Stony

Famous quotes containing the word stony:

    An ancient bridge, and a more ancient tower,
    A farmhouse that is sheltered by its wall,
    An acre of stony ground,
    Where the symbolic rose can break in flower,
    Old ragged elms, old thorns innumerable....
    William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)

    What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
    Out of this stony rubbish?
    —T.S. (Thomas Stearns)

    Consider the islands bearing the names of all the saints, bristling with forts like chestnut-burs, or Echinidæ, yet the police will not let a couple of Irishmen have a private sparring- match on one of them, as it is a government monopoly; all the great seaports are in a boxing attitude, and you must sail prudently between two tiers of stony knuckles before you come to feel the warmth of their breasts.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)