Sands

Famous quotes containing the word sands:

    ... 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)

    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)

    I too but signify at the utmost a little wash’d-up drift,
    A few sands and dead leaves to gather,
    Gather, and merge myself as part of the sands and drift.
    Walt Whitman (1819–1892)