Ornate Compass Rose

Famous quotes containing the words ornate, compass and/or rose:

    “Have we any control over being born?,” my friend asked in despair. “No, the job is done for us while we’re sleeping, so to speak, and when we wake up everything is all set. We merely appear, like an ornate celebrity wheeled out in a wheelchair.” “I don’t remember,” my friend claimed. “No need to,” I said: “what need have us free-loaders for any special alertness? We’re done for.”
    Marvin Cohen, U.S. author and humorist. The Self-Devoted Friend, New Directions (1967)

    Histories of the world omitted China; if a Chinaman invented compass or movable type or gunpowder we promptly “forgot it” and named their European inventors. In short, we regarded China as a sort of different and quite inconsequential planet.
    —W.E.B. (William Edward Burghardt)

    This thorn
    Doth to our rose of youth rightly belong.
    William Shakespeare (1564–1616)