Wither Quotes

Ideas take root at the oddest moments. Some grow into novels, the weaker ones wither and die. ~ Pippa DaCosta

The church was old and grey, with ivy clinging to the walls, and round the porch. Shunning the tombs, it crept about the mounds, beneath which slept poor humble men: twining for them the first wreaths they had ever won, but wreaths less liable to wither and far more lasting in their kind, than some which were graven deep in stone and marble, and told in pompous terms of virtues meekly hidden for many a year, and only revealed at last to executors and mourning legatees. ~ Charles Dickens

Hope is the one thing you must never lose," his dad said. "Love, trust, friendship - those are things we can share with others, but hope," he pointed at Thomas's heart, "hope also comes from within. When all those other things seem to wither and abandon you, you must rely on the hope inside your heart. Never lose hope, and always remember that hope fuels life. ~ Julian Rosado-Machain

Besides, there was that foolish feeling of his that reality was not solid, and that facts were only plastic toys; or, rather, that they were poisonous plants, which you need not pluck unless you choose. And, even if you do pluck them, you can always fling them from you and leave them to wither on the ground. He ~ Hope Mirrlees

Say you could view a time lapse film of our planet: what would you see?

Transparent images moving through light, "an infinite storm of beauty."
The beginning is swaddled in mists, blasted by random blinding flashes. Lava pours and cools; seas boil and flood. Clouds materialize and shift; now you can see the earth's face through only random patches of clarity. The land shudders and splits, like pack ice rent by widening lead. Mountains burst up, jutting, and dull and soften before your eyes, clothed in forests like felt. The ice rolls up, grinding green land under water forever; the ice rolls back. Forests erupt and disappear like fairy rings. The ice rolls up- mountains are mowed into lakes, land rises wet from the sea like a surfacing whale- the ice rolls back.

A blue-green streaks the highest ridges, a yellow-green spreads from the south like a wave up a strand. A red dye seems to leak from the north down the ridges and into the valleys, seeping south; a white follows the red, then yellow-green washes north, then red spreads again, then white, over and over, making patterns of color too intricate to follow. Slow the film. You see dust storms, locusts, floods, in dizzying flash-frames.

Zero in on a well-watered shore and see smoke from fires drifting. Stone cities rise, spread, and crumble, like paths of alpine blossoms that flourish for a day an inch above the permafrost, that iced earth no root can suck, and wither in a hour. New cit ~ Annie Dillard

But to be included in Dick Diver's world for a while was a remarkable experience: people believed he made special reservations about them, recognizing the proud uniqueness of their destinies, buried under the compromises of how many years. He won everyone quickly with an exquisite consideration and a politeness that moved so fast and intuitively that it could be examined only in its effect. Then, without caution, lest the first bloom of the relation wither, he opened the gate to his amusing world. So long as they subscribed to it completely, their happiness was his preoccupation, but at the first flicker of doubt as to its all- inclusiveness he evaporated before their eyes, leaving little communicable memory of what he had said or done. ~ F Scott Fitzgerald

My feeling is that poetry will wither on the vine if you don't regularly come back to the simplest fundamentals of the poem: rhythm, rhyme, simple subjects - love, death, war. ~ James Fenton

Do all romantic notions and inclinations wither, sag and die as you grew older into the body of a woman who begins to resemble your mother's and then your grandmother's? ~ Abigail George

The need for devotion to something outside ourselves is even more profound than the need for companionship. If we are not to go to pieces or wither away, we all must have some purpose in life; for no man can live for himself alone. ~ Ross Parmenter

Every blade will wither and fade,
As the old man dies again.
Seasons pass,
We're clinging to grass,
'Cause we've lost the sky again. ~ Newsboys

At the Arrivals gate, we are greeted by a small crowd, watching us with hungry eyes or eyesockets. We drop our cargo on the floor: two mostly intact men, a few meaty legs, and a dismembered torso, all still warm. Call it leftovers. Call it takeout. Our fellow Dead fall on them and feast right there on the floor like animals. The life remaining in those cells will keep them from full-dying, but the Dead who don't hunt will never quite be satisfied. Like men at sea deprived of fresh fruit, they will wither in their deficiencies, weak and perpetually empty, because the new hunger is a lonely monster. It grudgingly accepts the brown meat and lukewarm blood, but what it craves is closeness, that grim sense of connection that courses between their eyes and ours in those final moments, like some dark negative of love. ~ Isaac Marion

The thing is not to write what no one else has written but to write what only you could have written.'
I found this fragment in my old notebooks. The person who wrote that couldn't have known what would happen: how a voice hollows how words you once loved can wither on a page. ~ Nam Le

Only those within whose own consciousness the sun rise and set, the leaves burgeon and wither, can be said to be aware of what living is. ~ Joseph Wood Krutch

In either case, ugly or beautiful, people derive a significant part of their identity, be it negative or positive, from their body. To be more precise, they derive their identity from the I-thought that they erroneously attach to the mental image or concept of their body.
Equating the physical sense-perceived body that is destined to grow old, wither and die with 'I' always leads to suffering sooner or later. ~ Eckhart Tolle

Humans are mortal. So are ideas. An idea needs propagation as much as a plant needs watering. Otherwise both will wither and die. ~ B.R. Ambedkar

Death is the only certainty in life. The moment we are born, our journey towards our final destination begins. It's the beauty or the ugliness of that journey that defines our life; the distances covered varying in each case. Every flower that has bloomed in the free breeze of spring has to wither in the cruel icy autumn draught. ~ Anurag Shourie

Beauty is at its most poignant when the cold hand of Death holds poised to wither it imminently. ~ Jacqueline Carey

Man must have free-will to choose his own path, or else his heart will wither away. And a man without a heart has nothing to live for. ~ K.L. Hagaman

Because, listen, hyung. You don't deserve to ... see the daises wither ... ~ Changdictator

Lustful Desire (although 'twere rather fit To some brute creature to attribute it) Shall be presented in the second place, Because it shrouds a vile deformed face Beneath love's vizard, and assumes that name, Hiding its own fault with the other's blame. ~ George Wither

I realized a long time ago that if you keep all that stuff inside, the stuff that makes you most uniquely you, then you will never find your person. You'll just wither from within and forget who you are, and if you can't see you, then he can't see you. Don't be scared. I've seen you, Kate, who you really are, and you're worth it. You're worth all of it. ~ Renee Carlino

What was meant to float will never drown.
What was meant to soar will never plunge.
What was meant to ascend will never tumble.
What was meant to hasten will never delay.
What was meant to grow will never shrink.
What was meant to bloom will never wither.
What was meant to flourish will never falter.
What was meant to thrive will never wane.
What was meant to start will never end.

Who was meant to go will never come.
Who was meant to leave will never stay.
Who was meant to run will never crawl.
Who was meant to stand will never sit.
Who was meant to continue will never quit.
Who was meant to thrive will never perish.
Who was meant to gain will never lose.
Who was meant to conquer will never bow.
Who was meant to rise will never fall. ~ Matshona Dhliwayo

In hermetic isolation, all kinds of bizarre and toxic ideas can fester. Sunlight is the best disinfectant, and exposing a bad idea to the critical glare of other minds provides at least a chance that it will wither and die. ~ Steven Pinker

She gave him a cool glance over her shoulder. "May your balls wither away and you develope an allergy to Viagra and all its counterparts."
He looked at her, stunned. And then he suddenly exploded into laughter.
"God, you're a formidable woman"
"No, I'm not. I'm soft, remember?"
She slammed the door behind her. ~ Iris Johansen

I looked and looked at her, and I knew, as clearly as I know that I will die, that I loved her more than anything I had ever seen or imagined on earth. She was only the dead-leaf echo of the nymphet from long ago - but I loved her, this Lolita, pale and polluted and big with another man's child. She could fade and wither - I didn't care. I would still go mad with tenderness at the mere sight of her face. ~ Vladimir Nabokov

There's an east wind coming all the same, such a wind as never blew on England yet. It will be cold and bitter, Watson, and a good many of us may wither before its blast. But it's God's own wind none the less and a cleaner, better stronger land will lie in the sunshine when the storm has cleared. ~ Arthur Conan Doyle

The average person wastes his life. He has a great deal of energy but he wastes it. The life of an average person seems at the end utterly meaningless…without significance. When he looks back…what has he done?


MIND

The mind creates routine for its own safety and convenience. Tradition becomes our security. But when the mind is secure it is in decay. We all want to be famous people…and the moment we want to be something…we are no longer free.

Intelligence is the capacity to perceive the essential…the what is. It is only when the mind is free from the old that it meets everything new…and in that there's joy. To awaken this capacity in oneself and in others is real education.

SOCIETY

It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society. Nature is busy creating absolutely unique individuals…whereas culture has invented a single mold to which we must conform. A consistent thinker is a thoughtless person because he conforms to a pattern. He repeats phrases and thinks in a groove. What happens to your heart and your mind when you are merely imitative, naturally they wither, do they not?

The great enemy of mankind is superstition and belief which is the same thing. When you separate yourself by belief tradition by nationally it breeds violence. Despots are only the spokesmen for the attitude of domination and craving for power which is in the heart of almost everyone. Until the source is ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti

Let us doom and gloom not creep into our day and lust for life not wither away. With the future as brother-in-arms, steps in the unknown should not frighten. ("Steps in the unknown" ) ~ Erik Pevernagie

Should we put out the light? And then put out the light. But once put out thy light, I cannot give it vital breath again. It needs must wither. ~ Anne Rice

Each time I say good-bye to a place I like, I feel like I am leaving a part of me behind. I guess whether we choose to travel as much as Marco Polo did or stay in the same spot from cradle to grave, life is a sequence of births and deaths. Moments are born and moments die. For new experiences to come to light, old ones need to wither away. ~ Elif Shafak

Your thoughts are certain kinds of seeds in your life. You can water them and allow them to grow on fertile soil. Or, you can let them diminish and wither amongst the weeds. Be careful that your seeds are not contaminated as they begin to take root. ~ Amaka Imani Nkosazana

We're so conditioned to believe that milk does a body good and that we need enormous amounts of protein or we'll wither away. Look around, we're not withering - we're fat. ~ Kris Carr

I wanted to write "stay"
on your sides, surround
your bed with oceans
of salt.
I hope he folds you
into a fox, loves you
like a splintered arrow,
brandishes the kill
of your lips.
May the bouquet
of your hips wither.
May the wolves
forget your name. ~ J. Bradley

Take it from me. Now is always the answer. Besides, do you have anything better to do? Mope around for a decade or two?"
Casiopea drummed her fingers against her skirt and chewed her lip. The dramatic poetry she'd read would have called for this and more. There was sadness in her, of course, but she didn't wish to crack like fine china either. She could not wither away. In the world of the living, one must live. And had this not been her wish? To live. Truly live. ~ Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Vaughn is talking about the heat, and his voice is so excited that it breaks into whispers at times. He loves his madness the way a bird loves the sky. ~ Lauren DeStefano

Durga wore a simple sea-green dress and a lei of lotus flowers ... "Take this," it has no special power except that the blooms will not fade, but it will serve a purpose on your voyage. I want you to learn the lesson of the lotus. This flower springs forth from muddy waters. It raises its delicate petals to the sun and perfumes the world while, at the same time, its roots cling to the elemental muck, the very essence of the mortal experience. Without that soil, the flower would wither and die." She placed the lei over my neck. "Dig down and grow strong roots, my daughter, for you will stretch forth, break out of the waters and find peace on the calm surface at last. You will discover that if you hadn't stretched, you would have drowned in the deep, never to blossom or share your gift with others. ~ Colleen Houck

Reason and happiness are like other flowers; they wither when plucked. ~ George Santayana

There's no such thing as God, Charlie, at least not how they say. Just like there's no such thing as Zeus or Apollo or bloody unicorns. You're on your own. And that can make you feel either lonely or powerful. When you're born, you wither luck out or you don't. It's a lottery. Tough shit or good on yer. But from there, it's all up to you… soon as you can walk and talk, you start makin your own luck. And I don't need some spirit in the sky to help me do that. I can do it on me own. But see, that's what I reckon God really is, Charlie. It's that part inside me that's stronger and harder than anything else. And I reckon prayer is just trusting in it, having faith in it, just asking meself to be tough. And that's all you can do. I don't need a bunch of bullshit stories about towers and boats and floods or rules about sin. It's all just a complicated way to get to that place in you, and it's not honest either. I don't need to trick meself into thinking anyone else is listenin', or even cares. Because it doesn't matter. I matter. And I know I'll be alright. Because I got a good heart, and fuck this town for making me try and believe otherwise. It's what you come with and what you leave with. And that's all I got. ~ Craig Silvey

Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale Her infinite variety. Other women cloy The appetites they feed, but she makes hungry ~ James Shapiro

Protectionist measures may permit domestic industries to thrive, which under free trade would wither in the face of cheap imports. Imports may be opposed by the government in the public interest--for example because it thinks it imprudent to rely upon foreign suppliers of certain strategic goods such as staple foods, energy, or military equipment, or because it wishes to nurture an infant industry as yet too weak to compete internationally, or because it wishes to preserve traditional industries such as fishing in order to preserve employment and local communities. ~ Vaughan Lowe

The most tragic strain in human existence lies in the fact that the pleasure which we find in the things of this life, however good that pleasure may be in itself, is always taken away from us. The things for which men strive hardly ever turn out to be as satisfying as they expected, and in the rare cases in which they do, sooner or later they are snatched away ... For the Christians, all those partial, broken and fleeting perfections which he glimpses in the world around him, which wither in his grasp and he snatches away from him even while the wither, are found again, perfect, complete and lasting in the absolute beauty of God. ~ Randy Alcorn

If the church does not restore the idea of faith as "being", and not "believing," then the gospel story of Jesus as the heart of God in the flesh will wither and perish.

In the end, to say one "believes" something like the virgin birth as biological fact or the miracle stories as literal suspensions of natural law requires nothing in the way of a changed heart or a self-sacrificing spirit.

Faith as 'assensus' (intellectual assent) is relatively impotent, relatively powerless. You can believe all the right things and still be in bondage. ~ Robin R. Meyers

Although its growth may seem to have been slow, it is to be remembered that it is not a shrub, or plant, to shoot up in the summerand wither in the frosts. The Red Cross is a part of us
it has come to stay
and like the sturdy oak, its spreading branches shall yet encompass and shelter the relief of the nation. ~ Clara Barton

A fate without happiness is sadder than a love without destiny," said the monk. What had prompted the Buddhist monk to say that? I don't know. John and he had been chatting for a while before I joined their conversation. Afterwards, John and I talked about karma, and John said, "The reason why a fate without happiness is sadder than a love without destiny, is because, as sad as the outcome of love can be when it comes to an end or if not reciprocated, the tragedy of life is not a love without destiny, it is to live as if dead, and to let the life within you wither. ~ Jeanette Ringel

To change the world by bullets or ballots was a useless procedure. If the workers ever did get a majority of either, they would have the envy and greed in their hearts and would be chained by these as much as by the chains of the master class. And the State which they would like to call a Cooperative Commonwealth would be based on power; the state would not wither away but would grow. Therefore the only revolution worthwhile was the one-man revolution within the heart. Each one could make this by himself and not need to wait on a majority. ~ Ammon Hennacy

I want you to learn the lesson of the lotus. This flower springs forth from muddy waters. It raises its delicate petals to the sun and perfumes the world while, at the same time, its roots cling to the elemental muck, the very essence of the mortal experience. Without that soil, the flower would wither and die. ~ Colleen Houck

When the present stung her, she sought her antidote in the future, which was as sure to hold achievement as the dying flower to hold the fruit when its petals wither. ~ Elspeth Huxley

1. Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. 2. But his delight is in the law of the Lord; and in his law doth he meditate day and night. 3. And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. ~ Anonymous

You can't just write and write and put things in a drawer. They wither without the warm sun of someone else's appreciation. ~ Anne Morrow Lindbergh

We have wasted our spirit in the regions of the abstract and general just as the monks let it wither in the world of prayer and contemplation. ~ Alexander Herzen

In the name of Jerusalem. If I forget the extermination of the Jews, may my right hand wither, may my tongue stick to my palate if I cease to think of you, if I do not keep the extermination of the Jews in memory even at my happiest hour. ~ Menachem Begin

I've seen so many beautiful curvy women gain success in hollywood and then wither into bobble headed stick figures in some grotesque attempt to fit a revolting hollywood trend. I like real women, not the broomsticks that Hollywood has been selling lately. ~ Matthew Gray Gubler

PSALM 1 Blessed is the man [1] who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; 2 but his delight is in the law [2] of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night. 3 He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers. ~ Anonymous

She swore she would never let someone take so much of her heart and soul that it would wither away to nothing once they were gone. She gave up on the dream of finding someone to consume her mind, body, and soul. It only ruined you in the end. It only left you broken and unable to live. ~ Tara Sivec

At first the social worker may become too emotionally involved with his clients, so that when they fail he suffers, both because they are unhappy and because their failure is his failure, too. It's hard to spend his days confronting devastating problems that he cannot fix - the misery and helplessness rub off on him. It may seem to him that to feel happy or spend money on himself is to betray the people he knows who are still suffering; or it may seem that his own unhappiness is a sign of his devotion. Perhaps he becomes angry, blaming systems and society for what he cannot fix himself.

Gradually, he learns to be more detached. He realizes that he needs to be tough, and to develop a thick skin. But if he becomes too detached, he stops caring about his clients at all. Perhaps he withdraws into cynicism and self-defense, as he feels his ideals and his sense of potency wither. Longer-serving people in the office notice the waning of his enthusiasm, and welcome him to their gallows-humor fellowship. He retreats into apathy and jokes and drinks after work. But even with his fellow apathetics to keep him company, the situation is depressing, and he looks for a way out. ~ Larissa MacFarquhar

The leaves that are green turn to brown. And they wither with the wind. And they crumble in your hand. ~ Paul Simon

Wither to dust, crumble like rust,
Only by your side. ~ Kristen Ashley

The Tower is not a sacred monument, and no taboo can forbid a commonplace life to develop there, but there can be no question, nonetheless, of a trivial phenomenon here; the installation of a restaurant on the Tower, for instance ... The Eiffel Tower is a comfortable object, and moreover, it is in this that it its an object wither very old (analogous, for instance, to the Circus) or very modern (analogous to certain American institutions such as the drive-in movie, in which one can simultaneously enjoy the film, the car, the food, and the freshness of the night air). Further, by affording its visitor a whole polyphony of pleasures, from technological wonder to haute cuisine, including the panorama, the Tower ultimately reunites with the essential function of all major human sites: autarchy; the Tower can live on itself: one can dream there, eat there, observe there, understand there, marvel there, shop there, as on an ocean liner (another mythic object that sets children dreaming), one can feel oneself cut off from the world and yet the owner of a world. ~ Roland Barthes

Sometimes while sitting there staring out the window, I imagined a place in my mind, a white room. A simple space coated in white paint. The white represented responsibility, obligation. It didn't require what responsibility and obligation required, but it had the same effect. It maintained the person in the room; it kept the person alive and well, along with everything and everyone that person cared for, but nothing the person held dear existed in the room. The person was alone. The person experienced no joy from bearing the weight of responsibility, earned no prize.

I imagined a particular person in the room - a woman, also clothed in white. This woman constantly faced a dilemma. She longed for freedom. She longed to be the bird.

Her open palms grazed the rutted expanse of the wall. She knew that something lay beyond - beyond the white. She could burst out into the world of grass, sky, and lavender, but she knew that if she broke through the barricade, everything she protected would crumble, suffocate, and wither behind her. Her own freedom would last only moments because she, too, couldn't survive without the white. Earth and water would smother her, and radiant light would slice through her like a blade.

I imagined her pressing with both hands, weighing freedom against existence and all that depended on her, but in the end she lightened her stance and stepped away. She always chose to stay, to fulfill her obligation.

I thought ~ Stephanie Carroll

The writing life is a secret life, wither we admit it or not. ~ Jayne Anne Phillips

Flower coffee - less caffeinated, more romantic. I wanted to be with her, but when I was, I felt like I'd rather wither. ~ Jarod Kintz

I like to think that love is like a rose. A rose that is beginning to sprout is like a person feeling love for the first time. It will grow in time as the couples interact and along the way, they may hurt themselves by the thorns of pain and misunderstanding. But it is all worth it to see the rose in full bloom as the two share their true love.
What happens after that is unknown. The rose may last forever and create others, or it may wither away and start anew. ~ Michelle Goncalves

Ties to people on the other side of the storm could be severed. Love could bud, then wither and die without a bloom when the storm ended and reality bled back in. ~ Sarah Winter

Long ago, there'd been choices he could have made that would have sent him on a different path. But those days were dead, and the future held only nights, a stretch of darkness that led down to the eternal dark. He would meet Vorcan, eventually, and he'd swear his life to the Guild Master, and that would be that, the closing of the final door. And his sense of outrage at the injustices around him, the corruptions of the world, would wither in the unlit tunnels beneath Darujhistan. In the exactness of the methods of assassination, his final victim would be himself. ~ Steven Erikson

The flavor that came to me was a luscious Suncrest peach that I once had in California. This heirloom variety needed time to ripen on the tree to achieve its peak flavor. Unlike other peaches that were picked unripe so they would ship more easily. Suncrest peaches had to be eaten right away. But they were worth it- fragrant, luscious, juice-dripping-down-your-chin perfection.
The problem was that I didn't have any peach mousse or filling. But I quickly improvised.
"You're getting married in August, when peaches are in season," I said. "Taste our browned butter yellow cake with a little apricot and some vanilla-almond buttercream, and see what you think."
As they each took a small bite of what I hoped would be their signature cake flavors, I was drawn back into the taste of the peach. It was juicy and sweet, but as I got close to the center of the peach, their was an off flavor of rot. In my mind's eye, I could see a darkened area close to the center that would soon cause the peach to wither. I knew what that meant.
I didn't know whose life would be blighted, but these golden days were few. They wouldn't have much time together. ~ Judith M. Fertig

If our freedom is taken, the American dream will wither and die. ~ Rand Paul

I keep telling myself
That you're
just a girl.
Another leaf blown across my path
Destined to pass on
And shrivel into yourself
Like all the others.
Yet despite my venom
You refuse to wither
Or fade.
You remain golden throughout,
And in your gaze I am left to wonder if it is me alone
Who feels the fall. ~ Kelly Creagh

I lay and cried, and began to feel again, to admit I was human, vulnerable, sensitive. I began to remember how it had been before; how there was that germ of positive creativeness. Character is fate; and damn, I'd better work on my character. I had been withdrawing into a retreat of numbness: it is so much safer not to feel, not to let the world touch one. But my honest self revolted at this, hated me for doing this. Sick with conflict, destructive negative emotions, frozen into disintegration I was, refusing to articulate, to spew forth these emotions - they festered in me, growing big, distorted, like pus-bloated sores. Small problems, mentions of someone else's felicity, evidence of someone else's talents, frightened me, making me react hollowly, fighting jealousy, envy, hate. Feeling myself fall apart, decay, rot, and the laurels wither and fall away, and my past sins and omissions strike me with full punishment and import. All this, all this foul, gangrenous, sludge ate away at my insides. Silent, insidious. ~ Sylvia Plath

Why will the Structure allow every other kind of sexual behavior but that one? Because submission and dominance are resources it needs for its very survival. They cannot be wasted in private sex. In any kind of sex. It needs our submission so that it can co-opt us into its own power game. There is no joy in it, only power. I tell you, if S and M could be established universally, at the family level, the State would wither away. ~ Thomas Pynchon

Wither thou goest, there goest I, two flames sparked from but one ember; both forward and backward doth time fly, wither thou art, remember. ~ Karen Marie Moning

We all create an outward self with which to face the world, and some people come to believe that is what they truly are. So they people the world with doctors who are nothing outside of the consulting-room, and judges who are nothing when they are not in court, and business men who wither with boredom when they have to retire from business, and teachers who are forever teaching. That is why they are such poor specimens when they are caught without their masks on. They have lived chiefly through the Persona. ~ Robertson Davies

How will I make a people who do not understand the power of belief believe? And without their belief Mother Earth will wither and Yuletide will fade ... and so, too will I ... like all the spirits and gods before me. ~ Brom

Time makes things worse. Bad is faster than good. Wickedness is a weed and does not wither on its own. It grows and spreads. ~ Ben H. Winters

Some memories are best left to wither. ~ Anthony Ryan

Whatever is flexible and living will tend to grow; whatever is rigid and blocked will wither and die. ~ Laozi

Happiness is a roadside flower growing on the highways of usefulness; plucked, it shall wither in thy hand; passed by, it is fragrance to thy spirit. Trample the thyme beneath thy feet; be useful, be happy. ~ Martin Farquhar Tupper

The last god has his own most unique uniqueness and stands outside of the calculative determination expressed in the labels "mono-theism," "pan-theism," and "a-theism." There has been "monotheism," and every other sort of "theism," only since the emergence of Judeo-Christian "apologetics," whose thinking presupposes "metaphysics." With the death of this God, all theisms wither away. The multiplicity of gods is not subject to enumeration but, instead, to the inner richness of the grounds and abysses in the site of the moment for the lighting up and concealment of the intimation of the last god. ~ Martin Heidegger

The Marxist promise that the state will "wither away" is like the guys promise that he will only insert the tip. ~ A.E. Samaan

So, what you're saying is that I bring out your book - wielding, short tempered side?" He hooked his foot through the straps of my backpack and brought in front of him. "Removing temptation."
I gave him a look that communicated he should wither and die. ~ Lani Woodland

I know that the gift that God gave me isn't gonna just wither up and die unless I let it die, so it's a matter of me having the faith that it's gonna come out. Whether or not the public's gonna like it is another story. But I think as long as I keep changing and sticking to what I really love - and the same goes for Steven and the other guys in the band - then people are gonna like it. ~ Joe Perry

Better to go into that world in the full glory of some passion than to fade and wither with age. Live fast. Die young, my wayward friend. ~ Pierce Brown

Death is a beautiful naked man who looks like Apollo, and he is not satisfied with those who wither away in old age. Death is a perfectionist, he likes the young and beautiful, he wants to stroke our hair and caress the sinew that binds our muscle to the bone. He does all he can to meet us, our faces gladden his heart, and he stands in our path to challenge us because he likes a clean fair fight, and after the fight he likes to befriend us, clap us on the shoulder, and make us laugh at all the pettiness and folly of the living. At the conclusion of a battle he wanders amongst the dead, raising them up, placing laurels upon the brows of those most comely, and he gathers them together as his own children and takes them away to drink wine that tastes of honey and gives them the sense of proportion that they never had in life ~ Louis De Bernieres

He could pick my heart like a rose and watch it wither in his hand. Sometimes I think he is like that. At other times I think he is as simple and golden and generous as our father's fields. And then I see things in his eyes - things that I have never looked at, and I know that I have walked a short and easy road out of my past, while he has walked a thousand roads to meet me. I know Perrin's past; the same road runs into his future. I don't know Corbet. ~ Patricia A. McKillip

We need a spirit of community, a sense that we are all in this together. If we have no sense of community, the American dream will wither. ~ William J. Clinton

...real love, lasting love, wasn't blind. It was wide-eyed and accepting. It was give and take. It weighed the good against the bad. It saw all the dark recesses and didn't wither. ~ Megan Bryce

Art, science, love, inspiration, ideals - choose out all the words with which humanity is wont, or has been in the past, to be consoled or to be amused - Chekhov has only to touch them and they instantly wither and die. And Chekhov himself faded, withered and died before our eyes. Only his wonderful art did not die - his art to kill by a mere touch, a breath, a glance, everything whereby men live and wherein they take their pride. And in this art he was constantly perfecting himself, and he attained to a virtuosity beyond the reach of any of his rivals in European literature. ~ Lev Shestov

No." The word shattered Felsted's question like an ugly, stained-glass window. "I chose poison because you deserved it. Because I wanted to watch you wriggle while the fear turns your brain to paste. That fear of death that drove you to the Demons door? I wanted to watch it betray you and eat you from the inside you. This is what comes of people like you, Felsted. I will not abide the folly of your peers' betrayal. By every drop of blood on my hands, I swear that every single one of you who turned to the Dominion - for power, money, fear, I don't care - will wither, break, and die. Azrael is coming for you and your friends, Felsted. The angel of death is here. ~ S.G. Night

Soon it would be all over. All of this would wither away, it would all disappear. We'd go our separate ways. Again and again this conviction crashed over us. ~ Banana Yoshimoto

Without the door let sorrow lie,
And if for cold it hap to die,
We'll bury 't in a Christmas pie,
And evermore be merry. ~ George Wither

Wishes of one's old life wither and shrivel like old leaves if they are not replaced with new wishes when the world changes. And the world always changes. Wishes get slimy, and their colors fade, and soon they are just mud, like all the rest of the mud, and not wishes at all, but regrets. The trouble is, not everyone can tell when they ought to launder their wishes. Even when one finds oneself in Fairyland and not at home at all, it is not always so easy to remember to catch the world in it's changing and change with it. ~ Catherynne M Valente

The Pandemic Sonnet

This ain't the first time you've come to haunt us,
And it won't be the last either.
You thought you could break the species,
But all you did is bring us together.
You brought the world to almost a standstill,
Yet we never stood still to let inaction take over.
Each one of us did the best we could,
And we'll keep on doing till your traces wither.
We may have our differences at times,
But when trouble knocks on our door we all stand one.
We may act selfish sometimes,
But in catastrophe we refrain from helping no one.
However thanks for reminding us to leave wildlife alone,
Otherwise all we'll have left to do is mourn. ~ Abhijit Naskar

Science unrolls a greater epic than the Iliad. The present day teems with new discoveries in Fact, which are greater, as regards the soul and prospect of men, than all the disquisitions and quiddities of the Schoolmen. A few fossil bones in clay and limestone have opened a greater vista back into time than the Indian imagination ventured upon for its gods. This vision of Time must not only wither the poet's hope of immortality, it is in itself more wonderful than all the conceptions of Dante and Milton. ~ Edward FitzGerald

I don't dare touch her. Loss is a knowledge I'm sorry to have. Perhaps the only thing worse than experiencing it, is watching it replay anew in someone else
all the awful stages picking up like a chorus that has to be sung. ~ Lauren DeStefano

Do not breed. Nothing gives less pleasure than childbearing. Pregnancies are damaging to health, spoil the figure, wither the charms, and it's the cloud of uncertainty forever hanging over these events that darkens a husband's mood. ~ Marquis De Sade

Winter Grace It is autumn again and our anxiety blows With the wind, breaking the heart of the rose, Petals and leaves fall down and everything goes. All but the seed, all but the hard bright berry And the bulbs we kneel on the earth to bury And lay away with our anguish and our worry. It is time we learned again the winter grace To put the nerves to sleep in a dark place And smooth the lines in the self-tortured face. For we are at the end of our endurance nearly And we shall have to die this winter surely, For this is the end of more than a season clearly. Now we shall have to be poor, to yield up all, With the leaves wither, with the petals fall, Now we shall have to die, once and for all. Before the seed of faith so deep and still Pushes up gently through the frozen will And the joyless wake and learn to be joyful. Before this buried love leaps up from sorrow And doubt and violence and pity follow To greet the radiant morning and the swallow. ~ May Sarton

I've got all my old laptops going back to my first, which was so fancy at the time, in '93 or '94, but now it's just like a doorstop. One day I said, 'I'll go in and get all my old documents in there.' The cords and the wires are all gone, the discettes you need are gone. Meanwhile the little electrons are starting to wither away. ~ Douglas Coupland

It's the struggle that refines them," he explained, "the challenge. Give them too much water, sunshine, and fertile soil and they grow fat and tasteless, like a Concord grape, appetizing only when saturated with sugar and made into jelly. Or they wither and die of boredom. Like people. The best ones are survivors. Stripped of chaff, refined by struggle and hardship, they're rendered complex and potent by their very endurance and ability to thrive in spite of deprivation. ~ J.T. Geissinger

Roses are of different kinds,colors and fragrance but none is more beautiful and have a nice fragrance like wild rose; has no one to attend to it but amidst trees, weeds,it sprout out and blossom fresh strong and beautiful and does not wither very fast like any other. ~ Namies Mburu

She's shaking like a shitting dog," Riley says.

I look up at her and her hands that hang awkwardly at her sides and see her fingers trembling. "Yeah," I agree, "she is."

"She'll be shaking like a shitting dog when I'm done wither her," he says... ~ Beckie Stevenson

The greatest tragedy in life is not to die, it is to live as if dead, to let the life within us wither. Toward what goal or achievement are we striving in life? This is the important question to ask ourselves. ~ Daisaku Ikeda