“
Time is more precious than gold, more precious than diamonds, more precious than oil or any valuable treasures. It is time that we do not have enough of; it is time that causes the war within our hearts, and so we must spend it wisely.
”
”
Cecelia Ahern (The Gift)
“
Of two hearts one is always warm and one is always cold: the cold heart is more precious than diamonds: the warm heart has no value and is thrown away.
”
”
Graham Greene (The Heart of the Matter)
“
There are different wells within your heart.
Some fill with each good rain,
Others are far too deep for that.
In one well
You have just a few precious cups of water,
That "love" is literally something of yourself,
It can grow as slow as a diamond
If it is lost.
Your love
Should never be offered to the mouth of a
Stranger,
Only to someone
Who has the valor and daring
To cut pieces of their soul off with a knife
Then weave them into a blanket
To protect you.
There are different wells within us.
Some fill with each good rain,
Others are far, far too deep
For that.
”
”
The Divan
“
The first pair Opal and Amber are,
Agate sings in B flat, the wolf avatar,
A duet-solutio! - with Aquamarine.
Mighty Emerald next, with the lovely Citrine.
Number Eight is digestio, her stand is Jade fine.
E major's the key of the Black Tourmaline,
Sapphire sings in F major, and bright is her sheen.
Then almost at once comes Diamond alone,
Whose sign of the lion as Leo is known.
Projectio! Time flows on, both present and past.
Ruby red is the first and is also the last.
”
”
Kerstin Gier (Ruby Red (Precious Stone Trilogy, #1))
“
You do not,’ cried Giovanni, sitting up, ‘love anyone! You never have loved anyone, I am sure you never will! You love your purity, you love your mirror—you are just like a little virgin, you walk around with your hands in front of you as though you had some precious metal, gold, silver, rubies, maybe diamonds down there between your legs! You will never give it to anybody, you will never let anybody touch it—man or woman. You want to be clean. You think you came here covered with soap and you think you will go out covered with soap—and you do not want to stink, not even for five minutes, in the meantime.’ He grasped me by the collar, wrestling and caressing at once, fluid and iron at once: saliva spraying from his lips and his eyes full of tears, but with the bones of his face showing and the muscles leaping in his arms and neck. ‘You want to leave Giovanni because he makes you stink. You want to despise Giovanni because he is not afraid of the stink of love. You want to kill him in the name of all your lying little moralities. And you—you are immoral. You are, by far, the most immoral man I have met in all my life. Look, look what you have done to me. Do you think you could have done this if I did not love you? Is this what you should do to love?
”
”
James Baldwin (Giovanni’s Room)
“
Baseball is the most perfect of games, solid, true, pure and precious as diamonds. If only life were so simple. Within the baselines anything can happen. Tides can reverse; oceans can open. That's why they say, "the game is never over until the last man is out." Colors can change, lives can alter, anything is possible in this gentle, flawless, loving game.
”
”
W.P. Kinsella (Shoeless Joe)
“
Books are more precious than jewels. She truly believed this. What did a diamond bring you? A momentary flash of brilliance. A diamond scintillated for second; a book could scintillate forever.
”
”
Veronica Henry (How to Find Love in a Bookshop)
“
How much better might human communication be if words were as precious as diamonds? If each of us were allotted only 100 words per day?
”
”
Jerry Spinelli (Today I Will: A Year of Quotes, Notes, and Promises to Myself)
“
Ego Tripping
I was born in the congo
I walked to the fertile crescent and built
the sphinx
I designed a pyramid so tough that a star
that only glows every one hundred years falls
into the center giving divine perfect light
I am bad
I sat on the throne
drinking nectar with allah
I got hot and sent an ice age to europe
to cool my thirst
My oldest daughter is nefertiti
the tears from my birth pains
created the nile
I am a beautiful woman
I gazed on the forest and burned
out the sahara desert
with a packet of goat's meat
and a change of clothes
I crossed it in two hours
I am a gazelle so swift
so swift you can't catch me
For a birthday present when he was three
I gave my son hannibal an elephant
He gave me rome for mother's day
My strength flows ever on
My son noah built new/ark and
I stood proudly at the helm
as we sailed on a soft summer day
I turned myself into myself and was
jesus
men intone my loving name
All praises All praises
I am the one who would save
I sowed diamonds in my back yard
My bowels deliver uranium
the filings from my fingernails are
semi-precious jewels
On a trip north
I caught a cold and blew
My nose giving oil to the arab world
I am so hip even my errors are correct
I sailed west to reach east and had to round off
the earth as I went
The hair from my head thinned and gold was laid
across three continents
I am so perfect so divine so ethereal so surreal
I cannot be comprehended except by my permission
I mean...I...can fly
like a bird in the sky...
”
”
Nikki Giovanni
“
E major's the key of the Black Tourmaline,
Sapphire sings in F major, and bright is her sheen.
Then almost at once, comes Diamond alone,
Whose sign of the lion as Leo is known.
Projectio! Time flows on, both present and past.
Ruby red is the first and is also the last.
”
”
Kerstin Gier (Ruby Red (Precious Stone Trilogy, #1))
“
True friends are like diamonds,
Precious and rare,
Fake friends are like autumn leaves,
Found everywhere.
”
”
Ari Joseph
“
She was the real treasure, more precious than sapphires, diamonds and gold.
At the core of his ancient, cynical heart, he was an acquisitive creature, after all.
”
”
Thea Harrison (Pia Saves the Day (Elder Races, #6.6))
“
Then came the most exquisite moment of her whole life passing a stone urn with flowers in it. Sally stopped; picked a flower; kissed her on the lips. The whole world might have turned upside down! The others disappeared; there she was alone with Sally. And she felt that she had been given a present, wrapped up, and told just to keep it, not to look at it — a diamond, something infinitely precious, wrapped up, which, as they walked (up and down, up and down), she uncovered, or the radiance burnt through, the revelation, the religious feeling!
”
”
Virginia Woolf (Mrs. Dalloway)
“
Most people would call me incompetent, clumsy, flawed..."
"A pearl is a flaw. A diamond is an accident of nature. In all of creation, there's nothing more precious than the unexpected deviation.
”
”
Todd Mitchell (A Flight of Angels)
“
Do you know the only value life has is what life puts upon itself? And it is of course overestimated, for it is of necessity prejudiced in its own favour. Take that man I had aloft. He held on as if he were a precious thing, a treasure beyond diamonds of rubies. To you? No. To me? Not at all. To himself? Yes. But I do not accept his estimate. He sadly overrates himself. There is plenty more life demanding to be born. Had he fallen and dripped his brains upon the deck like honey from the comb, there would have been no loss to the world. The supply is too large.
”
”
Jack London (The Sea Wolf)
“
No one knows how precious you are. You are a diamond in the rough and with a little polishing, you will shine,” Pa whispers softly.
”
”
Loung Ung (First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers)
“
My solitude was like a gemstone. For the most part it was sparkling and resplendent – something I wore with pride. (...) But underneath this diamond of solitude was a sharp point that I occasionally caught with my bare hands, making it feel like a perilous asset rather than a precious one. Perhaps this jagged underside was essential – what made the surface of my aloneness shine so bright. But loneliness, once just sad, had recently started to feel frightening.
”
”
Dolly Alderton (Ghosts)
“
Love is a soft thing. It smells like woodsmoke and sounds like rain. It tastes like sugared apples. It costs nothing to give yet is more precious than a sea of diamonds.
”
”
Jennifer Donnelly (Poisoned)
“
It is wrong to wear diamonds before luncheon, except on one’s marriage rings. Before, after, and during breakfast, luncheon and dinner, it is vulgar to wear a mixture of colored precious stones. It is always a comfort to know that so many things one can’t afford to do anyway are vulgar.
”
”
Judith Martin (Miss Manners' Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior)
“
I’ve seen too many intellectuals lately. I get very tired of the precious intellects who must speak diamonds every time they open their mouths. I get tired of battling for each space of air for the mind. That’s why I stayed away from people for so long, and now that I am meeting people, I find that I must return to my cave.
”
”
Charles Bukowski
“
There aren't words to tell you what you mean to me. But I hope that when you see this ring on your hand, you'll remember that you shine as brightly as diamonds in my life and you're infinitely more precious
”
”
Sylvia Day (One with You (Crossfire, #5))
“
The most desired gift of love is not diamonds or roses or chocolate. It is focused attention. Love concentrates so intently on another that you forget yourself at that moment. Attention says, “I value you enough to give you my most precious asset — my time.” Whenever you give your time, you are making a sacrifice, and sacrifice is the essence of love. Jesus modeled this: “Be full of love for others, following the example of Christ who loved you and gave Himself to God as a sacrifice to take away your sins” (Ephesians 5:2, LB).
”
”
Rick Warren (The Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here for?)
“
When giving money to the amputated, you must put it directly into their pockets.
”
”
Greg Campbell (Blood Diamonds: Tracing the Deadly Path of the World's Most Precious Stones)
“
Dads sometimes look at daughters like they’re more precious than all the diamonds in England. I remembered that—once upon a time—someone had looked like that at me.
”
”
Ally Carter (Only the Good Spy Young (Gallagher Girls, #4))
“
They were walking beside the stream and the Lion went before them: and he became so beautiful, and the music so despairing, that Jill did not know which of them it was that filled her eyes with tears.
Then Aslan stopped, and the children looked into the stream. And there, on the golden gravel of the bed of the stream, lay King Caspian, dead, with the water flowing over him like liquid glass. His long white beard swayed in it like water-weed. And all three stood and wept. Even the Lion wept: great lion-tears, each tear more precious than the Earth would be if it was a single solid diamond.
”
”
C.S. Lewis (The Silver Chair (Chronicles of Narnia, #4))
“
The most abundant and most precious of things: Thoughts and Dreams, can be found in every corner yet as precious as diamonds.
”
”
StridingDream
“
Even the Lion wept: great Lion-tears, each tear more precious than the Earth would be if it was a single solid diamond.
”
”
C.S. Lewis (The Silver Chair (Chronicles of Narnia, #6) (Publication Order, #4))
“
Candy in a wrapper, a diamond ring in a box—these analogies are commonly used in Egypt and other countries to try to convince women of the value of veiling. They compare women to objects that are precious but devalued by exposure, objects that need to be hidden, protected, and secured. When it comes to what are described as the Islamic restrictions on women’s dress, women are never simply women. There
”
”
Mona Eltahawy (Headscarves and Hymens: Why the Middle East Needs a Sexual Revolution)
“
Do you know the only value life has is what life puts upon itself? And it is of course over-estimated since it is of necessity prejudiced in its own favour. Take that man I had aloft. He held on as if he were a precious thing, a treasure beyond diamonds or rubies. To you? No. To me? Not at all. To himself? Yes. But I do not accept his estimate. He sadly overrates himself. There is plenty more life demanding to be born. Had he fallen and dripped his brains upon the deck like honey from the comb, there would have been no loss to the world. He was worth nothing to the world. The supply is too large. To himself only was he of value, and to show how fictitious even this value was, being dead he is unconscious that he has lost himself. He alone rated himself beyond diamonds and rubies. Diamonds and rubies are gone, spread out on the deck to be washed away by a bucket of sea- water, and he does not even know that the diamonds and rubies are gone. He does not lose anything, for with the loss of himself he loses the knowledge of loss. Don't you see? And what have you to say?
”
”
Jack London (The Sea Wolf)
“
I stared. "But you're saying--"
"Yes, Clay" - her mouth smoothed into a chilly smile - "Image of El, breath of God. In such an unworthy vessel. Something far more precious than diamonds, denied even to us but entrusted to a container of mud.
”
”
Tosca Lee (Demon)
“
You see," he continued, beginning to feel better, "once there was no time at all, and people found it very inconvenient. They never knew wether they were eating lunch or dinner, and they were always missing trains. So time was invented to help them keep track of the day and get to places where they should. When they began to count all the time that was available, what with 60 seconds in a minute and 60 minutes in an hour and 24 hours in a day and 365 days in a year, it seemed as if there was much more than could ever be used. 'If there's so much of it, it couldn't be very valuable,' was the general opinion, and it soon fell into dispute. People wasted it and even gave it away. Then we were giving the job of seeing that no one wasted time again," he said, sitting up proudly. "It's hard work but a noble calling. For you see"- and now he was standing on the seat, one foot on the windshield, shouting with his ams outstretched- "it is our most valuable possession, more precious than diamonds. It marches on, it and tide wait for no man, and-"
At that point in the speech the car hit a bump in the road and the watchdog collapsed in a heap on the front seat with his alarm ringing furiously.
”
”
Norton Juster (The Phantom Tollbooth)
“
I liked feeling like I was a precious and valuable thing to be guarded, like a diamond necklace in transit with a security guard. Why was a sprinkling of the patriarchy so good when it came to dating?
”
”
Dolly Alderton (Ghosts)
“
Time is time and that's enough, because time is more precious than diamonds, more rare than pearls. Money comes and goes, but time only goes. Time doesn't come back for anyone, not even for the restless dead, who move it from place to place. Time is finite. Money is not.
”
”
Seanan McGuire (Dusk or Dark or Dawn or Day)
“
In my heart, a live fire
Like the morning sun
Burning my mind, to purify the soul
That is my love.
In my dream a burning desire
Like the lights from a diamond
Make my life ever precious
That is my love.
my mind an ever longing
As the moon longing for night
Make the night dreams of desire
That is my love.
”
”
Debasish Mridha
“
When we finally arrived, the chauffeur escorted my younger sister, Laila, and me up to my father’s suite. As usual, he was hiding behind the door waiting to scare us. We exchanged many hugs and kisses as we could possibly give in one day.
My father took a good look at us. Then he sat me down on his lap and said something that I will never forget. He looked me straight in the eyes and said,
“Hana, everything that God made valuable in the world is covered and hard to get to.
Where do you find diamonds? Deep down in the ground, covered and protected.
Where do you find pearls? Deep down at the bottom of the ocean, covered up and protected in a beautiful shell.
Where do you find gold? Way down in the mine, covered over with layers and layers of rock. You've got to work hard to get to them.”
He looked at me with serious eyes. “Your body is sacred. You’re far more precious than diamonds and pearls, and you should be covered too.
”
”
Hana Yasmeen Ali (More Than a Hero: Muhammad Ali's Life Lessons Presented Through His Daughter's Eyes)
“
On the evening of her eighteenth birthday, Maddy opened her journal and made a list of the jewels and precious stones she'd held. Gold, diamond, emerald; ruby, turquoise, pearl; amber, jade, marble… There were some she had forgotten. Beneath these she listed what she thought were the most perfect tastes and smells. Coffee, cinnamon, peaches; vanilla, honey, basil; baking bread, fresh bread, toasting bread.
”
”
Sonya Hartnett (The Ghost's Child)
“
A heart of gold is more precious than a necklace of diamonds.
”
”
Matshona Dhliwayo
“
In my dream a burning desire
Like the lights from a diamond
Make my life ever precious
That is my love.
”
”
Debasish Mridha
“
As to what good qualities there may be in our souls, or Who dwells within them, or how precious they are -- those are things which we seldom consider and so we trouble little about carefully preserving the soul's beauty. All our interest is centred in the rough setting of the diamond, and in the outer wall of the castle -- that is to say, in these bodies of ours.
”
”
Teresa de Ávila (Interior Castle)
“
There are some souls, bright and precious, which, like gold and silver, may be subdued by the fiery trial, and yield to new moulds; but there are others, pure and solid as the diamond, which may be shivered to pieces, yet in every fragment retain their indelible characteristics.
”
”
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (Valperga)
“
You, it’s about bedroom eyes. Fuckin’ great hair. Long legs. A tight, sweet pussy that gets so fuckin’ wet, swear to Christ, every time I have it, don’t know whether to bury my face or my dick in it. Your perfume on my sheets. The way you look at me when I tuck you in bed, like I gave you diamonds, something precious, something you wanna keep safe, something you want forever. Woman like you could get diamonds just crookin’ her finger, so a woman like you shouldn’t find a man tuckin’ you in bed precious. But you do. It’s also about you tellin’ me you won’t take it there with me but, I kiss you, you ignite. Some men like a game. Others like a challenge.” His smile got wider. “You found a man who likes a challenge.
”
”
Kristen Ashley (Fire Inside (Chaos, #2))
“
They had paused before the table on which the bride’s jewel were displayed, and Lily’s heart gave an envious throb as she caught the refraction of light from their surfaces – the milky gleam of perfectly matched pearls, the flash of rubies relieved against contrasting velvet, the intense blue rays of sapphires kindled into light by surrounding diamonds: all these precious tints enhanced and deepened by the varied art of their setting. The glow of the stones warmed Lily’s veins like wine. More completely than any other expression of wealth they symbolized the life she longed to lead, the life of fastidious aloofness and refinement in which every detail should have the finish of a jewel, and the whole form a harmonious setting to her own jewel-like rareness.
”
”
Edith Wharton (The House of Mirth)
“
She was wearing pink gauze—was that possible? She seemed, anyhow, all light, glowing, like some bird or air ball that has flown in, attached itself for a moment to a bramble...
Then came the most exquisite moment of her whole life passing a stone urn with flowers in it. Sally stopped; picked a flower; kissed her on the lips. The whole world might have turned upside down! The others disappeared; there she was alone with Sally. And she felt that she had been given a present, wrapped up, and told just to keep it, not to look at it—a diamond, something infinitely precious, wrapped up, which, as they walked (up and down, up and down) she uncovered, or the radiance burnt through, the revelation, the religious feeling!
”
”
Virginia Woolf (Mrs Dalloway)
“
At the time thousands of Africans were dying over control of diamonds sold in shopping malls around the world, U.S president Bill Clinton was impeached for perjury, NATO began bombing Yugoslavia, and everyone else was preparing for digital disaster from Y2K
”
”
Greg Campbell (Blood Diamonds: Tracing the Deadly Path of the World's Most Precious Stones)
“
One thing of great importance can affect a small number of people. Equally so, a thing of little importance can affect a multitude. Either way, a happening - big or small - can affect an entire string of people. Occurrences can join us all together. You see, we're all made up of the same stuff. When something happens, it triggers something inside us that connects us to a situation, connects us to other people, lighting us up and linking us like little lights on a Christmas tree, twisted and turned but still connected to a wire. Some go out, others flicker, others burn strong and bright, yet we are all on the same line.
I said at the beginning of this story that this was about people who find out who they are. About people who are unraveled and whose cores are revealed to all who count. And that all that count are revealed to them. You thought I was talking about Lou Suffern and the Turkey Boy, about Raphie, Jessica, and Ruth, didn't you? Wrong. I was talking about each of us.
A lesson finds the common denominatior and links us all together, like a chain. At the end of that chain dangles a clock, and on the face of the clock registers the passing of time. We see it and we hear it, the hushed tick-tock, but often we don't feel it. Each second makes its mark on every single person's life - comes and then goes, quietly disappearing without fanfare, evaporating into air like steam from a piping hot Christmas pudding. Enough time leaves us warm; when our time is gone, it leaves us cold. Time is more precious than gold, more precious than diamonds, more precious than oil or any valuable treasures. It is time of which we do not have enough; it is time that causes the war within our hearts, and so we must spend it wisely. Time cannot be packaged and ribboned and left under trees for Christmas morning.
Time can't be given. But it can be shared.
”
”
Cecelia Ahern
“
They are not looking because of the way you are dressed, Danny. The women are looking at you with envy. They are wondering how a woman of my age can attract a handsome, virile young man like you, and they are jealous. The men are looking at you with curiosity. They are wondering what you have to be able to attract a beautiful older woman like me. Enjoy the attention, Danny. You will only be young for a very short time.
”
”
Rachel de Vine (A Love More Precious than Diamonds)
“
I get very tired of the precious intellects who must speak diamonds every time they open their mouths. I get tired of battling for each space of air for the mind. that’s why I stayed away from people for so long, and now that I am meeting people, I find that I must return to my cave. there are other things beside the mind: there are insects and palm trees and pepper shakers, and I’ll have a pepper-shaker in my cave, so laugh.
”
”
Charles Bukowski (Notes of a Dirty Old Man)
“
…Amongst these legends of dragon hoards,
Where secret, precious things are stored,
There golden nugget and diamond shard,
There treasure-keeper hoped to guard.
As bolted doorway securely braced,
hoping its treasures to ever hold,
hoping beyond when time grows old,
So stood the keeper in its place.
A statue of unrelenting stance
Still stands victim to happenstance,
For treasure-keeper did not bargain
on a bit of chance and a bit of dwargen…”
- Dwenzuak the dwargen
”
”
T. William Watts
“
Time is more precious than gold, more precious than diamonds, more precious than oil or any valuable treasures. It is time that we do not have enough of; it is time that causes the war within our hearts, and so we must spend it wisely. Time cannot be packaged and ribboned and left under trees for Christmas morning. Time can’t be given. But it can be shared.
”
”
Cecelia Ahern (The Gift)
“
In the words of P.J. O'Rourke, war is a great asshole magnet
”
”
Greg Campbell (Blood Diamonds: Tracing the Deadly Path of the World's Most Precious Stones)
“
Memories are like Diamonds. They are precious and and wonderful things. Cherish each one.
”
”
Roy Carl Weiler Sr.
“
If the most precious are tried in the fire, are we to escape the crucible? If the diamond must be vexed upon the wheel, are we to be made perfect without suffering?
”
”
Charles Haddon Spurgeon (Morning and Evening)
“
What fools men were to look only for diamonds when a precious pearl stood right before them.
”
”
Fenna Edgewood (Mistakes Not to Make When Avoiding a Rake (The Gardner Girls, #1))
“
A diamond set in lead his worth retains.
”
”
Christopher Marlowe (Hero and Leander (Wildside Classics))
“
He’s a precious diamond in the rough. The pinnacle of a woman’s sexual experiences.
”
”
T.L. Swan (Mr. Garcia (Mr. Series, #3))
“
Time is more precious than gold, more precious than diamonds, more precious than oil or any valuable treasures.
”
”
Cecelia Ahern (The Gift)
“
Duchess: Diamonds are of most value, They say, that have pass’d through most jewellers’ hands. Ferdinand: Whores, by that rule, are precious. —John Webster, The Duchess of Malfi (I.ii)
”
”
Chuck Palahniuk (Snuff)
“
She might not be able to fix the
past, but she was willing to spend a
lifetime showing him what love could
be: beautiful not ugly, uplifting not
destructive, and more precious than
diamonds.
”
”
Kitty French
“
Tanner,” I whispered and stared down at the white cotton. Not gold nor a diamond, yet the most precious thing I’d ever seen. I lived a life of luxury. Yet this torn piece of cotton had made me the happiest I’d ever been in my life.
”
”
Tillie Cole (Darkness Embraced (Hades Hangmen, #7))
“
Suppose you are chilling somewhere and see a diamond a few meters away on your right side. Your mind’s first reaction would be, “That must be a piece of glass, not diamond.”
Now, on your left side a few meters away you spot an unknown object towards which 2 people are running from opposite side. Your mind’s reaction would be, “If two people are running towards that object, it must be something precious. Run and grab it before they do.”
Often, our mind makes us compete with others over peanuts while the diamond which is meant for us lies unattended.
”
”
Shunya
“
He was wonderful, your dad – the love of my life. I knew he was the one for me. He listened to me. He always paid attention. There is no greater way to show love than by paying full attention. Inspecting the tiny details of someone else’s character like they are precious diamonds,
”
”
Colleen Coleman (I'm Still Standing)
“
Homeschooling can transform your family relationships if you build a calm, peaceful, loving home; every minute you spend together will be more precious than the most brilliant diamond. As far as the benefits of homeschooling goes, this is among the most unexpected and most valuable.
”
”
Sandra K. Cook (Overcome Your Fear of Homeschooling with Insider Information)
“
One person at WeWork wasn’t worried about the company’s future. “Do you know how long it takes a diamond to be created?” Adam asked a reporter during Summit. “Half a million to four million years. I love that analogy—to make something very precious, you have to apply a lot of pressure.
”
”
Reeves Wiedeman (Billion Dollar Loser: The Epic Rise and Spectacular Fall of Adam Neumann and WeWork)
“
Cloaked in the most valuable invisibilities, she’s a seamstress wearing knitted concepts of genius fitted like the elegant dress of a dazzling princess. Yet, no matter how lofty, the messages of her precious lips always land softly with her ability to keep kissing me with the sweetest simplicities.
”
”
Curtis Tyrone Jones
“
No institution of learning of Ingersoll's day had courage enough to confer upon him an honorary degree; not only for his own intellectual accomplishments, but also for his influence upon the minds of the learned men and women of his time and generation.
Robert G. Ingersoll never received a prize for literature. The same prejudice and bigotry which prevented his getting an honorary college degree, militated against his being recognized as 'the greatest writer of the English language on the face of the earth,' as Henry Ward Beecher characterized him. Aye, in all the history of literature, Robert G. Ingersoll has never been excelled -- except by only one man, and that man was -- William Shakespeare. And yet there are times when Ingersoll even surpassed the immortal Bard. Yes, there are times when Ingersoll excelled even Shakespeare, in expressing human emotions, and in the use of language to express a thought, or to paint a picture. I say this fully conscious of my own admiration for that 'intellectual ocean, whose waves touched all the shores of thought.'
Ingersoll was perfection himself. Every word was properly used. Every sentence was perfectly formed. Every noun, every verb and every object was in its proper place. Every punctuation mark, every comma, every semicolon, and every period was expertly placed to separate and balance each sentence.
To read Ingersoll, it seems that every idea came properly clothed from his brain. Something rare indeed in the history of man's use of language in the expression of his thoughts. Every thought came from his brain with all the beauty and perfection of the full blown rose, with the velvety petals delicately touching each other.
Thoughts of diamonds and pearls, rubies and sapphires rolled off his tongue as if from an inexhaustible mine of precious stones.
Just as the cut of the diamond reveals the splendor of its brilliance, so the words and construction of the sentences gave a charm and beauty and eloquence to Ingersoll's thoughts.
Ingersoll had everything: The song of the skylark; the tenderness of the dove; the hiss of the snake; the bite of the tiger; the strength of the lion; and perhaps more significant was the fact that he used each of these qualities and attributes, in their proper place, and at their proper time. He knew when to embrace with the tenderness of affection, and to resist and denounce wickedness and tyranny with that power of denunciation which he, and he alone, knew how to express.
”
”
Joseph Lewis (Ingersoll the Magnificent)
“
That is the method practiced by all the prophets of all revealed religions from the beginning to the end. To help people purify themselves of destructive characteristics was the mission of Moses, of Jesus and also of the seal of prophets Muhammad, who was ordered by his Lord: “Purify them.” They all worked to this end and never despaired of success, as they had certainty that a treasure remained buried in people’s hearts. Look, if you have a precious diamond and then it falls into the toilet, are you going to flush it down with the dirties? Would anyone suggest such a thing? Perhaps some proud or weak stomached people might call for a servant to do it, but no one in his right mind would flush it away. Then when you retrieve that diamond you are going to wash it with soap and water thoroughly, perhaps dip it in rose oil, and then return it to your finger. No one is then thinking that the diamond is dirty. Diamonds do not absorb the qualities of what they fall into – souls are the same.
”
”
Muhammad Nazim Adil Al-Haqqani (In the Mystic Footsteps of Saints)
“
Every individual believer is precious in the sight of the Lord, a shepherd would not lose one sheep, nor a jeweller one diamond, nor a mother one child, nor a man one limb of his body, nor will the Lord lose one of his redeemed people. However little we may be, if we are the Lord's, we may rejoice that we are preserved in Christ Jesus.
”
”
Charles Haddon Spurgeon (Morning and Evening)
“
Riding the Copernican wave over the last four hundred years, economists have gradually attempted to elevate their craft to the level of pure science, focusing on the behavior of markets involving prices and flows of money which are easily measured. All values are reduced to market values and market prices. Air, water, and essentials of life provided freely by nature are valueless unless scarcity sets in. Gold, diamonds, and other precious metals, and stones which are relatively useless in sustaining life, are valued highly. The value of a human life is determined by calculating a person's lifetime earning potential. Thus, it has been said that economists know the price of everything and the value of nothing.
”
”
William F. Pepper (An Act of State: The Execution of Martin Luther King)
“
Make the race proud," the elders used to say. But by then, I knew that I wasn't so much bound by a biological race as to a group of people, and these people were not black because of any uniform color or any uniform physical feature. They were bound because they suffered under the weight of the dream, and they were bound by all the beautiful things, all the language and mannerisms, all the food and music, all the literature and philosophy, all the common language that they had fashioned like diamonds under the weight of the dream. ... In other words, I was part of a world. And looking out, I had friends who too were part of other worlds. The world of Jews, or New Yorkers. The world of southerners or gay men. Of immigrants, of Californians, of Native Americans, or a combination of any of these worlds stitched into worlds like tapestry. And though I could never myself be a native of any of these worlds, I knew that nothing so essentialist as race stood between us. I had read too much by then, and my eyes, my beautiful precious eyes, were growing stronger each day. And I saw that what divided me from the world was not anything intrinsic to us, but the actual injury done by people intent on naming us. Intent on believing that what they have named us matters more than anything we could ever actually do. In America, the injury is not in being born with darker skin, with fuller lips, with a broader nose, but in everything that happens after.
”
”
Ta-Nehisi Coates
“
An Ax was raised into the smoke filled sky while the surrounding soldiers pinned him down and stood on his hands. It took more than a dozen blows to sever each arm just below the elbows. The strangest sensation, he said, was that one minute he could feel his knuckles being ground into the asphalt by the soldier's boot and in the next he watched the man kick his arm away and he felt nothing.
”
”
Greg Campbell (Blood Diamonds: Tracing the Deadly Path of the World's Most Precious Stones)
“
Our Memories Are Like dancing waters in my soul Like a diamond emerging from a coal Like hope ere endless flames of pain Like graceful dances in the rain Like somber music played in C Like a distant, alternate vision of me Like a dream yet fading beyond the mind Like colors seen by one once blind Like a conflagration of all profound Like the ringing of a precious sound Like lies that tax and take their toll Like dancing waters in my soul
”
”
Karpov Kinrade (I Am the Wild (The Night Firm #1))
“
We both saw on the cruise how one of the very diamonds they brag about tore your parents apart. It brought the end of love, and forever has no end. But I think of our love, Bella, and our love is unbreakable. Our love is stronger than the hardest stones and more beautiful than the greatest jewels. Our love is worth more than infinite wealth and more precious than the rarest gemstones. Our love is superior to diamonds, the greatest treasure known to man.
”
”
Jennifer Perry (Diamond Eyes- A Novella)
“
By the way,” Hadrian began, “what was the real reason you didn’t tell me?”
“Huh?”
“A bit ago you said—”
“Oh.” Royce continued to study the walls. He seemed a little too preoccupied by them. Just as Hadrian was sure he would not answer, Royce said, “I didn’t want you to leave.”
Hadrian almost laughed at the comment, thinking it was a joke, and then nearly bit his tongue. Thinking of Royce as anything but callous was difficult. Then he realized Royce never had a family and precious few friends. He had grown up an orphan on the streets of Ratibor, stealing his food and clothes and likely receiving his share of beatings for it. He had probably joined the Diamond as much from a desire to belong as a means to profit. After only a few short years, they had betrayed him. Hadrian realized at that moment that Royce did not see him as just his partner, but his family. Along with Gwen and perhaps Arcadius, Hadrian was the only one he had.
”
”
Michael J. Sullivan (Nyphron Rising (The Riyria Revelations, #3))
“
Then came the most exquisite moment of her whole life passing a stone urn with flowers in it. Sally stopped; picked a flower; kissed her on the lips. The whole world might have turned upside down! The others disappeared; there she was alone with Sally. And she felt that she had been given a present, wrapped up, and told just to keep it, not to look at it—a diamond, something infinitely precious, wrapped up, which, as they walked (up and down, up and down), she uncovered, or the radiance burnt through, the revelation, the religious feeling!
”
”
Virginia Woolf (Mrs. Dalloway)
“
Money depends on the scarcity of what props it up for its value, but isn’t that also an illusion? Rare and precious metals like diamonds are controlled by blood merchants who modulate their flow to keep the value at an acceptable level. And if gold is so rare, how are there enough gold bars to build a home for a family of two in Fort Knox alone? It doesn’t help that all things are constantly devalued. Before Gutenberg made type movable, only the wealthiest could afford books, and a Bible with tooled leather cover, gold-edged pages, and jewel-encrusted bindings was a symbol of not just piety but status, wealth, and taste. Within a few generations, the rabble were able to follow along in the hymnals from the cheap seats, forcing the wealthy to find another symbol to lord over the hoi polloi. ’Twas ever thus. The battle between the rich man and the poor man is fought on many battlefields, not all of them immediately obvious. Today the wealthy dress in sweatsuits and the homeless have iPhones. People with no discernible income buy flawless knockoff watches with one-letter misspellings to thwart copyright. And then wealthy people buy the same “Rulex” so their six-figure real watches won’t get stolen when they are out at dinner.
”
”
Bob Dylan (The Philosophy of Modern Song)
“
Only a simple black pencil will do for making a notation of a benchmark. Ink will run, be dissolved by the tree sap, be washed away by rain, dew, fog, and snow. Nothing as artificial as ink will do for recording eternity and immortality. Graphite is carbon that has been subjected to enormous pressure for millions of years and that might have become coal or diamonds. Instead, however, it has been transformed into something more precious than a diamond; it has become a pencil that can record all that it has seen… A pencil is a greater miracle than a diamond, although the chemical make-up of graphite and diamond is identical.
”
”
Varlam Shalamov (Kolyma Tales)
“
One sultan, Ibrahim the Mad, encased his beard in a network of diamonds and passed his days tossing gold coins to the fish in the Bosphorus. He wanted to see and feel nothing but fur, and levied a special tax for the import of sables from Russia so that he might cover the walls of his apartments with these precious furs. Deciding that the bigger a woman was, the more enjoyable she would be, he had his agents search the empire for the fattest woman they could find. They brought him an enormous Armenian woman, who so fascinated the Sultan that he heaped riches and honors upon her and finally made her Governor General of Damascus. 41
”
”
Robert K. Massie (Peter the Great: His Life and World)
“
Diamond Jubilee with him for extra contrition. Her father was clearly exhausted, sleeping almost all the time now, like an aged dog. Why didn’t he just go? Was he hanging on for a hundred? Two more years of this? It was mere existence—an amoeba had more life. “The triumph of the human spirit,” the new nursing sister said, new enough to talk about “positive outcomes” and “enhancement programmes”—emollient management-speak, meaningless to most of the residents of Poplar Hill, who were either dying or demented or both. It was called a “care home” but there was precious little of either to be had when you were run by a profit-based health-care provider employing
”
”
Kate Atkinson (A God in Ruins)
“
Until my thirtieth year, I lived in a state of almost continuous anxiety interspersed with periods of suicidal depression. It feels now as if I am talking about some past lifetime or somebody else’s life.
One night not long after my twenty-ninth birthday, I woke up in the early hours with a feeling of absolute dread. I had woken up with such a feeling many times before, but this time it was more intense than it had ever been. The silence of the night, the vague outlines of the furniture in the dark room, the distant noise of a passing train – everything felt so alien, so hostile, and so utterly meaningless that it created in me a deep loathing of the world. The most loathsome thing of all, however, was my own existence. What was the point in continuing to live with this burden of misery? Why carry on with this continuous struggle? I could feel that a deep longing for annihilation, for nonexistence, was now becoming much stronger than the instinctive desire to continue to live.
‘I cannot live with myself any longer.’ This was the thought that kept repeating itself in my mind. Then suddenly I became aware of what a peculiar thought it was. ‘Am I one or two? If I cannot live with myself, there must be two of me: the ‘I’ and the ‘self’ that ‘I’ cannot live with.’ ‘Maybe,’ I thought, ‘only one of them is real.’
I was so stunned by this strange realization that my mind stopped. I was fully conscious, but there were no more thoughts. Then I felt drawn into what seemed like a vortex of energy. It was a slow movement at first and then accelerated. I was gripped by an intense fear, and my body started to shake. I heard the words ‘resist nothing,’ as if spoken inside my chest. I could feel myself being sucked into a void. It felt as if the void was inside myself rather than outside. Suddenly, there was no more fear, and I let myself fall into that void. I have no recollection of what happened after that.
I was awakened by the chirping of a bird outside the window. I had never heard such a sound before. My eyes were still closed, and I saw the image of a precious diamond. Yes, if a diamond could make a sound, this is what it would be like. I opened my eyes. The first light of dawn was filtering through the curtains. Without any thought, I felt, I knew, that there is infinitely more to light than we realize. That soft luminosity filtering through the curtains was love itself. Tears came into my eyes. I got up and walked around the room. I recognized the room, and yet I knew that I had never truly seen it before. Everything was fresh and pristine, as if it had just come into existence. I picked up things, a pencil, an empty bottle, marvelling at the beauty and aliveness of it all. That day I walked around the city in utter amazement at the miracle of life on earth, as if I had just been born into this world.
”
”
Eckhart Tolle (The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment)
“
Before you, I thought my life was perfect. I had family, community, a long life in a literal magical land, but I wasn't living--- not really. I had abundant time, so it had no value. When I almost lost you, I realized how meaningless time was when I couldn't be with you. You've shown me that a second lived with the right person is better than one hundred years alone. Now every moment is precious because I know its worth."
He opened his hand to reveal a sparkling diamond ring that resembled a star or maybe even a snowflake--- she loved that it could be either. Set in white gold, a round center stone was surrounded by smaller pear-shaped diamonds that formed the points.
"Will you do me the honor of making every second of my life priceless?
”
”
Amy E. Reichert (Once Upon a December)
“
They [mountains] are portions of the heart of the earth that have escaped from the dungeon down below, and rushed up and out. For the heart of the earth is a great wallowing mass, not of blood, as in the hearts of men and animals, but of glowing hot melted metals and stones. And as our hearts keep us alive, so that great lump of heat keeps the earth alive: it is a huge power of buried sunlight—that is what it is. Now think: out of that caldron, where all the bubbles would be as big as the Alps if it could get room for its boiling, certain bubbles have bubbled out and escaped—up and away, and there they stand in the cool, cold sky—mountains. Think of the change, and you will no more wonder that there should be something awful about the very look of a mountain: from the darkness—for where the light has nothing to shine upon, it is much the same as darkness—from the heat, from the endless tumult of boiling unrest—up, with a sudden heavenward shoot, into the wind, and the cold, and the starshine, and a cloak of snow that lies like ermine above the blue-green mail of the glaciers; and the great sun, their grandfather, up there in the sky; and their little old cold aunt, the moon, that comes wandering about the house at night; and everlasting stillness, except for the wind that turns the rocks and caverns into a roaring organ for the young archangels that are studying how to let out the pent-up praises of their hearts, and the molten music of the streams, rushing ever from the bosoms of the glaciers fresh-born. Think too of the change in their own substance—no longer molten and soft, heaving and glowing, but hard and shining and cold. Think of the creatures scampering over and burrowing in it, and the birds building their nests upon it, and the trees growing out of its sides, like hair to clothe it, and the lovely grass in the valleys, and the gracious flowers even at the very edge of its armour of ice, like the rich embroidery of the garment below, and the rivers galloping down the valleys in a tumult of white and green! And along with all these, think of the terrible precipices down which the traveller may fall and be lost, and the frightful gulfs of blue air cracked in the glaciers, and the dark profound lakes, covered like little arctic oceans with floating lumps of ice. All this outside the mountain! But the inside, who shall tell what lies there? Caverns of awfullest solitude, their walls miles thick, sparkling with ores of gold or silver, copper or iron, tin or mercury, studded perhaps with precious stones—perhaps a brook, with eyeless fish in it, running, running ceaseless, cold and babbling, through banks crusted with carbuncles and golden topazes, or over a gravel of which some of the stones are rubies and emeralds, perhaps diamonds and sapphires—who can tell?—and whoever can't tell is free to think—all waiting to flash, waiting for millions of ages—ever since the earth flew off from the sun, a great blot of fire, and began to cool. Then there are caverns full of water, numbing cold, fiercely hot—hotter than any boiling water. From some of these the water cannot get out, and from others it runs in channels as the blood in the body: little veins bring it down from the ice above into the great caverns of the mountain's heart, whence the arteries let it out again, gushing in pipes and clefts and ducts of all shapes and kinds, through and through its bulk, until it springs newborn to the light, and rushes down the mountain side in torrents, and down the valleys in rivers—down, down, rejoicing, to the mighty lungs of the world, that is the sea, where it is tossed in storms and cyclones, heaved up in billows, twisted in waterspouts, dashed to mist upon rocks, beaten by millions of tails, and breathed by millions of gills, whence at last, melted into vapour by the sun, it is lifted up pure into the air, and borne by the servant winds back to the mountain tops and the snow, the solid ice, and the molten stream.
”
”
George MacDonald (The Princess and Curdie (Princess Irene and Curdie, #2))
“
Once upon a time, there was a ghoul who fell in love with a daughter of the port of Innsmouth. To say the least, her parents would hardly have looked upon this as an acceptable state of affairs. She, destined one day to descend through abyssal depths to the splendor of many spired Y’ha-nthlei in the depths well beyond the shallows of Jeffreys Ledge. She might have the fortune to marry well, perhaps, even, taking for herself a husband from among the amphibious Deep Ones who inhabit the city, or, at the very least, a fine and only once-human devotee of the Esoteric Order. She would be adorned in nothing more than the fantastic, partly golden alloy diadems and bracelets and anklets, the lavalieres of uncut rubies, emeralds, sapphires, and diamonds. What caring parent would not be alarmed that their only daughter might foolishly forsake so precious an inheritance, and all for an infatuation with so lowborn and vile creature as a ghoul?
”
”
Ellen Datlow (Lovecraft's Monsters)
“
You see,” he continued, beginning to feel better, “once there was no time at all, and people found it very inconvenient. They never knew whether they were eating lunch or dinner, and they were always missing trains. So time was invented to help them keep track of the day and get places when they should. When they began to count all the time that was available, what with 60 seconds in a minute and 60 minutes in an hour and 24 hours in a day and 365 days in a year, it seemed as if there was much more than could ever be used. ‘If there’s so much of it, it couldn’t be very valuable,’ was the general opinion, and it soon fell into disrepute. People wasted it and even gave it away. Then we were given the job of seeing that no one wasted time again,” he said, sitting up proudly. “It’s hard work but a noble calling. For you see”—and now he was standing on the seat, one foot on the windshield, shouting with his arms outstretched—“it is our most valuable possession, more precious than diamonds. It marches on, it and tide wait for no man, and——
”
”
Norton Juster (The Phantom Tollbooth)
“
She opened the satchel.
And honestly, fate couldn't have provided a better prize at the end of a scavenger hunt.
She pulled out a beautiful, sparkling crown.
Her large green eyes grew even larger. Despite the hour and lack of sunlight, its jewels still managed to shimmer and twinkle in a magical, expensive way. Rapunzel might not have had much experience with royal gems or any kind of precious stone, but it was very clear that these were those. The thing was straight out of a fairy tale, what a princess would be wearing when she was turned back from a swan. The giant diamonds were even shaped like swans' eggs. Under each was a round pink ruby, and threading between them was a strand of perfectly round pearls.
She turned it over in her hands, tracing the tiny, intricately wound gold wire that held it all together.
And there, in a small flat patch of smooth metal, was the artist's mark-- and a multi-rayed sun symbol.
The same one on her bracelet clasp.
The same one that she constantly painted and dreamed of. The one that meant life and happiness and energy in the personal vocabulary of Rapunzel's soul.
”
”
Liz Braswell (What Once Was Mine)
“
He started for the companion stairs, but turned his head for a final word. "Do you know the only value life has is what life puts upon itself? And it is of course over-estimated since it is of necessity prejudiced in its own favour. Take that man I had aloft. He held on as if he were a precious thing, a treasure beyond diamonds or rubies. To you? No. To me? Not at all. To himself? Yes. But I do not accept his estimate. He sadly overrates himself. There is plenty more life demanding to be born. Had he fallen and dripped his brains upon the deck like honey from the comb, there would have been no loss to the world. He was worth nothing to the world. The supply is too large. To himself only was he of value, and to show how fictitious even this value was, being dead he is unconscious that he has lost himself. He alone rated himself beyond diamonds and rubies. Diamonds and rubies are gone, spread out on the deck to be washed away by a bucket of sea- water, and he does not even know that the diamonds and rubies are gone. He does not lose anything, for with the loss of himself he loses the knowledge of loss. Don't you see? And what have you to say?
”
”
Jack London (The Sea Wolf By Jack London)
“
And my eyes—my beautiful, precious eyes—were growing stronger each day. And I saw that what divided me from the world was not anything intrinsic to us but the actual injury done by people intent on naming us, intent on believing that what they have named us matters more than anything we could ever actually do. In America, the injury is not in being born with darker skin, with fuller lips, with a broader nose, but in everything that happens after. In that single exchange with that young man, I was speaking the personal language of my people. It was the briefest intimacy, but it captured much of the beauty of my black world—the ease between your mother and me, the miracle at The Mecca, the way I feel myself disappear on the streets of Harlem. To call that feeling racial is to hand over all those diamonds, fashioned by our ancestors, to the plunderer. We made that feeling, though it was forged in the shadow of the murdered, the raped, the disembodied, we made it all the same. This is the beautiful thing that I have seen with my own eyes, and I think I needed this vantage point before I could journey out. I think I needed to know that I was from somewhere, that my home was as beautiful as any other.
”
”
Ta-Nehisi Coates (Between the World and Me)
“
You do not", cried Giovanni, sitting up, "love anyone ! You never loved anyone, I am sure you never will! You love your purity you love your mirror - you are just like a little virgin, you walk around with your hands in front of you as though you had some precious metal, gold, silver, rubies, maybe diamonds down there between your legs! You will never give it to anybody, you will never let anybody touch it- man or woman. You want to be clean. You think you came here covered with soap and you think you go out covered with soap- and you do not want to stink, not even for five minutes, in the meantime." He grasped me by the collar, wrestling and caressing at once, fluid and iron at once: saliva spraying from his lips and his eyes full of tears, but with the bones of his face showing and the muscles leaping in his arms and neck. "You want to leave Giovanni because he makes you stink. You want to despise Giovanni because he is not afraid of the stink love . You want to kill in the name of all your lying little moralities. And you - you are immoral. You are, by far, the most immoral man I have met in all my life .
Do you think you could have done this if I did not love you? Is this what you should do to love ?
”
”
James Baldwin (Giovanni’s Room)
“
Anne Sexton, who died forty-two years ago today, did her best to respond to the legions of fans who wrote to her. The letter below, from August 1965, finds her dispensing unvarnished advice to an aspiring poet from Amherst. Read more of her correspondence in Anne Sexton: A Self-Portrait in Letters.
Your letter was very interesting, hard to define, making it hard on me somehow to set limits for you, advise or help in any real way. First of all let me tell you that I find your poems fascinating, terribly uneven … precious perhaps, flashes of brilliance … but the terrible lack of control, a bad use of rhyme and faults that I feel sure you will learn not to make in time. I am not a prophet but I think you will make it if you learn to revise, if you take your time, if you work your guts out on one poem for four months instead of just letting the miracle (as you must feel it) flow from the pen and then just leave it with the excuse that you are undisciplined.
Hell! I’m undisciplined too, in everything but my work … Everyone in the world seems to be writing poems … but only a few climb into the sky. What you sent shows you COULD climb there if you pounded it into your head that you must work and rework these uncut diamonds of yours.
If this is impossible for you my guess is that you will never really make it …
As for madness … hell! Most poets are mad. It doesn’t qualify us for anything. Madness is a waste of time. It creates nothing. Even though I’m often crazy, and I am and I know it, still I fight it because I know how sterile, how futile, how bleak … nothing grows from it and you, meanwhile, only grow into it like a snail.
Advice …
Stop writing letters to the top poets in America. It is a terrible presumption on your part. I never in my life would have the gall (sp?) to write Randall Jarrell out of the blue that way and all my life I have wanted to do so. It’s out of line … it isn’t done. I mean they get dozens of fan letters a day that they have no time to respond to and I’m sure dozens of poems. Meanwhile, these poets (fans of whatever) should be contacting other young poets on their way—not those who have made it, who sit on a star and then have plenty of problems, usually no money, usually the fear their own writing is going down the sink hole … make contact with others such as you. They are just as lonely, just as ready, and will help you far more than the distant Big Name Poet … I’m not being rejecting, Jon, I’m being realistic.
”
”
Anne Sexton
“
Like A Rolling Stone"
Once upon a time you dressed so fine
You threw the bums a dime in your prime, didn't you?
People'd call, say, "Beware doll, you're bound to fall"
You thought they were all kiddin' you
You used to laugh about
Everybody that was hangin' out
Now you don't talk so loud
Now you don't seem so proud
About having to be scrounging for your next meal
How does it feel?
How does it feel
To be without a home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?
You've gone to the finest school all right, Miss Lonely
But you know you only used to get juiced in it
And nobody's ever taught you how to live out on the street
And now you're gonna have to get used to it
You said you'd never compromise
With the mystery tramp, but now you realize
He's not selling any alibis
As you stare into the vacuum of his eyes
And say do you want to make a deal?
How does it feel?
How does it feel
To be on your own
With no direction home
A complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?
You never turned around to see the frowns on the jugglers and the clowns
When they all did tricks for you
You never understood that it ain't no good
You shouldn't let other people get your kicks for you
You used to ride on the chrome horse with your diplomat
Who carried on his shoulder a Siamese cat
Ain't it hard when you discover that
He really wasn't where it's at
After he took from you everything he could steal
How does it feel?
How does it feel
To be on your own
With no direction home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?
Princess on the steeple and all the pretty people
They're all drinkin', thinkin' that they got it made
Exchanging all precious gifts
But you'd better take your diamond ring, you'd better pawn it babe
You used to be so amused
At Napoleon in rags and the language that he used
Go to him now, he calls you, you can't refuse
When you ain't got nothing, you got nothing to lose
You're invisible now, you got no secrets to conceal
How does it feel
How does it feel
To be on your own
With no direction home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?
Bob Dylan, Highway 61 Revisited (1965)
”
”
Bob Dylan (Highway 61 Revisited)
“
8:00am The sun is shining, the cows are mooing, and I am ready for the mines. I hope I find something awesome today. Steve has told me about some pretty crazy things I had no idea existed. According to him, I must find empty tombs in the desert. That’s where the real treasures are. For today, I will stick to regular mining. Who knows, maybe I will come across an abandoned mine shaft; could be my lucky day. 12:30pm I was forced to come home for lunch today because I had too much stuff to carry. I was getting low on my iron ore, gold, and lapis lazuli stocks before this mine trip. It’s amazing how quick lapis goes when you are busy enchanting everything but the kitchen sink. I’d enchant that too if I had one. I wonder what an enchanted kitchen sink would do. Would it do my dishes for me? That would be so cool. I have plenty of both now. I can make some new armor and enchant it! I love mining. Steve decided to join me for lunch and we ate a couple of pork chops and some cake. I love cake! We ate until no more food could fill us up. Then, Steve had the guts to brag about how, when he mines, he takes a horse with extra storage so he can stay down there all day long. Well fancy you, Steve. He also went on to tell me about how well the crops are doing these days. He thinks it’s because he is looking after them half of the time. What he doesn’t know is I throw bone marrow on them when I am working. Makes my job faster and gives me more free time so whatever you need to tell yourself, Steve. Life may be easier switching every day between mines and farming, but it still doesn’t make me his biggest fan. I just don’t think he needs to fall in a hole, either. At least… Not right now. I would consider us to be frienemies; Friendly enemies. Yes. At times we pretend to get along, but most of the time, we are happiest doing our own thing. 6:00pm Mining this afternoon was super fun… Not! I got attacked by a partially hidden skeleton guy. I couldn’t see him enough to strike back until half of my life hearts were gone. I must not have made the space bright enough. Those guys are nasty. They are hard to kill too. If you don’t have a bow and arrow you might as well surrender. Plus, they kind of smell like death. Yuck. Note to self: Bring more torches on the next mining day. On the other hand, I came back with an overshare of Redstone, too much iron for my own good, and oddly, quite a few diamonds. I won’t be sharing the diamonds with anyone. They are far too precious. They will go to some new diamond pickaxes, and maybe some armor. Hmm, I could enchant those too! The iron and Redstone though, I am thinking a trip to the village may be in order. See what those up-tight weirdos are willing to trade me. For now, it’s bedtime. 6:10pm You can only sleep at night. You can only sleep at night. You can only sleep at night. 6:11pm That stupid rule gets me every time. Why can’t I decide when it’s bed time? First, I will go eat a cookie, then I will go to sleep. Day Thirty-Three 3:00am I just dreamt that our world was made of cookies.
”
”
Crafty Nichole (Diary of an Angry Alex: Book 3 (an Unofficial Minecraft Book))
“
They must be simple gold bands… I do not want diamonds… if we don’t last it would be difficult enough letting your precious love go and I would want no reminders of you left…except what you engraved upon my heart…. I fear I would not hate you enough to throw a diamond in the ocean or even give it back or it would be almost sinful that I would profit from the sale of something given in love… a simple gold band will do.
”
”
Joan Singleton (She Called... Broken Secrets)
“
My Dearest Lauren Boyers-Sloan;
I have a lot of time to think about your theory on rings. You deserve this and much more. Perhaps the significance of the diamond is that nothing can destroy this precious stone even when it is heated in an oven to a temperature of 1405 degrees Fahrenheit, It will then visually disappear without a trace of ash, after releasing only a small amount of carbon dioxide into a tiny puff of air floating into the atmosphere. Remarkable as it may seem that tiny puff of air will always remain somewhere drifting in the elements....
I now know that nothing can destroy the love I have for you even when I completely disappear from the face of this earth… I do love you still….and always will… Your love will remain in and with me forever… I will never love anyone like I do you… You can keep the gold bands right along with these forever… If you can’t take me back these are yours forever to do whatever you wish with them.… I won’t take them back and they can’t be returned. In the past few years, I certainly haven’t given you the best of me… If I lose you, it will only be because I have been so ill equipped with how to be the best man I could be to you…
”
”
Joan Singleton (She Called... Broken Secrets)
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Carve a cherry pit with the utmost skill, and at best it is still a cherry pit; but a diamond, even if cut poorly, is still a precious stone. Even if a speaker cannot deliver an eloquent speech, if the subject is important, attempting to speak isn’t useless.
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Charles Haddon Spurgeon (The Greatest Fight: Spurgeon's Urgent Message for Pastors, Teachers, and Evangelists)
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She could not recall the last time she’d been asked by a man to say grace before they ate.
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Ja'Nese Dixon (Black Diamond (Precious Stones #1))
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inside. A few seconds later, a big black woman who resembled Monique in the movie, Precious came and opened the door. She had this dirty ass pink satin cap on her head and this dingy ass pajama gown.
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Diamond D. Johnson (Little Miami Girl 2: Antonia and Jahiem's Story)
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Do not let your heart be sold for silver or gold. It is a diamond. Do not let it go for less than a soul.
”
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Anonymous
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Be like a diamond, precious and rare
Not like a stone, found everywhere
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Anonymous
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The safest place to hide a precious diamond is in plain sight... so long as no one knows what a diamond is.
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Harry Mulligan III
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Truth is precious like refined gold and very rare like a sparkling diamond. Lies are like decayed organic waste abundant common trash polluting the countryside and the atmosphere.
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Errol Anthony Smythe
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The Most Popular Diamond Cuts - Learn Before You Shop For A Diamond Earring
You have finally made up your mind and decided to buy a diamond earring. You have a purpose and occasion in mind. What now? Do you randomly go diamond shopping and invest your hard-earned money in whatever you find there? No. Absolutely not.
Mining about the details for the diamond you are seeking for your earring is the wisest of decisions. Whether it is about the best place to buy diamonds from or the cut of your earring, some research is a must! But, research? It takes the fun out of the shopping experience, doesn't it?
No worries. Keep the fun with diamonds shopping and look at this list of most popular diamond cuts.
Popular Diamond Cuts That You Must Know About
A timeless accessory becomes even more precious if you find it exactly how you imagined it to be. The dreamy earrings are not just about having diamonds in them. The cut quality and the cut shape are essential features too!
If you already know the best place to buy diamonds, your quality concern goes out of the window. You still have to choose the cut shape for your personal, exotic experience.
Before choosing the cut, you need to keep your face in mind too. If the diamond cut doesn't flatter your face, take the next option.
Essentially, you can choose from the four variants of the diamond cuts.
Round Cut: Widely in demand and spectacularly sparkly, the round cut allows the maximum light to enter and dazzle the diamond. Primarily used in studs, these cuts are good for you if you have a thin face.
Oval Cuts: The cut includes the oval-shaped and modified version of oval cuts as well. If you want the appearance of an elongated diamond with the shine as the round cut, consider this one.
This cut comes with a variety of options for you. If you like it pointy at both ends, the marquise cut is the one for you. But, if you have your heart set on a sharp end and the other in the oval shape, you'd love the pear cut more. Besides, if you are a romantic, you have to choose the heart-shaped diamond cut for your earrings.
Rectangular Cuts: You want a cut that is equally classic and elegant; the rectangular cuts are your options. It includes the Princess cut, the Emerald cut, the Asscher cut, the Cushion cut, and the Radiant cut. You can choose the best fit based on the rectangular appearance and brilliance of your outlook.
Triangular Cuts: Are you a fan of pointed edges and equal sides in your jewelry? You will be thrilled to have a triangular cut diamond in your accessory bag. All you have to look out for is the protection the edges have in the earring.
Remember: Be on the lookout for the 4Cs you need in your earrings. The carat or the weight and the cut define the shape and size of your precious. The color and the clarity will take care of the hue and brilliance you will get.
The pleasing appearance of the earrings is a reflection of the diamond cutting and polishing process. The more precisely and skillfully a diamond-cut polish is taken care of, the more beauty it will exude.
If you want a breezy diamond shopping experience, what's better than having it from the best place to shop diamonds from? The quality and the cut are going to make you the talk of the town after this!
Your choice for the most suitable diamond cut will make your earring the most prized possession. It will not only bring beauty to your appearance but also complement it.
”
”
Smith