The Glass Of Lead And Gold Quotes

Their dust was in high demand, as it gave sweet dreams, but Tabetha couldn't afford to get lost in them. Those dreams were only lies anyway, and waking up from them only made facing reality harder. ~ Cornelia Funke

Elle got up and walked over to the window. She put her hands up on the clear glass and surveyed the vast gardens below. Fiorins stood in clusters outside the castle-like structure. They whispered. Some simply stood and looked up at her.

One Fiorin put his hand over his heart. And then another and another followed his lead. Soon, Fiorins flew from all corners of Fiori. They stood with their hands over their hearts, looking up at her., They were smiling. She felt her hear grow warm. This was what love felt like. This was the inspiration that every child on Earth deserved. ~ Peggy M. McAloon

What would the masters do?
when people arn't successful, they sometimes wonder, why not? they get answers, then they wonder why those answers don't seem to meet their needs. they get the wrong answers, and they get upset about it. perhaps they're really getting the right answers, but answering the wrong questions.
too many people ask nothing but "Why" questions.
they analyze and analyse problems - but no solution. "you can analyse a glass of water and you're left with a lot of chemical components, but nothing you can drink".
"Why?" questions can drive us crazy. "What?" questions drive us sane.
What questions lead us to practical solutions. ~ Peter McWilliams

Lead looked to his hand and saw sparkling chunks of glass in the cracks of the road. He saw ants running around the cracks, infinitely small. His blood ran into the cracks, creating rivers for the industrious ants to perplex over. Lead smiled at the creatures, for he understood that there is no difference between them and us in their wanderings and labor. ~ Nathan Yocum

Real arms races are run by highly intelligent, bespectacled engineers in glass offices thoughtfully designing shiny weapons on modern computers. But there's no thinking in the mud and cold of nature's trenches. At best, weapons thrown together amidst the explosions and confusion of smoky battlefields are tiny variations on old ones, held together by chewing gum. If they don't work, then something else is thrown at the enemy, including the kitchen sink - there's nothing "progressive" about that. At its usual worst, trench warfare is fought by attrition. If the enemy can be stopped or slowed by burning your own bridges and bombing your own radio towers and oil refineries, then away they go. Darwinian trench warfare does not lead to progress - it leads back to the Stone Age. ~ Michael J. Behe

Truth, says instrumentalism, is what works out, that which does what you expect it to do. The judgment is true when you can "bank" on it and not be disappointed. If, when you predict, or when you follow the lead of your idea or plan, it brings you to the ends sought for in the beginning, your judgment is true. It does not consist in agreement of ideas, or the agreement of ideas with an outside reality; neither is it an eternal something which always is, but it is a name given to ways of thinking which get the thinker where he started. As a railroad ticket is a "true" one when it lands the passenger at the station he sought, so is an idea "true," not when it agrees with something outside, but when it gets the thinker successfully to the end of his intellectual journey.

Truth, reality, ideas and judgments are not things that stand out eternally "there," whether in the skies above or in the earth beneath; but they are names used to characterize certain vital stages in a process which is ever going on, the process of creation, of evolution. In that process we may speak of reality, this being valuable for our purposes; again, we may speak of truth; later, of ideas; and still again, of judgments; but because we talk about them we should not delude ourselves into thinking we can handle them as something eternally existing as we handle a specimen under the glass.

Such a conception of truth and reality, the instrumentalist believes, is in harmony with the gener ~ Holly Estil Cunningham

I don't. Of course I don't. Despite the fairy-tale snowstorm out there, this isn't Narnia. This is London, real life, where hearts get kicked and bruised and broken, but somehow they still keep beating. I watch him recede as the taxi lurches cautiously away, and he watches me too, his hands shoved deep in his pockets, his shoulders bunched against the wind. I lay my head against the cold glass as we turn the corner, my heart and my conscience lead heavy in my chest.

I wish I'd never laid eyes on Jack O'Mara. ~ Josie Silver

A twice-reflected sunlight is spreading over the wall opposite me: it is first picked up and reflected by the oval glass-in-lead window embedded in the wall, then reflected again by the zinc in slats of the awning next to it. It has no meaning; it's just a concatenation of circumstances, and yet it thrills me. ~ Hugo Claus

No, I just didn't have the calling to be a union man or in politics, or any notion of my particle of will coming before the ranks of a mass that was about to march forward from misery. How would this will of mine have got there to lead the way? I couldn't just order myself to become one of those people who do go out before the rest, who stand and intercept the big social ray, or collect and concentrate it like burning glass, who glow and dazzle and make bursts of fire. It wasn't what I was meant to be. ~ Saul Bellow

In theory, I would like to lead a transparent life. I wold like my life to be as clear as a new pane of glass, without anything shameful and no dark shadows. I would like that. But if I am completely honest, I have to acknowledge secrets too painful to even tell myself. There are things I consider in the deep dark of night, secret terrors. Why are they secrets? I could easily tell either of my parents how I feel, but what would they say? Don't worry, darling, we will do our best never to die? We will never ever leave you, never contract cancer or walk in front of a bus or collapse of old age? We will not leave you alone, not ever, to navigate the world and all of its complexities without us? ~ Meg Rosoff

And, Legolas, when the torches are kindled and men walk on the sandy floors under the echoing domes, ah! Then, Legolas, gems and crystals and veins of precious ore glint in the polished walls; and the light glows through folded marbles, shell-like, translucent as the living hands of Queen Galadriel. There are columns of white and saffron and dawn-rose, Legolas, fluted and twisted into dreamlike forms; they spring up from many-coloured floors to meet the glistening pendants of the roof: wings, ropes, curtains fine as frozen clouds; spears, banners, pinnacles of suspended palaces! Still lakes mirror them: a glimmering world looks up from dark pools covered with clear glass; cities, such as the mind of Durin could scarce have imagined in his sleep, stretch on through avenues and pillared courts, on into the dark recesses where no light can come, And plink! A silver drop falls, and the round wrinkles in the glass make all the towers bend and waver like weeds and corals in a grotto of the sea. Then evening comes:" they fade and twinkle out; the torches pass on into another chamber and another dream. There is chamber after chamber, Legolas; hall opening out of hall, dome after dome, stair beyond stair; and still the winding paths lead on into the mountains' heart. Caves! The Caverns of Helm's Deep! Happy was the chance that drove me there! It makes me weep to leave them. ~ J.R.R. Tolkien

What first comes across our minds
About the stocky Mexican

Pushing a mower across the lawn
At 7 a.m. on a Saturday

As the roar of the cutter wakes us?
Let me take a guess.

Why do they have to come so damn early?
What do we make of his flannel

Shirt missing buttons at the cuffs,
Threadbare at the shoulders,

The grass stains around his knees,
The dirt like roadmaps to nowhere,

Between the wrinkles of his neck?
Let me take a shot. Dirty Mexican.

Would his appearance lead us to believe
He is a border jumper or wetback

Who hits the bar top with an empty shot glass
For the twelfth time then goes home

To kick his wife around like fallen grapefruit
Lying on the ground?

First, the stocky Mexican isn't mowing the lawn
At 7 a.m. on a Saturday.

He doesn't work weekends anymore ever since
He lost one-third of his route

To laborers willing to work for next to nothing.
Second, he knows better than to kneel

On the wet grass because, well, the knees
Of his pants will become grass-stained

And pants don't grow on trees, even here,
Close to Palm Springs.

Instead, after 25 years of the same blue collar work,
Two sons out and one going to college,

Rather than jail, and a small but modest savings
In case he loses the remaining two-thirds
John Olivares Espinoza

Instead, as the crystal splinters entered Hornwrack's brain, he experienced two curious dreams of the Low City, coming so quickly one after the other that they seemed simultaneous. In the first, long shadows moved across the ceiling frescoes of the Bistro Californium, beneath which Lord Mooncarrot's clique awaited his return to make a fourth at dice. Footsteps sounded on the threshold. The women hooded their eyes and smiled, or else stifled a yawn, raising dove-grey gloves to their blue, phthisic lips. Viriconium, with all her narcissistic intimacies and equivocal invitations welcomed him again. He had hated that city, yet now it was his past and it was he had to regret...The second of these visions was of the Rue Sepile. It was dawn, in summer. Horse-chestnut flowers bobbed like white wax candles above the deserted pavements. An oblique light struck into the street - so that its long and normally profitless perspective seemed to lead straight into the heart of a younger, more ingenuous city - and fell across the fronts of the houses where he had once lived, warming up the rotten brick and imparting to it a not unpleasant pinkish colour. Up at the second-floor casement window a boy was busy with the bright red geraniums arranged along the outer still in lumpen terra-cotta pots. He looked down at Hornwrack and smiled. Before Hornwrack could speak he drew down the lower casement and turned away. The glass which no separated them reflected the morning sunlight in a silent explos ~ M. John Harrison

The pain and the sadness that you encounter when you lose something important is only a mix of one emotion: guilt. When you feel it once, you learn from it. When you live it twice, you mourn in silence. But if you experience it thrice, you will break, shattering like a frail piece of glass. But if you manage to survive, then you will only be a shadow of your soul: a broken doll. Because we are nothing more than mere puppets of Destiny, holding tightly on the string that keeps us from being consumed by the darkness. The string that will eventually lead humankind to its pinnacle.
A simple red string named Hope. ~ Giou Yomi

It may merely be apocryphal that when the Wizard saw the glass bottle he gasped, and clutched his heart. The story is told in so many ways, depending on who is doing the telling, and what needs to be heard at the time. It is a matter of history, however, that shortly thereafter, the Wizard absconded from the Palace. He left in the way he had first arrived
a hot-air balloon
just a few hours before seditious ministers were to lead a Palace revolt and to hold an execution without trial. ~ Gregory Maguire

I built, of blocks, a town three hundred thousand strong, whose avenues were paved with a wine-colored rug and decorated by large leaves outlined inappropriately in orange, and on this leafage I'd often park my Tootsie Toy trucks, as if on pads of camouflage, waiting their deployment against catastrophes which included alien invasions, internal treachery, and world war. It was always my intention, and my conceit, to use up, in the town's construction, every toy I possessed: my electronic train, of course, the Lincoln Logs, old kindergarten blocks - their deeply incised letters always a problem - the Erector set, every lead soldier that would stand (broken ones were sent to the hospital), my impressive array of cars, motorcycles, tanks, and trucks - some with trailers, some transporting gas, some tows, some dumps - and my squadrons of planes, my fleet of ships, my big and little guns, an undersized group of parachute people (looking as if one should always imagine them high in the sky, hanging from threads), my silversided submarines, along with assorted RR signs, poles bearing flags, prefab houses with faces pasted in their windows, small boxes of a dozen variously useful kinds, strips of blue cloth for streams and rivers, and glass jars for town water towers, or, in a pinch, jails. In time, the armies, the citizens, even the streets would divide: loyalties, friendships, certainties, would be undermined, the city would be shaken by strife; and marbles would rain down from for ~ William H. Gass

You're right about this being limited to me, it's entirely a personal matter. But with some personal experiences that lead you way into a cave all by yourself, you must eventually come to a side tunnel or something opens on a truth that concerns not just yourself but everyone. And with that kind of experience at least the individual is rewarded for his suffering. Like Tom Sawyer! He had to suffer in a pitch-black cave, but at the same time he found his way out into the light he also found a bag of gold! But what I'm experiencing personally now is like digging a vertical mine shaft in isolation; it goes straight down to a hopeless depth and never opens on anybody else's world. So I can sweat and suffer in that same dark cave and my personal experience won't result in so much as a fragment of significance for anybody else. Hole-digging is all I'm doing, futile, shameful hole-digging; my Tom Sawyer is at the bottom of a desperately deep mine shaft and I wouldn't be surprised if he went mad! ~ Kenzaburo Oe

Just as in the microcosm there are seven 'windows' in the head (two nostrils, two eyes, two ears, and a mouth), so in the macrocosm God has placed two beneficent stars (Jupiter, Venus), two maleficent stars (Mars, Saturn), two luminaries (sun and moon), and one indifferent star (Mercury). The seven days of the week follow from these. Finally, since ancient times the alchemists had made each of the seven metals correspond to one of the planets; gold to the sun, silver to the moon, copper to Venus, quicksilver to Mercury, iron to Mars, tin to Jupiter, lead to Saturn.

From these and many other similar phenomena of nature such as the seven metals, etc., which it were tedious to enumerate, we gather that the number of planets is necessarily seven... Besides, the Jews and other ancient nations as well as modern Europeans, have adopted the division of the week into seven days, and have named them from the seven planets; now if we increase the number of planets, this whole system falls to the ground... Moreover, the satellites [of Jupiter] are invisible to the naked eye and therefore can have no influence on the earth, and therefore would be useless, and therefore do not exist. ~ Francesco Sizzi

Over two thousand years ago, Aristotle taught us that money should be durable, divisible, consistent, convenient, and value in itself. It should be durable, which is why wheat isn't money; divisible which is why works of art are not money; consistent which is why real estate isn't money; convenient, which is why lead isn't money; value in itself, which is why paper shouldn't be money. Gold answers to all these criteria. ~ Doug Casey

Indeed, I am as skilled as any alchemist, but instead of turning lead into gold, I turn my fear into daring, and assuredly that is a far greater trick. ~ Robin LaFevers

His gaze lingered on her mouth, wide and sweet. A sudden hunger to kiss her made him draw Maggie close. He pressed his mouth against hers, softly, a gently caress, not a searing kiss, for he didn't want to frighten her away.
Her hand on his arm tightened.
Caleb ran his tongue smoothly over her lips until she opened to him, making a small sound. He wanted to plunge his tongue into her mouth and deepen the kiss, to pull her against him and slide his hands over her curves, but he knew that brute of a husband had hurt her. This was only supposed to be a light flirtation, so he held back and waited for her to lead.
Maggie pulled back a few inches. Her eyes fluttered open, dark and luminous, the gold flecks sparkling in the sun. She swallowed and moistened her lips. She studied his face. Her generous mouth trembled, and then her lips turned up. "Why did you kiss me?
"Because I enjoyed your enjoyment in our drive today. I know how seldom pleasures come your way, and I was glad to give you the experience. Because I lack appreciation of my blessings..." 'Because you are mine.'
Caleb didn't want to delve deeper inside himself to find his true feelings, so he resorted to some light banter. He touched the tip of her nose with one finger. "This is the month of May. A man is supposed to steal kisses in May. ~ Debra Holland

I consider myself an alchemist. An alchemist is basically a mystical chemist, right? And one of the great feats that alchemists used to do is they would take lead - just take a chunk of lead - and they could turn lead into gold. ~ Will Smith

Having already funneled its students to their respective classrooms, the school's front hall was empty, its glass showcase in the same neglected spot outside the front office. ... She looked at it briefly, her eyes sweeping over the faces of students whose adult trajectories would lead them either to gloss over these moments or to spend their lives pining for their return. ~ Myla Goldberg

They wonder much to hear that gold which in itself is so useless a thing, should be everywhere so much esteemed, that even men for whom it was made, and by whom it has value, should yet be thought of less value than this metal. That a man of lead, who has no more sense than a log of wood, and is as bad as he is foolish, should have many wise and good men to serve him, only because he has a great heap of that metal ... ~ Thomas More

The message was contained in a sealed lead wafer that was two inches square and three-eighths of an inch thick. The wafer itself was contained in a gold mesh reticule which was hung on a stainless steel band clamped to the shaft that might be called Salo's neck. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

Surely, God could have caused birds to fly with their bones made of solid gold, with their veins full of quicksilver, with their flesh heavier than lead, and with their wings exceedingly small. He did not, and that ought to show something. It is only in order to shield your ignorance that you put the Lord at every turn to the refuge of a miracle. ~ Galileo Galilei

Come gaze about aged churchyard and behold
Those vanish'd hours of lead and hours of gold. ~ Timothy Salter

Only the Great Poison, he who is handsome and wise and charming and handsome, can lead the faithful to Edom. So cater to the Great Poison with food and drink and baths and the occasional massage.
"They wrote 'handsome' twice," murmured Alec.
"Why is it called the Red Scrolls," said Shiyun, "when it is a book? And not a scroll?"
"It's definitely not plural scrolls," said Alec.
"I'm sure whoever this handsome, handsome cult founder is," said Magnus, his chest constricting, "he had his reasons."
Shinyun read on. "The prince wishes only the best for his children. Thus, to honor his name, there must be a hearth crowded with only the finest of liquors and cigars and bonbons. Tithes of treasure and gifts showered upon the Great Poison symbolize the love between the faithful, so keep the spirits flowing and the gold growing, and always remember the sacred roles.
"Life is a stage, so exit in style.
"Only the faithful who make a truly great drink shall be favored.
"Offend not the Great Poison with cruel deeds or poor fashion.
"Seek the children of demons. Love them as you love your lord. Do not let the children be alone.
"In times of trouble, remember: all roads lead to Rome."
Alec looked at Magnus, and Magnus could not entirely understand Alec's small smile. "I think you wrote this. ~ Cassandra Clare

Others, faced with Turner's competitiveness were less contented. C.R. Leslie was on hand when Turner's Helvoetsluys, to start with "a grey pictre, beautiful and true, but with no positive colour in any part of it", was hung next to Constable's Opening of Waterloo Bridge Leslie wrote that Constable's painting looked as if painted with liquid gold and silver, and Turner came several times into the room while Constable was heightening with vermilion and lake the decorations and flags of the city barges. Turner stood behind Constable, looking from "Waterloo" to his own picture, and at last went and got his palette from the Great Room where he had been touching another picture. He then put a round daub of red lead,

"somewhat bigger than a shilling, on his grey sea, [and] went away without saying a word. The intensity of the red lead, made more vivid by the coolness of his picture, caused even the vermilion and lake of Constable to look weak. I came into the room just as Turner left it. "He as been here," Said Constable, "and fired a gun. ~ Anthony Bailey

Alice in Darkness

Forget tears. Chasing
white animals with timepieces
in this drug-trip landscape
can only lead to more of same.
Hedgehogs, playing cards, paintbrushes:
full of undisclosed danger.
Didn't your mother tell you
not to kiss strangers?
That Cheshire smile shouldn't fool you.
Pull your skirt down.
Your nails are growing so fast
you're hardly human.
Alice, fight your version of Bedlam
as long as you can.
Sleep the sweet dream away
from that gooey looking glass, or mushrooms,
or the fear of your own body.
Forget what the night tastes like.
Stop wondering through the shadows,
holding your neck out
for the slice of the axe. ~ Jeannine Hall Gailey

Eroticism, hallucinogenic drugs, nuclear science, Gaudi's Gothic architecture, my love of gold - there is a common denominator in all of it: God is present in everything. The same magic is at the heart of all things, and all roads lead to the same revelation: we are children of God, and the entire universe tends towards the perfection of mankind. ~ Salvador Dali

Let other men gather bright gold to themselves and own many acres of well-ploughed soil, let endless worry trouble them, with enemies nearby, and the peals of the war trumpets driving away sleep: let my moderate means lead me to a quiet life, as long as my fireside glows with endless flame.

Let me plant the tender vines at the proper time, tall fruit trees, myself a rustic, with skilled hands:nor let hope fail, but deliver the pile-up fruits, and the rich vintage in overflowing vats, since i worship wherever there's a stump left in the fields, or an old stone at the crossroads, wreathed with flowers: and whatever fruit of mine the new season brings I set as an offering before the god of the fields. --Tibullus cca. 55 BC – 19 BC ~ Tibullus

Each family prayer, each episode of family scripture study, and each family home evening is a brushstroke on the canvas of our souls. No one event may appear to be very impressive or memorable. But just as the yellow and gold and brown strokes of paint complement each other and produce an impressive masterpiece, so our consistency in doing seemingly small things can lead to significant spiritual results. ~ David A. Bednar

Not only America but all countries should think together about how the enormous might of the sole remaining superpower should be used. We need a leadership that is based on partnership, a leadership that unites nations and makes it possible to solve the problems of the globe together. Otherwise, we will have another Gold Rush for a superpower that wants to gain even greater advantages, that wants to gain an absolutely new position for itself. That would lead to a perverse utopia. ~ Mikhail Gorbachev

What a gulf between impression and expression! That's our ironic fate - to have Shakespearean feelings and (unless by some billion-to-one chance we happen to be Shakespeare) to talk about them like automobile salesmen or teen-agers or college professors. We practice alchemy in reverse - touch gold and it turns into lead; touch the pure lyrics of experience, and they turn into the verbal equivalents of tripe and hogwash. ~ Aldous Huxley