When Aunt Em came there to live she was a young, pretty wife. The sun and wind had changed her, too. They had taken the sparkle from her eyes and left them a sober gray; they had taken the red from her cheeks and lips, and they were gray also. She was thin and gaunt, and never smiled, now.
L. Frank Baum (1856-1919) American author [Lyman Frank Baum]
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, ch. 1 (1900)
(Source)
Quotations about:
grind
Note not all quotations have been tagged, so Search may find additional quotes on this topic.
As turning the logs will make a dull fire burn, so change of studies a dull brain.
When inspiration is silent reason tires quickly.
Roger Zelazny (1937-1995) American writer
Trumps of Doom, ch. 6 (1985)
business business business
grind grind grind
what a life for a man
that might have been a poetDon Marquis (1878-1937) American journalist and humorist
“pete the parrot and shakespeare,” archy and mehtabel (1927)
(Source)
Somehow he has internalized the ur-cultural narrative: you grow up, go to university, get a job, meet Ms. Right, get married, settle down, have kids, grow old together … it’s like some sort of checklist. Or maybe a list of epic quests you’ve got to complete while level-grinding in a game you’re not allowed to quit, with no respawns and no cheat codes.
Experience iz a grindstun, and it iz lucky for us if we kan git brightened by it, not ground.
[Experience is a grindstone, and it is lucky for us if we can get brightened by it, not ground.
Josh Billings (1818-1885) American humorist, aphorist [pseud. of Henry Wheeler Shaw]
Everybody’s Friend, Or; Josh Billing’s Encyclopedia and Proverbial Philosophy of Wit and Humor, ch. 130 “Affurisms: Puddin & Milk” (1874)
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This aphorism was transformed / paraphrased in the early 1920s into something a bit more inspirational, first (it appears) in Forbes (1922-10-14), then in similar form in other periodicals such as The Beaver (1924-03) and Wood Construction (1924-09-15). The new form:Life is a grindstone, and whether it grinds a man down or polishes him up, depen's on the stuff he's made of.
In an earlier pass of Billings quotations, I did up a meme, unknowingly based on that later phrasing:
It’s so wrong to think that spectacular courage is the best bravery. The noblest bravery is battling against these dreadful daily assaults, often very minor, on one’s spirit.
Joanna Trollope (b. 1943) British writer [pseud. Caroline Harvey]
The Rector’s Wife (1991)
How long is life to the wretched, how short for the happy!
Publilius Syrus (d. 42 BC) Assyrian slave, writer, philosopher [less correctly Publius Syrus]
Sententiae [Moral Sayings], # 621 [tr. Lyman (1862)]
I am always turning, I am perpetually turning, like a demd old horse in a demnition mill. My life is one demd horrid grind!
Charles Dickens (1812-1870) English writer and social critic
The Life And Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, ch. 64 [Mr Mantalini] (1839)
(Source)
The gem cannot be polished without friction, nor man perfected without trials.
Proverbs, Sayings, and Adages
Chinese proverb
Quoted in W. C. Wilson, ed., The Teacher's Visitor (1846).
