Lodestone Quotes

Sara had grown up in a Balavati family, which meant she had been taught to reject all articles of faith except disrespect for authority, the lodestone of her life. ~ Carolyn Ives Gilman

Time's arrow, we are told, is a one-way thing ... Memory's arrow, like the needle of a compass too close to a lodestone, spins in all directions. ~ Russell Hoban

A lodestone is a wonderful thing in very many experiments, and like living things. And one of its remarkable virtues in that which the ancients considered to be a living soul in the sky, in the globes and in the stars, in the sun and in the moon. ~ William Gilbert

Like most people, you are not able to face more than one fear during your lifetime. You also spend your life fleeing from your first fear towards your first hope. Be careful that you do not, through your own wiliness, end up always in the same position in which you began. I do not advise you to spend your life surrounding yourself with those things which you term necessary to your existence, regardless of whether or not they are objectively interesting in themselves or even to your own particular intellect. I believe sincerely that only those men who reach the stage where it is possible for them to combat a second tragedy within themselves, and not the first over and over again, are worthy of being called mature. When you think someone is going ahead, make sure that he is not really standing still. In order to go ahead, you must leave things behind which most people are unwilling to do. Your first pain, you carry it with you like a lodestone in your breast because all tenderness will come from there. You must carry it with you through your whole life but you must not circle around it. You must give up the search for those symbols which only serve to hide its face from you. You will have the illusion that they are disparate and manifold but they are always the same. if you are only interested in a bearable life, perhaps this letter does not concern you. For god's sake, a ship leaving port is still a wonderful thing to see. ~ Jane Bowles

He rises bloodless from dust,
with dead eyes that are pits
twin reaches to eternal pain.

He is the lodestone
to the gathering clan,
made anew and dream-racked.

The standard a rotted hide,
the throne a bone cage, the king
a ghost from dark fields of battle.

And now the horn moans
on this grey clad dawn
drawing the disparate host

To war, to war,
and the charging frenzy
of unbidden memories of ice.

- Lay of the First Sword ~ Steven Erikson

The music became a siren song. The melody was my lodestone, and I was powerless against its lure. With each step, I savored the dampness of the grass beneath my bare feet. I didn't remember when I'd lost my shoes. ~ Sarah J. Maas

A kindly tongue is the lodestone of the hearts of men. It is the bread of the spirit, it clotheth the words with meaning, it is the fountain of the light of wisdom and understanding. ~ Bahaullah

My attention was quickly riveted by a large red star close to the distant horizon. As I gazed upon it I felt a spell of overpowering fascination - it was Mars, the god of war, and for me, the fighting man, it had always held the power of irresistible enchantment. As I gazed at it on that far-gone night it seemed to call across the unthinkable void, to lure me to it, to draw me as the lodestone attracts a particle of iron. ~ Edgar Rice Burroughs

He felt the slowly healing polarization of his mind, matching his to hers, the alignment of all his prejudices and conceits to the lodestone of the image she represented for him. ~ Iain M. Banks