Sand

Famous quotes containing the word sand:

    We noticed several other sandy tracts in our voyage; and the course of the Merrimack can be traced from the nearest mountain by its yellow sand-banks, though the river itself is for the most part invisible. Lawsuits, as we hear, have in some cases grown out of these causes. Railroads have been made through certain irritable districts, breaking their sod, and so have set the sand to blowing, till it has converted fertile farms into deserts, and the company has had to pay the damages.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    Change begets change. Nothing propagates so fast. If a man habituated to a narrow circle of cares and pleasures, out of which he seldom travels, step beyond it, though for never so brief a space, his departure from the monotonous scene on which he has been an actor of importance would seem to be the signal for instant confusion.... The mine which Time has slowly dug beneath familiar objects is sprung in an instant; and what was rock before, becomes but sand and dust.
    Charles Dickens (1812–1870)

    Unhappy is the man for evermair
    That tills the sand and sawis in the air;
    But twice unhappier is he, I lairn,
    That feidis in his hairt a mad desire
    And follows on a woman thro the fire,
    Led by a blind and teachit by a bairn.
    Mark Alexander Boyd (1563–1601)