Minerals

"The soul is placed in the body like a rough diamond, and must be polished, or the luster of it will never appear."

"Wit must be foiled by wit: cut a diamond with a diamond."

"Diamond molecules refract light because they are shaped like pyramids. Try making a three point pyramid on your man."

"Unlike other carbons, a diamond uses all its bonding electrons to link with neighbouring atoms. These pair bonds are what give the gem unsurpassable hardness and fire."

"I have found that humanity is not incidentally engaged, but eternally and systematically engaged, in throwing gold into the gutter and diamonds into the sea."

"But remember, that manners must adorn knowledge, and smooth its way through the world. Like a great rough diamond, it may do very well in a closet, by way of curiosity, and also for its intrinsic value; but it will never be worn nor shine, if it is not polished."

"Diamonds are (forever) Carbon too. Certainly, you prefer diamonds instead of charcoals. But chemically speaking, diamonds and charcoals are just carbon in different form. Under certain temperature and pressure, the mother-nature took more than 1 billion years for transforming carbon-bearing materials into clear and shining diamonds. No wonder you prefer diamonds instead of regular charcoals."

"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."

"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!”"

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

"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."

"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!"

"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."

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

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

"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."

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

"There are as many stars in the universe as all the grains of sand in the beaches of the world."

"Reflecting its potential fluidity and fickleness, sand, as the quintessential granular material, has become a symbol of instability and impermanence. The biblical admonition against building a house on sand may be exaggerated."

"There are countless sand collectors around the world, and there have been for a long time. …Sand collectors call themselves as arenophiles or “sand lovers”- a mixture of Latin and Greek. The word arena derives from the ancient Roman habit of covering the ground in amphitheaters with sand (harena or arena in Latin) – to soak up blood. The pure Greek would be psammophile, and some sand collectors use this but it is commonly used also to describe plants and creatures that are sand-loving, forging a livelihood among the grains."

"Sand grains comes in variety of shapes, which can make measuring its size quite tricky."

"Sand is somewhat like beauty – we know it when we see it, or touch it, but it seems difficult to describe."

"The sand grain is anonymous, waiting for rain and wind to sweep it away on an endless journey, to demonstrate its durability while its weaker companions fall by the way side. But it is called sand not because of what it is made of or its origins, bit because of how big it is."

"It has been estimated that on the order of a billion sand grains are born around the world every second."

"The sand grain has become a symbol of permanence and fragility of our – and - nature’s works."

"Close to 70 percent of all sand grains on the earth are made of quartz."

"The birth of a sand grain is a microscopic event, a flap of butterfly’s wings heralding greater change and a larger creation. Each grain carries the equivalent of the DNA of its parents and develops a character through its life and is moulded partly by its environment. Compared to the scale of a human life, however, the sand grains’ story is never ending, and rebirth is a regular event."

"For Look! Within my hallow hand, While round the earth careens, I hold a single grain of sand And wonder what it means. Ah! If I had the eyes to see, And brain to understand, I think the Life’s mystery might be Solved in the grain of sand."

"I don't like sand. It's coarse, and rough, and irritating, and it gets everywhere."

"The crust of a tan man imbibed by the sand; soaking up the thirst of the land."

"Be master of your petty annoyances and conserve your energies for the big, worthwhile things. It isn’t the mountain ahead that wears you out – it’s the grain of sand in your shoe."

"It isn’t the mountain ahead that wears you out – it is the grain of sand in your shoe."

"The more sand that has escaped from the hourglass of our life, the clearer we should see through it."

"The sand (Hindi: mitti) in the arena is especially holy to them. In Benares it [sand] comes from the Ganges and is mixed with Ganges water, mustard oil, and turmeric in order to keep it soft and supple. On special occasions, milk and clarified butter (ghi) are also added. The ground must be turned, loosened, and renewed periodically. Only the master (Hindi:ustad) is allowed to enter the new sand after he has honoured it with flowers and incense. The young men not only rub themselves with sand, they also wallow in it. Sand is the balm for their heroism."

"...the entire universe was there within a grain for our understanding."

"You may smile at the fanciful structures I rear, And say, that my castles are built but on sand ; Like bubbles, that on the blue waters appear, That sparkle, invite, and then sink from the hand."

"I wrote my name upon the sand; I thought I wrote it on thine heart. I had no touch of fear, that words, Such words, so graven, could depart."

"Who could ever calculate the path of a molecule? How do we know the creations of worlds are not determined by falling grains of sand?"

"If you speak ill of another do not speak it...write it in the sand near the water’s edge."

"And so castle made of sand fall into the sea, eventually."

"History is a child building a sand castle by the sea and that child is the whole majesty of man’s power in the world."

"Unhappy they who raise their hopes upon the shifting sand."

"A wise man can pick up a grain of sand and envision a whole universe."

"Every grain of sand is a jewel waiting to be discovered. ... When we walk along a beach, we tread upon millions of years of biological and geological history."

"Examining sand grains through the microscope is a wonderful way to find out about the biology, and ecology of the local environment."

"The huge variety of sand grains is astounding, and each one has a story to tell."

"For nature is the noblest engineer, yet uses a grinding economy working up all that is wasted to-day in to to-marrows creation;not a superfluous grain of sand for all ostentation she makes of expense and public works."

"The mine which Time has slowly dug beneath familiar objects is sprung in an instant; and what was rock before, becomes but sand and dust."

"To see a world in a grain of sand/And a heaven in a wild flower."

"...the noise made by a single grain of sand moving with the waves is one of a series of tiny perceptions that we accumulate to hear the roar of the ocean."