Nettle Quotes

1. "It nods and curtseys and recoversWhen the wind blows above,The nettle on the graves of loversThat hanged themselves for love.The nettle nods, the wind blows over,The man, he does not move,The lover of the grave, the loverThat hanged himself for love."
Author: A.E. Housman

2. "Try to praise the mutilated world.Remember June's long days,and wild strawberries, drops of wine, the dew.The nettles that methodically overgrowthe abandoned homesteads of exiles.You must praise the mutilated world.You watched the stylish yachts and ships;one of them had a long trip ahead of it,while salty oblivion awaited others.You've seen the refugees heading nowhere,You've heard the executioners sing joyfully.You should praise the mutilated world.Remember the moments when we were togetherin a white room and the curtain fluttered.Return in thought to the concert where music flared.You gathered acorns in the park in autumnand leaves eddied over the earth's scars.Praise the mutilated worldand the gray feathers a thrush lost,and the gentle light that strays and vanishesand returns."
Author: Adam Zagajewski

3. "He thought women were every bit as intelligent as men, every bit as capable of figuring out how long it would take for train A to crash into train B if the two were moving toward each other at an average speed of C. They were as capable of rational thought; they just didn't appear to be as interested in it. They were happy to apply rational argument to defend what they already believed but unlikely to be swayed by it, not if it conflicted with inclination or, worse, intuition, not if it undercut a cherished opinion or nettled their self-esteem. So many times, when Nate had been arguing with a woman, a point was reached when it became clear that no argument would alter her thinking. Her position was one she "felt" to be true; it was, as a result, impermeable."
Author: Adelle Waldman

4. "Advice from a CaterpillarChew your way into a new world.Munch leaves. Molt. Rest. Moltagain. Self-reinvention is everything.Spin many nests. Cultivate stingingbristles. Don't get sentimentalabout your discarded skins. Growquickly. Develop a yen for nettles.Alternate crumpling and climbing. Relyon your antennae. Sequester poisonsin your body for use at a later date.When threatened, emit foul odorsin self-defense. Behave cryptically to confuse predators: change colors, spit,or feign death. If all else fails, taste terrible."
Author: Amy Gerstler

5. "Chorus of women: […] Oh! my good, gallant Lysistrata, and all my friends, be ever like a bundle of nettles; never let you anger slacken; the wind of fortune blown our way."
Author: Aristophanes

6. "Recite the Periodic Table of Teatime, in correct order, with Elemental Symbols, please.'A-Through-L sat back on his handsome black haunches, shut his eyes, and said: 'Hot Tea (H), Herbal Tea (He), Lingonberry Scones (Li), Berry Jam (Be), Butter (B), Cream (C), Napoleons (N), Orange Marmalade (O), Frosting (F), Nettle Tea (Ne)..."
Author: Catherynne M. Valente

7. "Try the meditation of the trail, just walk along looking at the trail at your feet and don't look about and just fall into a trance as the ground zips by," Kerouac wrote. "Trails are like that: you're floating along in a Shakespearean Arden paradise and expect to see nymphs and fluteboys, then suddenly you're struggling in a hot broiling sun of hell in dust and nettles and poison oak… just like life."
Author: Christopher McDougall

8. "Also, I have a mornid fear of rates, and mice, and nettles and wasps and jagged cans and rotting food and damp newspapers and the unemployed."
Author: Colin Bateman

9. "Solo For Ear-Trumpet The carriage brushes through the brightLeaves (violent jets from life to light);Strong polished speed is plunging, heavesBetween the showers of bright hot leavesThe window-glasses glaze our facesAnd jar them to the very basis — But they could never put a polishUpon my manners or abolishMy most distinct disinclinationFor calling on a rich relation!In her house — (bulwark built betweenThe life man lives and visions seen) — The sunlight hiccups white as chalk,Grown drunk with emptiness of talk,And silence hisses like a snake — Invertebrate and rattling ache….Then suddenly EternityDrowns all the houses like a seaAnd down the street the Trump of DoomBlares madly — shakes the drawing-roomWhere raw-edged shadows sting forlornAs dank dark nettles. Down the hornOf her ear-trumpet I conveyThe news that 'It is Judgment Day!''Speak louder: I don't catch, my dear.'I roared: 'It is the Trump we hear!''The What?' 'THE TRUMP!' 'I shall complain!…. the boy-scouts practising again."
Author: Edith Sitwell

10. "Tall NettlesTall nettles cover up, as they have doneThese many springs, the rusty harrow, the ploughLong worn out, and the roller made of stone :Only the elm butt tops the nettles now.This corner of the farmyard I like most:As well as any bloom upon a flowerI like the dust on the nettles, never lostExcept to prove the sweetness of a shower."
Author: Edward Thomas

11. "Oh yes", said the old woman, "but I've heard these so-called stoves are by no means all they are supposed to be. I never saw a stove in my day, and yet never ailed a thing, at least as long as I could really be called alive, except for nettle rash one night when I was in my fifteenth year.. It was caused by some fresh fish that the boys used to catch in the lakes thereabouts." The man did not answer for a while, but lay pondering the medical history of this incredible old creature who, without ever setting eyes on a stove, had suffered almost no ailments in the past sixty-five years."
Author: Halldór Laxness

12. "I stamp out vast empires. I crush palaces in my rigid hands. I harden my heart against churches.I blot out cemetaries. I feed the people with stinging nettles. I resurrect madness. I thrust my naked sword between the ribs of the world. I murder the world!"
Author: Harry Crosby

13. "When people will not weed their own minds, they are apt to be overrun by nettles."
Author: Horace Walpole

14. "Mace leaned on his shovel and did a passable imitation. "'I think we'd rather not.' Very good, guv'nor. I'll remember that next time." "Divigation was nice. Where'd you get that one?""He swallowed a ****ing dictionary," Corporal Nettle said proudly."
Author: Ian McEwan

15. "Grip the nettle firmly and it will become a stick with which to beat your enemy."
Author: Isaac Asimov

16. "And we were taught to play golf. Golf epitomizes the tame world. On a golf course nature is neutered. The grass is clean, a lawn laundry that wipes away the mud, the insect, the bramble, nettle and thistle, an Eezy-wipe lawn where nothing of life, dirty and glorious, remains. Golf turns outdoors into indoors, a prefab mat of stultified grass, processed, pesticided, herbicided, the pseudo-green of formica sterility. Here, the grass is not singing. The wind cannot blow through it. Dumb expression, greenery made stupid, it hums a bland monotone in the key of the mono-minded. No word is emptier than a golf tee. No roots, it has no known etymology, it is verbal nail polish. Worldwide, golf is an arch act of enclosure, a commons fenced and subdued for the wealthy, trampling serf and seedling. The enemy of wildness, it is a demonstration of the absolute dominion of man over wild nature."
Author: Jay Griffiths

17. "Often, beyond the next turning, footfalls of a herd galloping across stone were heard, or further in the distance, with reassuring grunts, a wild boar could be seen, trotting with steady stride along the edge of the road with her sow and a whole procession of young in tow. And then one's heart beat faster upon advancing a little into the subtle light: one might have said that the path had suddenly become wild, thick with grass, its dark paving-slabs engulfed by nettles, blackthorn and sloe, so that it mingled up time past rather than crossing country-side, and perhaps it was going to issue forth, in the chiaroscuro of thicket smelling of moistened down and fresh grass, into one of those glades where animals spoke to men."
Author: Julien Gracq

18. "Each worm to his taste;some prefer to eat nettles."
Author: Jun'ichirō Tanizaki

19. "I suppose a better sister would have set about weaving him a shirt from nettles and throwing it over his furred-over body so that he could be released from his enchantment and resume his human form. I give him some cat food instead."
Author: Kate Atkinson

20. "She was as easy to recognize in that crowd as a rose among nettles."
Author: Leo Tolstoy

21. "He knew she was there by the rapture and the terror that seized on his heart. She was standing talking to a lady at the opposite end of the ground. There was apparently nothing striking either in her dress or her attitude. But for Levin she was as easy to find in that crowd as a rose among nettles. Everything was made bright by her. She was the smile that shed light all around her."
Author: Leo Tolstoy

22. "A gentle chuckle greeted the statement, and the two girls turned to face the bespectacled old man who stood behind the scarred oak counter that stretched along the side of the shop. "Are you entirely certain of that, miss?" he asked, smiling as they approached him. "There are some who believe that perfume is magic. The fragrance of a thing is its purest essence. And certain scents can awaken phantoms of past love, of sweetest reminiscence." "Phantoms?" Daisy repeated, intrigued, and the other girl replied impatiently. "He doesn't mean it literally, dear. Perfume can't summon a ghost. And it's not really magic. It's only a mixture of scent particles that travel to the olfactory receptors in your nose." The old man, Mr. Phineas Nettle, stared at the girls with growing interest."
Author: Lisa Kleypas

23. "I follow the stream as it cuts through the centre of the clearing. Soon I hear a familiar chant.Touch me, touch me not. Touch me, touch me not.If I were not in such a bad temper, the tune would make me smile. At the damp edge of the far side of the clearing, near where the stream disappears back into the forest, grow those whom I call, for lack of a better word, my friends. These simple flowers are my only pleasant companions. Their talk has the power to soothe my unhappiness, the same way the sap from their stems soothes the itch from a nettle scratch."
Author: Maryrose Wood

24. "Did I never explain to you about love, Reva?' Pa asked. I gave him a look, and he laughed uncomfortably. 'I guess not. Let me put it in a way you'll understand. Love is like stinging nettles. Only they prick from the inside out, starting at your heart and bursting on around. It's worse when it gets here'--he rubbed the bridge of his nose--'then your vision goes a little strange. But eventually the nettles stop stinging--once she agrees to kiss you. But they start right back up again when she agrees to marry you--''Pa,' I interrupted, 'that's not love, that's fear.'Pa shook his head, looking off admiringly in the direction where Lacrimora had disappeared. 'Same thing, in my case."
Author: Merrie Haskell

25. "Take him away. Prepare a feast. Forget nothing. My crown: the golden cutlery. The poison bottles; and the fumes; the wreaths of ivy and the bloody joints; the chains; the bowl of nettles; the spices; the baskets of fresh grass; the skulls and spines; the ribs and shoulder-blades. Forget nothing or, by the blindness of my sockets, I will have your hearts out. Take him away..."
Author: Mervyn Peake

26. "You should have seen Willie Wells play shortstop: as good as Ozzie Smith and a better hitter. How I wish people could have seen Ray Dandridge play third base, as good as Brooks Robinson and Craig Nettles and all of those. He was bowlegged; a train might go through there, but not a baseball."
Author: Monte Irvin

27. "Better be a nettle in the side of your friend than his echo."
Author: Ralph Waldo Emerson

28. "I don't like this, Toua," I go on. "We're like birds that have flown a very long way from their nest. We're like nettles in a garden full of hops. We shouldn't have to hide who we are. Our faces are unseen."
Author: Rose Christo

29. "When the nettle is young, the leaves make excellent greens; when it grows old it has filaments and fibers like hemp and flax. Cloth made from the nettle is as good as that made from hemp. Chopped up, the nettle is good for poultry; pounded, it is good for horned cattle. The seed of the nettle mixed with the fodder of animals gives a luster to their skin; the root, mixed with salt, produces a beautiful yellow dye. It makes, however, excellent hay, as it can be cut twice in a season. And what does the nettle need? very little soil, no care, no culture; except that the seeds fall as fast as they ripen, and it is difficult to gather them; that is all. If we would take a little pains, the nettle would be useful; we neglect it, and it becomes harmful. Then we kill it. How much men are like the nettle! My friends, remember this, that there are no weeds, and no worthless men, there are only bad farmers."
Author: Victor Hugo

30. "With the exercise of a little care, the nettle could be made useful; it is neglected and it becomes hurtful. It is exterminated. How many men resemble the nettle!" He added with a pause: "Remember this, my friends: there are no such things as bad plants or bad men. There are only bad cultivators."
Author: Victor Hugo

31. "When the power falls on me, it buzzes in the warm, dark spaces of my skull. It stings like nettles at the tips of my fingers. The power is a fever I have felt since early childhood, a heat in the blood that leaves me flushed and unsteady, dreaming in daylight."
Author: Victoria Lamb

32. "Out of this nettle - danger - we pluck this flower - safety."
Author: William Shakespeare

33. "There is a willow grows aslant the brook that shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream; therewith fantastic garlands did she make of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples that the liberal shepherds give a grosser name, but our cold maids do dead men's fingers call them. There, on the pendent boughs her coronet weeds clamb'ring to hang, an envious sliver broke; when down her weedy trophies and herself fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide and, mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up; which time she chanted snatches of old lauds, as one incapable of her own distress, or like a creature native and indued unto that element; but long it could not be till that her garments, heavy with their drink, pull'd the poor wretch from her melodious lay to muddy death."
Author: William Shakespeare

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