Substance

Famous quotes containing the word substance:

    We are nothing but ceremony; ceremony carries us away, and we leave the substance of things; we hang on to the branches and abandon the trunk and body.
    Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)

    All the old supports going, gone, this man reaches out a hand to steady himself on a ledge of rough brick that is warm in the sun: his hand feeds him messages of solidity, but his mind messages of destruction, for this breathing substance, made of earth, will be a dance of atoms, he knows it, his intelligence tells him so: there will soon be war, he is in the middle of war, where he stands will be a waste, mounds of rubble, and this solid earthy substance will be a film of dust on ruins.
    Doris Lessing (b. 1919)

    Strong be thy wallis that about the standis;
    Wise be the people that within the dwellis;
    Fresh is thy ryver with his lusty strandis;
    Blith be thy chirches, wele sownyng be thy bellis;
    Riche be thy merchauntis in substance that excellis
    Fair be thy wives, right lovesom, white and small;
    Clere be thy virgyns, lusty under kellis:
    London, thou art the flour of Cities all.
    William Dunbar (c. 1465–c. 1530)