came to mankind on the forehead of Karna, son of the Sun and a princess of a reigning family. Legend decreed that only a god or a woman would be exempt from punishment and injury as a consequence of possessing this stone, and tragedy indeed stalked the “Mountain of Light” where it was kept before being seized, and in 1850, presented to Queen Victoria."

"Better a diamond with a flaw than a pebble without."

"A fine quotation is a diamond in the hand of a man of wit and a pebble in the hand of a fool."

"There are two things in abundance in South Africa, racial hatred and diamonds."

"Doomed to a total failure in a deaf world of ignorance and indifference he inexorably kept on cutting out his diamonds, his dazzling diamonds, the mines of which he had such a perfect knowledge."

"The Aurora Pyramid of Hope is a collection of 296 natural diamonds of combined weight of 267.45 carats, in a wide variety of colors, billed as The Aurora Pyramid of Hope, the most comprehensive natural color diamond collection in the world."

"...of Awaiting and comes no more among his kin; not until the Sun passes and the Moon falls, shall it be known of what substance they were made. Like the crystal of diamonds it appeared, and yet was more strong than adamant, so that no violence could mar it or break it within the Kingdom of Arda."

"Any life form in any realm – mineral, vegetable, animal, or human – can be said to undergo “enlightenment.” It is, however, an extremely rare occurrence since it is more than an evolutionary progression: It also implies a discontinuity in its development, a leap to an entirely different level of Being and, most important, a lessening of materiality. What could be heavier and more impenetrable than a rock, the densest of all forms? And yet some rocks undergo a change in their molecular structure, turn into crystals, and so become transparent to the light. Some carbons, under inconceivable heat and pressure, turn into diamonds, and some heavy minerals into other precious stones.... Since time immemorial, flowers, crystals, precious stones, and birds have held special significance for the human spirit. Like all lifeforms, they are, of course, temporary manifestations of the underlying one Life, one Consciousness. Their special significance and the reason why humans feel such fascination for and affinity with them can be attributed to their ethereal quality."

"Techniques employ four qualities that reflect the nature of our world. Depending on the circumstance, you should be: hard as a diamond, flexible as a willow, smooth-flowing like water, or empty as space."

"The diamond has been always esteemed by the ancients the rarest stone, and the most precious of all, either for its hardness, its fine brilliancy, its water, or its virtues.... it calms anger and foments love between man and wife, and is therefore called the stone of reconciliation."

"The Scripture is to be its own Interpreter, or rather the Spirit speaking in it: nothing can cut the Diamond but the Diamond; nothing can interpret Scripture but Scripture."

"I never worry about diets. The only carrots that interest me are the number you get in a diamond."

"The Argyle deposit is shaped a little like a human molar, with a wide top and bottom that descends in a forked shape. On geological cutaway maps, these forks look like the roots of a tooth. This pipe is loaded with diamonds that probably emerged from the earth’s mantle around 1.6 billion years ago. But unlike almost every other diamond lode on earth, it is not made of kimberlite. It is a volcanic rock named lamproite, which is a close cousin to kimberlite. There was a large concentration of nitrogen in this lamproite that turned all the diamonds a yellowish color and gave a few of them a weird punkish cast."

"Big girls need big diamonds."

"I thought of the soul as resembling a castle, formed of a single diamond or a very transparent crystal, and containing many rooms, just as in Heaven there are many mansions."

"Since Great Britain has such an important interest in the diamond industry, the royal couple could be of tremendous assistance to this British industry by wearing diamonds rather than other jewels."

"We are dealing with a problem in mass psychology. We seek to ... strengthen the tradition of the diamond engagement ring—to make it a psychological necessity capable of competing successfully at the retail level with utility goods and services."

"We spread the word of diamonds worn by stars of screen and stage, by wives and daughters of political leaders, by any woman who can make the grocer's wife and the mechanic's sweetheart say 'I wish I had what she has.'"

"The substantial diamond gift can be made a more widely sought symbol of personal and family success — an expression of socio-economic achievement."

"Our understanding of the first use of diamond is based on textual evidence from 500 BC in India. But even that - though probably right - is speculative. This is physical evidence a couple of thousand years earlier."

"Stone age craftsmen in China were polishing objects using diamond 2,000 years before anyone else had the same idea."

"Using an atomic force microscope to examine the polished surfaces on a nanometre scale, the scientists found the diamond-polished surface most closely matched the surface from the ancient axe."

"Invest in the human soul. Who knows, it might be a diamond in the rough."

"Sense is the diamond, weighty, solid, sound; When cut by [wit], it casts a brighter beam; Yet, wit apart, it is a diamond still."

"What is a diamond? Not everybody knows. The jeweler tells you by instinct growing from long practice, the false from the true He will judge by colour, brilliancy, hardness and specific gravity- that is he should go deep as the latter. The mineralogist will tell you scientifically what a diamond is; but he knows little of the shape, colour, and real beauty of the crystal as a gem. As for the public though there be good judges amongst them, they know but little. They have been deceived by forged and imitated notes, by things issued from the bank of Elegance, instead of from the Bank of England. What wonder, then, if in a more difficult matter they are cheated? What wonder that they scarcely tell the real and pure gem from the Faux brilliance,et morceaux de verre of which satirist speaks? Let us try, therefore, to unite, for a moment, the jeweler and savant, in describing the diamond, joining the two together for the benefit of the public."

"Diamonds were nothing more than carbon, but carbon in a crystal lattice that made it the hardest known mineral in nature. That was the way we all were headed. I was sure of it. We were destined to be diamonds!"

"Gems like these [The Aurora Pyramid of Hope] were not meant to be imprisoned in a dark underground safe for the momentary pleasure of a few eyes. The true value of a collection is sharing it with as many people who are interested to experience nature’s diversity of expression. It’s thrilling to think that the collection will be seen by the 3.6 million visitors that come to the Natural History Museum each year."

"This diamond has so many carats it's almost a turnip."

"Diamonds are held under tons and tons of pressure, extremely high temperatures of fire and shuffled under shifting of tectonic plates, for a long, long time! Yet when they come out from there and are put on display for their beauty; does anybody stop to evaluate the diamond based upon all the shit it's been through and say "Remember that disgusting hole it used to be in? I bet it was hell in there!" No, people don't remember where a diamond has come from; they just see the beauty of it now. But it wouldn't have become so beautiful, you know, if not for all of that! So why should we look at other people, or at ourselves and evaluate them/ourselves based upon their/our pasts? Shouldn't we forget that? And only see the beauty that is in front of our eyes? Whatever it was, it made you beautiful! And that is what matters!”"

"Even if the whole earth and sea were turned to gold, they could hardly satisfy the avarice of a woman... You can more easily scratch a diamond with your fingernail than you can by any human ingenuity get a woman to consent to giving any of her savings."