Windmill Quotes

An unfree mind is just like a windmill inside the bell jar! ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

We know that our world is corrupt and diseased but we're tired of being cynical and feeling helpless. What the hell, tilt at a windmill. ~ Cynthia Heimel

To look out of a car in Scania, you see a painting on the horizontal - one windmill, one tiny farmhouse, acres of beet or grass. ~ Kenneth Branagh

Windmill or no windmill, he said, life would go on as it had always gone on
that is, badly. ~ George Orwell

The Senator was vulgar, almost illiterate, a public liar easily detected, and in his "ideas" almost idiotic, while his celebrated piety was that of a traveling salesman for church furniture, and his yet more celebrated humor the sly cynicism of a country store.
Certainly there was nothing exhilarating in the actual words of his speeches, nor anything convincing in his philosophy. His political platforms were only wings of a windmill. ~ Sinclair Lewis

Not enough youths fighting windmills. And the old are fearful, jaded or dead. Do not ask me what to do. I am just as cowardly as you. And do not tell me it is enough to speak the truth; that it is bravery enough. Every mountain leveled to the ground, every forest burned, every man, woman, and child who lost their shanties to arsonist fires were defended to the heavens - with words. ~ Psyche Roxas-Mendoza

God is not an alternative to science as an explanation, he is not to be understood merely as a God of the gaps, he is the ground of all explanation: it is his existence which gives rise to the very possibility of explanation, scientific or otherwise. It is important to stress this because influential authors such as Richard Dawkins will insist on conceiving of God as an explanatory alternative to science – an idea that is nowhere to be found in theological reflection of any depth. Dawkins is therefore tilting at a windmill - dismissing a concept of God that no serious thinker believes in anyway. Such activity is not necessarily to be regarded as a mark of intellectual sophistication. ~ John C. Lennox

To destroy abuses is not enough; Habits must also be changed. The windmill has gone, but the wind is still there."
~old man G--- to Monseigneur Bienvenu Myriel ~ Victor Hugo

I wrote Murder at the Windmill. And it was accepted and we made it and it was the first film I made with Danny Angel, well the only film I actually made ... I made a lot of it at the Windmill itself. ~ Val Guest

The slope takes you to the windmill, but effort takes you nowhere. ~ Fernando Pessoa

Wind blows. You can set a wall against it, you can build up a windmill. The choice is yours ~ Russ

My grandparents live in Cley, and my dad now has the windmill which is a guest house. So I've spent much time up there, but a lot of it was at school as well, and my dad was sent abroad so often as well with the army. ~ James Blunt

You are really nuts, you know it? One a these days they're gonna come over and just lock you up! You aren't playing with a full deck, Eunice. I think somebody blew your pilot light out. There's more. You know what? You got splinters in the windmill of your mind. You're playin hockey with a warped puck! I think you dine sprung a leak in your dingey ... ~ Vicki Lawrence

Ico ran back to the windmill, growing increasily nervous with each moment Yorda was out of his sight. He didn't want to think what would happen if the shadow-creatures attacked while they were apart. ~ Miyuki Miyabe

That evening Squealer explained privately to the other animals that Napoleon had never in reality been opposed to the windmill. On the contrary, it was he who had advocated it in the beginning, and the plan which Snowball had drawn on the floor of the incubator shed had actually been stolen from among Napoleon's papers. The windmill was, in fact, Napoleon's own creation. Why, then, asked somebody, had he spoken so strongly against it? Here Squealer looked very sly. That, he said, was Comrade Napoleon's cunning. He had seemed to oppose the windmill, simply as a manoeuvre to get rid of Snowball, who was a dangerous character and a bad influence. ~ George Orwell

Like everything else, words have their whys and wherefores. Some call to us solemnly, arrogantly, giving themselves airs, as if they were destined for great things, and then it turns out that they were nothing more than a breeze too light even to set the sail of a windmill moving, whereas other ordinary, habitual words, the sort you use every day, end up having consequences no one would have dared predict, they weren't born for that and yet they shook the world. ~ Jose Saramago

London's Windmill Theater grew famous for its nude tableaux. During the 1940 and 1950, this theater overcame the objections of censors by agreeing that none of its naked actors would move any part of his/her body. ~ Lynda Bellingham

I find little in the works of Beethoven, Berlioz, Wagner and others when they are led by a conductor who functions like a windmill. ~ Franz Liszt

My only idea ever, Dorrigo had confessed, is to advance forward and charge the windmill. Taylor had laughed, but Dorrigo had meant it. It's only our faith in illusions that makes life possible, Squizzy, he had explained, in as close to an explanation of himself as he ever offered. It's believing in reality that does us in every time. He ~ Richard Flanagan

Insanity is an inability to come to terms with reality. Don Quixote was definitely insane, because he couldn't come to terms. But there was a reason: the reality in which Don Quixote lived was a sordid and ugly reality … Don Quixote didn't want that. He wanted to live in a world where there was truth, and human dignity, and, yes, love.… Instead of giving up on it, he imposed his reality onto the real world. Where other people saw a filthy country hostel, he saw a castle! Where other people saw a flock of sheep, he saw a mighty army! Where other people saw a windmill, he saw a dragon. Yes, Don Quixote was a crazy old fool. But, you know, he was more honest about his dream than most people, and for that, I honor him.
[...]
I have committed myself, I have dedicated myself, to the pursuit of the dragon. And having made that commitment … all of a sudden, I can see him! There he is, right in front of me, clear as day.… You're so much bigger than I ever imagined, and I'm, I'm not so sure I like this. I mean, yes, you're glorious and beautiful, but you're ugly, too. Your breath reeks of death!… Am I so pitiful that you can sneer in my face like that? Yes, yes, you frighten me! You hurt me! I've felt your claws ripping through my soul! But I'm going to die someday, and before I can do that, I've got to face you, eyeball to eyeball. I've got to look you right in the eye, and see what's inside, but I'm not good enough to do that yet. I'm not experienced enough, so I'm going to ~ Chris Crawford

It looked, at first sight, like a portable windmill that had been attacked by an enormous insect, and at second sight like a touring torture chamber for an Inquisition that wanted to get out and about a bit and enjoy the fresh air. ~ Terry Pratchett

You're looking, moment by moment and scene by scene, how you can tell the most interesting story. So, we had this great short and we knew that we had a story about a boy and his dog. Because we had that pure emotional core, we could go on crazy tangents and always come back to Victor and Sparky. When I wrote in stuff like Weird Girl and the cat poop, Dutch Day and the windmill, it felt like it was part of Tim's universe. ~ John August

We're going on a, um, windmill tour later this week."
If I'd wanted to shut them all up, I'd definitely succeeded. They all looked stunned.
Adrian spoke first. "I'm going to assume that means he's flying you to Amsterdam on his private jet. If so, I'd like to come along. But not for the windmills. ~ Richelle Mead

Designs are increasingly winning competitions because they are literally green, and because somewhere they feature a small windmill. ~ Rem Koolhaas

From what I could see, the hardwood was just fine. Then again, I'd just see a windmill and an open sky, too, never feeling the need to conquer either. You think it's all obvious and straightforward, this world. But really, it's all in who is doing the looking. ~ Sarah Dessen

I used to write bits and pieces of comedy material for various comics that were at the Windmill ... as well as my film job, I was under contract, I was allowed to do that and everything. ~ Val Guest

The idea of windmills conjures up pleasant images - of Holland and tulips, of rural America with windmill blades slowly turning, pumping water at the farm well ... But the windmills we are talking about today are not your grandmother's windmills. Each one is typically 100 yards tall, two stories taller than the Stature of Liberty, taller than a football field is long. ~ Lamar Alexander

I had rather live with cheese and garlic in a windmill. ~ William Shakespeare

(Until the end of their lives, these men and women would tell stories about the summer they followed Lyndon Johnson and his Flying Windmill around Texas; as Oliver Knight of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram would write about one trip, "That mad dash from Navasota to Conroe in which I dodged stumps at 70 MPH just to keep up with that contraption will ever be green in my memory.") At the landing site, there would be the brief respite ~ Robert A. Caro

10-We went walking along the footpaths that snaked through vineyards and barley fields, looking down at our own shadows each preoccupied with our own thoughts. Mostly we wandered. There wasn't much in the way of a tourist industry on Tinos in those days. It was a farming Island, really people living off their cows and goats and olive trees and wheat.We would end up bored, eating lunch somewhere, quietly, in the shade of a tree or a windmill, looking between bites at the ravines, the fields of thorny bushes, the mountains the sea. ~ Khaled Hosseini

Crouching low over the beast's neck, he clung tight to the metallic scales, and the cool breeze was soothing on his burned and blistered skin, the dragon's wings beating the air like the sails of a windmill. Behind him, whether from delight or fear he could not tell, Ron kept swearing at the top of his voice, and Hermione seemed to be sobbing. ~ J.K. Rowling

What do I know about life? What does a windmill know about the wind? ~ Marty Rubin

A sudden light transfigures a trivial thing, a weather-vane, a windmill, a winnowing flail, the dust in the barn door; a moment - and the thing has vanished, because it was pure effect; but it leaves a relish behind it, a longing that the accident may happen again. ~ Walter Pater

A man without money is like a windmill left without the wind, don't you ever forget this! ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

Holding his daughter close with one arm, he pointed toward the distant horizon. "As far as you can see - it all belongs to you, Faith. Someday, I'll take you to the top of a windmill and teach you to dream. When you reach for some of those dreams, you might fall ... but your mother and I will be there to catch you because that's what love means: always being there. I love you, little girl." He pressed a kiss to his daughter's cheek. "So much ... it hurts. But I reckon that's part of love, too."
-Dallas ~ Lorraine Heath

Rockwood didn't have a movie theater or an IHOP or a strip mall. But it did have two churches, a ramshackle bar, and last (but certainly not least) Wacky Willie's Deluxe Goofy Golf, a barren landscape of wilted ferns and plastic flamingos with peeling paint. Wacky Willie had added the 'Deluxe' when finally ridding the thirteenth hole windmill of a stubborn family of bats after a great and terrible struggle that would forever be known as 'The Fearsome Bat War of Rockwood County' by Willie, but was usually referred to as 'That Time Willie Had to Get Rabies Shots' by everyone else. ~ A. Lee Martinez

If she herself had had any picture of the future, it had been of a society of animals set free from hunger and the whip, all equal, each working according to his capacity, the strong protecting the weak, as she had protected the lost brood of ducklings with her foreleg on the night of Major's speech. Instead–she did not know why–they had come to a time when no one dared speak his mind, when fierce, growling dogs roamed everywhere, and when you had to watch your comrades torn to pieces after confessing to shocking crimes. There was no thought of rebellion or disobedience in her mind. She knew that, even as things were, they were far better off than they had been in the days of Jones, and that before all else it was needful to prevent the return of the human beings. Whatever happened she would remain faithful, work hard, carry out the orders that were given to her, and accept the leadership of Napoleon. But still, it was not for this that she and all the other animals had hoped and toiled. It was not for this that they had built the windmill and faced the bullets of Jones's gun. Such were her thoughts, though she lacked the words to express them.
At last, feeling this to be in some way a substitute for the words she was unable to find, she began to sing Beasts of England. The other animals sitting round her took it up, and they sang it three times over–very tunefully, but slowly and mournfully, in a way they had never sung it before. ~ George Orwell

If the compass that I hold in my hand is driven by the agendas that I craft in my head, that compass is something more like a windmill erected in a place where the wind never stops blowing. ~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

When I'm building my dome in my chapel, and I had a vision - I've worked on perpetual motion and I haven't never give it up yet. I still think it could be done, perpetual motion. I had a vision of a un resist able windmill. ~ Howard Finster

Sensing my delight at seeing his laptop, Tom asked me, "William, have you ever seen the Internet?"
"No."
In a quiet conference room, Tom sat me down at his computer and explained the track pad, how the motion of my fingers guided the arrow on the screen.
"This is Google," he said. "You can find answers to anything. What do you want to search for?"
"Windmill."
In one second, he'd pulled up five million page results-pictures and models of windmills I'd never even imagined. ~ William Kamkwamba

You know how it is as a rule, when you want to get Chappie A on Spot B at exactly the same moment when Chappie C is on Spot D. There's always a chance of a hitch. Take the case of a general, I mean to say, who's planning out a big movement. He tells one regiment to capture the hill with the windmill on it at the exact moment when another regiment is taking the bridgehead or something down in the valley; and everything gets all messed up. And then, when they're chatting the thing over in camp that night, the colonel of the first regiment says, "Oh, sorry! Did you say the hill with the windmill? I thought you said the one with the flock of sheep." And there you are! ~ P.G. Wodehouse

The Marianne Vos Route goes through the seven villages of Aalburg, where I grew up, and celebrates my World and Olympic titles with a number of benches along the route, where you can stop and rest your legs. You'll see the white windmill in Meeuwen and, in Babylonienbroek, a statue of the silver bike I rode to celebrate my Olympic track win. ~ Marianne Vos

I excused myself to the woman I was with and made my way over to these men. I stopped to ask my friend Buller to watch my back. The thing is, people like this can't be talked to, and so I wasn't going to mess around with this crazed windmill and his sidekick, Don Quixote.
I hit the mouthy crazed windmill with a thumping right, a left, right, smack on the chin; he fell apart and was out for the count before he hit the deck.
I turned to Don Quixote and off he shot like the Disney cartoon character of Speedy Gonzales. ~ Stephen Richards

Don Quixotes! Stand aback from my windmill! ~ Lara Biyuts

Without God, my internal compass is something more akin to a windmill in a hurricane. ~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

Hills that stand soft and a sky that stands high and blue, and the sun setting behind a windmill, and always, always, hazy strings of mountains that fall and fall away on the horizon. ~ Khaled Hosseini

The flakes came down so thickly that from the sitting-room windows I could not see beyond the windmill - its frame looked dim and grey, unsubstantial like a shadow. The snow did not stop falling all day, or during the night that followed. The cold was not severe, but the storm was quiet and resistless. ~ Willa Cather

To the jumpers overhearing the conversation it was obvious - Troop had come down with another case of dragon fever. The Don Quixote of smokejumping was once again engaged in mortal combat with this, his latest windmill. ~ Murry A. Taylor

I'm going to jump off the windmill ~ George Orwell