Famous quotes containing the words longest, single and/or span:
“Once I went so far as to slaughter a woodchuck which ravaged my bean-field,—effect his transmigration, as a Tartar would say,—and devour him, partly for experiment’s sake; but though it afforded me a momentary enjoyment, notwithstanding a musky flavor, I saw that the longest use would not make that a good practice, however it might seem to have your woodchucks ready dressed by the village butcher.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Treating ‘water’ as a name of a single scattered object is not intended to enable us to dispense with general terms and plurality of reference. Scatter is in fact an inconsequential detail.”
—Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)
“A tree that can fill the span of a man’s arms
Grows from a downy tip;
A terrace nine stories high
Rises from hodfuls of earth;
A journey of a thousand miles
Starts from beneath one’s feet.”
—Lao-Tzu (6th century B.C.)