Sands

Famous quotes containing the word sands:

    That land is like an Eagle, whose young gaze
    Feeds on the noontide beam, whose golden plume
    Floats moveless on the storm, and in the blaze
    Of sunrise gleams when Earth is wrapped in gloom;
    An epitaph of glory for the tomb
    Of murdered Europe may thy fame be made,
    Great People! as the sands shalt thou become;
    Thy growth is swift as morn, when night must fade;
    The multitudinous Earth shall sleep beneath thy shade.
    Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)

    The sands are frantic
    In the hourglass. But there is time
    To change, to utterly destroy
    That too-familiar image
    Lurking in the glass
    John Ashbery (b. 1927)

    ... continual hard labor deadens the energies of the soul, and benumbs the faculties of the mind; the ideas become confined, the mind barren, and, like the scorching sands of Arabia, produces nothing; or, like the uncultivated soil, brings forth thorns and thistles. Again, continual hard labor irritates our tempers and sours our dispositions; the whole system become worn out with toil and fatigue; nature herself becomes almost exhausted, and we care but little whether we live or die.
    Maria Stewart (1803–1879)