Oars

Famous quotes containing the word oars:

    The barge she sat in, like a burnished throne
    Burned on the water. The poop was beaten gold;
    Purple the sails, and so perfumed that
    The winds were love-sick with them. The oars were silver,
    Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made
    The water which they beat to follow faster,
    As amorous of their strokes.
    William Shakespeare (1564–1616)

    And he unrolled his feathers
    And rowed him softer home—

    Than Oars divide the Ocean,
    Too silver for a seam—
    Or Butterflies, off Banks of Noon
    Leap, plashless as they swim.
    Emily Dickinson (1830–1886)

    Certain anthropologists hold that man, having discovered tools, ceased to evolve biologically. Animals, never having discovered them, continue to fashion drills out of their beaks, oars out of their hind feet, wings out of their forefeet, suits of armor out of their hides, levers out of their horns, saws out of their teeth. Whether this be true or not, all authorities agree that man is the tool-using animal. It sets him off from the rest of the animal kingdom as drastically as does speech.
    Stuart Chase (1888–1985)