All Quotes

"All the elements will be seen mixed together in a great whirling mass, now borne towards the centre of the world, now towards the sky; and now furiously rushing from the South towards the frozen North, and sometimes from the East towards the West, and then again from this hemisphere to the other."

"Men standing in opposite hemispheres will converse and deride each other and embrace each other, and understand each other's language."

"Many will there be who will give up work and labour and poverty of life and goods, and will go to live among wealth in splendid buildings, declaring that this is the way to make themselves acceptable to God."

"An infinite number of men will sell publicly and unhindered things of the very highest price, without leave from the Master of it; while it never was theirs nor in their power; and human justice will not prevent it."

"Animals will be seen on the earth who will always be fighting against each other with the greatest loss and frequent deaths on each side. And there will be no end to their malignity; by their strong limbs we shall see a great portion of the trees of the vast forests laid low throughout the universe; and, when they are filled with food the satisfaction of their desires will be to deal death and grief and labour and wars and fury to every living thing; and from their immoderate pride they will desire to rise towards heaven, but the too great weight of their limbs will keep them down. Nothing will remain on earth, or under the earth or in the waters which will not be persecuted, disturbed and spoiled, and those of one country removed into another. And their bodies will become the sepulture and means of transit of all they have killed. O Earth! why dost thou not open and engulf them in the fissures of thy vast abyss and caverns, and no longer display in the sight of heaven such a cruel and horrible monster."

"There will be many which will increase in their destruction."

"The East will be seen to rush to the West and the South to the North in confusion round and about the universe, with great noise and trembling or fury."

"The solar rays will kindle fire on the earth, by which a thing that is under the sky will be set on fire, and, being reflected by some obstacle, it will bend downwards."

"Happy will they be who lend ear to the words of the Dead."

"Men out of fear will cling to the thing they most fear."

"Things that are separate shall be united and acquire such virtue that they will restore to man his lost memory."

"The bones of the Dead will be seen to govern the fortunes of him who moves them."

"The vine that has grown old on an old tree falls with the ruin of that tree, and through that bad companionship must perish with it."

"The ball of snow when, as it rolls, it descends from the snowy mountains, increases in size as it falls."

"A vase of unbaked clay, when broken, may be remoulded, but not a baked one."

"The image of the sun where it falls appears as a thing which covers the person who attempts to cover it."

"I have seen motions of the air so furious that they have carried, mixed up in their course, the largest trees of the forest and whole roofs of great palaces, and I have seen the same fury bore a hole with a whirling movement digging out a gravel pit, and carrying gravel, sand and water more than half a mile through the air."

"Like a whirling wind which rushes down a sandy and hollow valley, and which, in its hasty course, drives to its centre every thing that opposes its furious course... No otherwise does the Northern blast whirl round in its tempestuous progress..."

"It vexes me greatly that having to earn my living has forced me to interrupt the work and to attend to small matters."

"If you meet with any one who is virtuous do not drive him from you; do him honour, so that he may not have to flee from you and be reduced to hiding in hermitages, or caves or other solitary places to escape from your treachery; if there is such an one among you do him honour, for these are our Saints upon earth; these are they who deserve statues from us, and images..."

"May it please our great Author that I may demonstrate the nature of man and his customs, in the way I describe his figure."

"This writing distinctly about the kite seems to be my destiny, because among the first recollections of my infancy, it seemed to me that, as I was in my cradle, a kite came to me and opened my mouth with its tail, and struck me several times with its tail inside my lips."

"When I did well, as a boy you used to put me in prison. Now if I do it being grown up, you will do worse to me."

"Tell me if anything was ever done."

"Do not reveal, if liberty is precious to you; my face is the prison of love."

"I ask at what part of its curved motion the moving cause will leave the thing moved and moveable."

"If any man could have discovered the utmost powers of the cannon, in all its various forms and have given such a secret to the Romans, with what rapidity would they have conquered every country and have vanquished every army, and what reward could have been great enough for such a service! Archimedes indeed, although he had greatly damaged the Romans in the siege of Syracuse, nevertheless did not fail of being offered great rewards from these very Romans; and when Syracuse was taken, diligent search was made for Archimedes; and he being found dead greater lamentation was made for him by the Senate and people of Rome than if they had lost all their army; and they did not fail to honour him with burial and with a statue."

"Reserve the great matters till the end, and the small matters give at the beginning."

"Intellectual passion drives out sensuality."

"Where there is most power of feeling, there of martyrs is the greatest martyr."

"Science, knowledge of the things that are possible present and past; prescience, knowledge of the things which may come to pass."

"To enjoy—to love a thing for its own sake and for no other reason."

"Observe the light and consider its beauty. Blink your eye and look at it. That which you see was not there at first, and that which was there is there no more."

"The water which rises in the mountain is the blood which keeps the mountain in life."

"He who does not value life does not deserve it."

"Nature is full of infinite causes which were never set forth in experience."

"Wine is good, but water is preferable at table."

"He who suffers time to slip away and does not grow in virtue the more one thinks about him the sadder one becomes. No man has a capacity for virtue who sacrifices honour for gain. Fortune is powerless to help one who does not exert himself. That man becomes happy who follows Christ. There is no perfect gift without great suffering. Our triumphs and our pomps pass away; gluttony and sloth and enervating luxury have banished every virtue from the world; so that as it were wandering from its course our nature is subdued by habit. Now and henceforth it is meet that you cure yourself of laziness. The Master has said that sitting on down or lying under the quilts will not bring thee to fame. He who without it has frittered life away leaves no more trace of himself upon the earth than smoke does in the air or the foam on the water."

"Since the wings are swifter to press the air than the air is to escape from beneath the wings the air becomes condensed and resists the movement of the wings; and the motive power of these wings by subduing the resistance of the air raises itself in a contrary movement to the movement of the wings."

"A bird makes the same use of wings and tail in the air as a swimmer does of his arms and legs in the water."

"Every body that is moved continues to move so long as the impression of the force of its mover is retained in it, therefore the movement of this wing with violence... will come to move the whole bird with it until the impetus of the moved air has been consumed."

"Remember that your bird should have no other model than the bat, because its membranes serve as an armour or rather as a means of building together the pieces of its armour, that is the framework of the wings."

"If you take as your pattern the wings of feathered birds, these are more powerful in structure of bone and sinew because they are penetrable, that is to say the feathers are separated from one another and the air passes through them. But the bat is aided by its membrane, which binds the whole together and is not penetrated by the air."

"You will perhaps say that the sinews and muscles of a bird are incomparably more powerful than those of a man... But the reply to this is that such great strength gives it a reserve of power beyond what it ordinarily uses..."

"Swimming upon water teaches men how birds do upon the air."

"The air which is struck with most swiftness by the movable thing is compressed to the greatest degree in itself."

"The function which the wing performs against the air when the air is motionless is the same as that of the air moved against the wings when these are without motion."

"It is always the under side of the branches of any plant that show themselves to the wind which strikes it, and one leans against the other."

"That part of the air which is nearest to the wing which presses on it, will have the greatest density."

"The properties of the air are such that it may become condensed or rarefied."