Hammer And Chisel Quotes

Don't accept the limitations of other people who claim things are 'unchangeable'. If it's written in stone, bring your hammer and chisel.

Man is born to trouble. Man is born for trouble. Man is born to battle trouble. Man is born for the fight, to be forged and molded--under torch and hammer and chisel--into a sharper, finer, stronger image of God.

Our vision is so limited we can hardly imagine a love that does not show itself in protection from suffering.... The love of God did not protect His own Son.... He will not necessarily protect us - not from anything it takes to make us like His Son. A lot of hammering and chiseling and purifying by fire will have to go into the process.

Our vision is so limited we can hardly imagine a love that does not show itself in protection from suffering. The love of God is of a different nature altogether. It does not hate tragedy. It never denies reality. It stands in the very teeth of suffering. The love of God did not protect His own Son. The cross was the proof of His love – that He gave that Son, that He let Him go to Calvary’s cross, though “legions of angels” might have rescued Him. He will not necessarily protect us - not from anything it takes to make us like His Son. A lot of hammering and chiseling and purifying by fire will have to go into the process.

Enemy giants moved towards the breech, and Tyson picked up the fallen warrior’s club. He yelled something to his fellow blacksmiths – probably ‘FOR POSEIDON!’ – but with his mouth full of peanut butter it sounded like, ‘PUH PTEH BUN.’ His brethren all grabbed hammers and chisels, yelled, ‘PEANUT BUTTER!’ and charged behind Tyson into battle.

Love and kindness are the hammer and chisel that gently chip through barriers and long-held beliefs to reveal the magnificent soul contained within every human.

But this man had set down with a hammer and chisel and carved out a stone water trough to last ten thousand years. Why was that? What was it that he had faith in? It wasn't that nothin' would change. Which is what you might think, I suppose. He had to know better'n that. I've thought about it a good deal. . . And I have to say that the only thing I can think is that there was some sort of promise in his heart. And I don't have no intentions of carvin' a stone water trough. But I would like to be able to make that kind of promise. I think that's what I would like most of all.

...being with someone is an acquired skill. There is an art to it. Basically, you have to watch your partner take a chisel - or a war hammer, depending on the day - and chip away at the ideal version of them that you've created in your mind. The person you fall in love with is always slightly different from the person you need to stay in love with. More real and more flawed, but also more complex and better defined.

In order to become the chisel that breaks the marble inside us, the artist must first become the hammer." [Soviet censor of paintings and photos]

Carpenters don’t make their saws and hammers, tailors don’t make their scissors and needles, and plumbers don’t make their wrenches, but blacksmiths can make their hammers, tongs, anvils, and chisels

if the world has not prepared a place for you, you must take up a hammer and chisel and carve one out for yourself.

It's normal at this point for the fear-anger syndrome to take over and make you want to hammer on that side plate with a chisel, to pound it off with a sledge if necessary. You think about it, and the more you think about it the more you're inclined to take the whole machine to a high bridge and drop it off. It's just outrageous that a tiny little slot of a screw can defeat you so totally.

Our vision is so limited we can hardly imagine a love that does not show itself in protection from suffering. The love of God did not protect His own Son. He will not necessarily protect us - not from anything it takes to make us like His Son. A lot of hammering and chiseling and purifying by fire will have to go into the process.

The world was young, the mountains green, No stain yet on the Moon was seen, No words were laid on stream or stone When Durin woke and walked alone. He named the nameless hills and dells; He drank from yet untasted wells; He stooped and looked in Mirrormere, And saw a crown of stars appear, As gems upon a silver thread, Above the shadow of his head. The world was fair, the mountains tall, In Elder Days before the fall Of mighty kings in Nargothrond And Gondolin, who now beyond The Western Seas have passed away: The world was fair in Durin's Day. A king he was on carven throne In many-pillared halls of stone With golden roof and silver floor, And runes of power upon the door. The light of sun and star and moon In shining lamps of crystal hewn Undimmed by cloud or shade of night There shone for ever fair and bright. There hammer on the anvil smote, There chisel clove, and graver wrote; There forged was blade, and bound was hilt; The delver mined, the mason built. There beryl, pearl, and opal pale, And metal wrought like fishes' mail, Buckler and corslet, axe and sword, And shining spears were laid in hoard. Unwearied then were Durin's folk; Beneath the mountains music woke: The harpers harped, the minstrels sang, And at the gates the trumpets rang. The world is grey, the mountains old, The forge's fire is ashen-cold; No harp is wrung, no hammer falls: The darkness dwells in Durin's halls; The shadow lies upon his tomb In Moria, in Khazad-dûm. But still the sunken stars appear In dark and windless Mirrormere; There lies his crown in water deep, Till Durin wakes again from sleep. -The Song of Durin

There are some who say that Time is itself a hammer; that each slow second marks another tap that makes big rocks into little rocks, waterfalls into canyons, cliffs into beaches. There are some who say that Time is instead a blade. They see the dance of its razored tip, poised like a venomous snake, forever ready to slay faster than the eye can see. And there are some who say that Time is both hammer and blade. They say the hammer is a sculptor's mallet, and the blade is a sculptor's chisel: that each stroke is a refinement, a perfecting, a discovery of truth and beauty within what would otherwise be blank and lifeless stone. And I name this saying wisdom.

Let's here it for modern dentistry, eh?" I said, and he grimaced. Actually, as much as people dislike going to the dentist now, try doing it two hundred years ago, when having a cavity meant some quack knocking it out with a chisel and a hammer in the market square. With no anesthetic.

It was like penetrating deep into white marble with the pounding live thrust of his chisel beating upward through the warm living marble with one ”Go!”, his whole body behind the heavy hammer, penetrating through ever deeper and deeper furrows of soft yielding living substance until he had reached the explosive climax, and all of his fluid strength, love, passion, desire had been poured into the nascent form, and the marble block, made to love the and of the true sculptor, and responded, giving of its inner heat and substance and fluid form, until at last the sculptor and the marble had totally coalesced, so deeply penetrating and infusing each other that they had become one, marble and man and organic unity, each fulfilling the other in the greatest act of art and love known to the human species.

Donkin’s invention preserved foods beautifully, though the early cans, made of wrought iron, were heavy and practically impossible to get into. One brand bore instructions to open them with a hammer and chisel. Soldiers usually attacked them with bayonets or fired bullets into them.

If I take a chamois and rub real hard on the bone, right on the ledge of your cheek bone, some of the black will disappear. It will flake away into the chamois and underneath there will be gold leaf. I can see it shining through the black. I know it is there… [...] And if I take a nailfile or even Eva’s old paring knife - that will do - and scrape away at the gold, it will fall away, it will fall away and there will be alabaster. The alabaster is what gives your face its planes, its curves. That is why your mouth smiling does not reach your eyes. Alabaster is giving it a gravity that resists a total smile.

 [...] Then I can take a chisel and small tap hammer and tap away at the alabaster. It will crack then like ice under the pick, and through the breaks I will see the loam, fertile, free of pebbles and twigs. For it is the loam that is giving you that smell.


behind the wall.” The next day, Hem and Haw returned with tools. Hem held the chisel, while Haw banged on the hammer until they made a hole in the wall of Cheese Station C. They peered inside but found no Cheese. They were disappointed but believed they could solve the problem. So they started

First there was the great cosmic egg. Inside the egg was chaos, and floating in chaos was P’an Ku, the Undeveloped, the divine Embryo. And P’an Ku burst out of the egg, four times larger than any man today, with a hammer and chisel in his hand with which he fashioned the world. —The P’an Ku myths, China (around third century)

Iriel," Cara said with a soft voice. "It's like comparing granite to clay. The clay may take shape more easily, but the granite, once you've chiseled it into place, is so much stronger. For some people, motherhood comes more easily. For others, it takes a hammer and chisel. No one is made for motherhood. Motherhood is made for you.

Dawn's Spawn: Cause and Effect Criticizing the next generation reflects on us. We hold the power to carve out good citizens who will take over the planet and wrest control from us. Step up with your hammer and chisel to create a defined character. Give up your cowardly position as friend and brave the battle of good parenting. Kamil Ali

What can a sculptor do without the chisel and the hammer? And what can an impostor politician do without the ignorant and the uneducated?

Writing is the hammer & chisel that breaks down the established way of thinking.

There are no born heroes or winners..... "it takes a hammer, a chisel, a vision and a will to suffer the blows and be carved into one".

Remember... Keystrokes are hammer taps. Get words on paper. Don’t worry about connections, character or plot. Work for an hour. Promise yourself an hour. Do nothing else but move your fingers. Make coarse shapes. Follow any emotion that pops up but never impose emotion, never fake it, and don’t make up your mind or your heart ahead of time. Understand you don’t know what you’re doing. That’s why you’re here. Rough it out. Anything goes. You can decide later what any piece of text looks like, what it might mean. Don’t stop. Don’t question. Don’t quit. Don’t stop to read what you wrote. Move your fingers. You mind will have no other option but to keep up. Remember that writer’s block is merely the cold marble waiting for the chisel to heat up.

When God wants to drill a man, And thrill a man, And skill a man, When God wants to mold a man To play the noblest part; When He yearns with all His heart To create so great and bold a man That all the world shall be amazed, Watch His methods, watch His ways! How He ruthlessly perfects Whom He royally elects! How He hammers him and hurts him, And with mighty blows converts him Into trial shapes of clay which Only God understands; While his tortured heart is crying And he lifts beseeching hands! How He bends but never breaks When his good He undertakes; How He uses whom He chooses, And with every purpose fuses him; But every act induces him To try His splendor out— God knows what He’s about. SELECTED Life is a quarry, out of which we are to mold and chisel and complete a character. GOETHE

Inside you is a thing worth putting on a pedestal--worth putting out there for all the world to see. That piece of rock might been knocked around, roughed up a bit, considered scrap, and thrown on the trash pile...but that's only because they don't know what's on the inside. They can't see like Michaelangelo. 'Cause if they could, they'd know that there's something in there that's just waiting to jump out. Like there is inside you. I'm sorry for the hammer and chisel. I wish life didn't work that way. Just remember...the velvet cloth ain't far behind.

I think it is not so much the growth of virtue, as simply the replacement of prior vices with an addiction to one’s god.” Umegat emptied his cup. “The gods love their great-souled men and women as an artist loves fine marble, but the issue isn’t virtue. It is will. Which is chisel and hammer.

There was once a stone cutter who was dissatisfied with himself and with his position in life. One day he passed a wealthy merchant's house. Through the open gateway, he saw many fine possessions and important visitors. "How powerful that merchant must be!" thought the stone cutter. He became very envious and wished that he could be like the merchant. To his great surprise, he suddenly became the merchant, enjoying more luxuries and power than he had ever imagined, but envied and detested by those less wealthy than himself. Soon a high official passed by, carried in a sedan chair, accompanied by attendants and escorted by soldiers beating gongs. Everyone, no matter how wealthy, had to bow low before the procession. "How powerful that official is!" he thought. "I wish that I could be a high official!" Then he became the high official, carried everywhere in his embroidered sedan chair, feared and hated by the people all around. It was a hot summer day, so the official felt very uncomfortable in the sticky sedan chair. He looked up at the sun. It shone proudly in the sky, unaffected by his presence. "How powerful the sun is!" he thought. "I wish that I could be the sun!" Then he became the sun, shining fiercely down on everyone, scorching the fields, cursed by the farmers and laborers. But a huge black cloud moved between him and the earth, so that his light could no longer shine on everything below. "How powerful that storm cloud is!" he thought. "I wish that I could be a cloud!" Then he became the cloud, flooding the fields and villages, shouted at by everyone. But soon he found that he was being pushed away by some great force, and realized that it was the wind. "How powerful it is!" he thought. "I wish that I could be the wind!" Then he became the wind, blowing tiles off the roofs of houses, uprooting trees, feared and hated by all below him. But after a while, he ran up against something that would not move, no matter how forcefully he blew against it - a huge, towering rock. "How powerful that rock is!" he thought. "I wish that I could be a rock!" Then he became the rock, more powerful than anything else on earth. But as he stood there, he heard the sound of a hammer pounding a chisel into the hard surface, and felt himself being changed. "What could be more powerful than I, the rock?" he thought. He looked down and saw far below him the figure of a stone cutter.

Chisels and hammers may suffice to work a piece of wood, but for etching we require an etcher's needle. Thus common sense and speculative understanding are both useful, but each in its own way: the former in judgments which apply immediately to experience; the latter when we judge universally from mere concepts, as in metaphysics, where sound common sense, so called in spite of the inappropriateness of the word, has no right to judge at all.

The world was young, the mountains green, No stain yet on the Moon was seen, No words were laid on stream or stone When Durin woke and walked alone. He named the nameless hills and dells; He drank from yet untasted wells; He stooped and looked in Mirrormere, And saw a crown of stars appear, As gems upon a silver thread, Above the shadow of his head. The world was fair, the mountains tall, In Elder Days before the fall Of mighty kings in Nargothrond And Gondolin, who now beyond The Western Seas have passed away: The world was fair in Durin’s Day. A king he was on carven throne In many-pillared halls of stone With golden roof and silver floor, And runes of power upon the door. The light of sun and star and moon In shining lamps of crystal hewn Undimmed by cloud or shade of night There shone for ever fair and bright. There hammer on the anvil smote, There chisel clove, and graver wrote; There forged was blade, and bound was hilt; The delver mined, the mason built. There beryl, pearl, and opal pale, And metal wrought like fishes’ mail, Buckler and corslet, axe and sword, And shining spears were laid in hoard. Unwearied then were Durin’s folk; Beneath the mountains music woke: The harpers harped, the minstrels sang, And at the gates the trumpets rang. The world is grey, the mountains old, The forge’s fire is ashen-cold; No harp is wrung, no hammer falls: The darkness dwells in Durin’s halls; The shadow lies upon his tomb In Moria, in Khazad-dûm. But still the sunken stars appear In dark and windless Mirrormere; There lies his crown in water deep, Till Durin wakes again from sleep.

There was once a stonecutter, who was dissatisfied with himself and with his position in life. One day, he passed a wealthy merchant's house, and through the open gateway, saw many fine possessions and important visitors. "How powerful that merchant must be!" thought the stonecutter. He became very envious, and wished that he could be like the merchant. Then he would no longer have to live the life of a mere stonecutter. To his great surprise, he suddenly became the merchant, enjoying more luxuries and power than he had ever dreamed of, envied and detested by those less wealthy than himself. But soon a high official passed by, carried in a sedan chair, accompanied by attendants, and escorted by soldiers beating gongs. Everyone, no matter how wealthy, had to bow low before the procession. "How powerful that official is!" he thought. "I wish that I could be a high official!" Then he became the high official, carried everywhere in his embroidered sedan chair, feared and hated by the people all around, who had to bow down before him as he passed. It was a hot summer day, and the official felt very uncomfortable in the sticky sedan chair. He looked up at the sun. It shone proudly in the sky, unaffected by his presence. "How powerful the sun is!" he thought "I wish that I could be the sun!" Then he became the sun, shining fiercely down on everyone, scorching the fields, cursed by the farmers and laborers. But a huge black cloud moved between him and the earth, so that his light could no longer shine on everything below. "How powerful that storm cloud is!" he thought. "I wish that I could be a cloud!" Then he became the cloud, flooding the fields and villages, shouted at by everyone. But soon he found that he was being pushed away by some great force, and realized that it was the wind. "How powerful it is!" he thought. "I wish that I could be the wind!" Then he became the wind, blowing tiles off the roofs of houses, uprooting trees, hated and feared by all below him. But after a while, he ran up against something that would not move, no matter how forcefully he blew against it--a huge, towering stone "How powerful that stone is”" he thought. I wish that I could be a stone!" Then he became the stone, more powerful than anything else on earth. But as he stood there, he heard the sound of a hammer pounding a chisel into the solid rock, and felt himself being changed. "What could be more powerful than I, the stone?" he thought. He looked down and saw far below him the fixture of a stonecutter.

Walk down a hallway, end up in a ballroom, double glass doors to a subway station, third exit on the left goes to a hardware store that sells only hammers. No screwdrivers, no chisels, not even any nails—just hammers. You’d be surprised how many problems you can solve with a hammer if you really put your mind to it.

It doesn't matter whether I was born in a mess of blood and goo, or whether I was shaped lovingly and carefully in a workroom with chisel and hammer.

The purpose of man can be thought of as the work of a stonemason: to set free an invisible shape caught in rough matter, to bring to light a perfect idea in a world of unruly senses. The logos is man’s chisel, the thumos his hammer, the eros the stone he works on, and the nous the light that shines in his mind. A good sculptor is guided by vision and well supported by the skill of his craft. A bad sculptor, however, is not necessarily led astray by an evil daimon; more likely he is simply insufficiently skilled to tame his stone’s unruliness.

He rose and standing in the dark he began to chant in a deep voice, while the echoes ran away into the roof. The world was young, the mountains green, No stain yet on the Moon was seen, No words were laid on stream or stone When Durin woke and walked alone. He named the nameless hills and dells; He drank from yet untasted wells; He stooped and looked in Mirrormere, And saw a crown of stars appear, As gems upon a silver thread, Above the shadow of his head. The world was fair, the mountains tall, In Elder Days before the fall Of mighty kings in Nargothrond And Gondolin, who now beyond The Western Seas have passed away: The world was fair in Durin’s Day. A king he was on carven throne In many-pillared halls of stone With golden roof and silver floor, And runes of power upon the door. The light of sun and star and moon In shining lamps of crystal hewn Undimmed by cloud or shade of night There shone for ever fair and bright. There hammer on the anvil smote, There chisel clove, and graver wrote; There forged was blade, and bound was hilt; The delver mined, the mason built. There beryl, pearl, and opal pale, And metal wrought like fishes’ mail, Buckler and corslet, axe and sword, And shining spears were laid in hoard. Unwearied then were Durin’s folk; Beneath the mountains music woke: The harpers harped, the minstrels sang, And at the gates the trumpets rang. The world is grey, the mountains old, The forge’s fire is ashen-cold; No harp is wrung, no hammer falls: The darkness dwells in Durin’s halls; The shadow lies upon his tomb In Moria, in Khazad-dûm. But still the sunken stars appear In dark and windless Mirrormere; There lies his crown in water deep, Till Durin wakes again from sleep. ‘I

Tinkling sounds came from outside, of hammering and chiselling, as labourers worked like bees, and seven- or eight-storeyed buildings rose in the place of ancestral mansions that had been razed cruelly to the ground, climbing up like ladders through screens of dust. An old mansion opposite the veranda had been repainted white, to its last banister and pillar, so that it looked like a set of new teeth. ... In another sphere altogether, birds took off from a tree or parapet, or the roof of some rich Marwari’s house, startling and speckling the neutral sky. Not a moment was still or like another moment. In a window in a servants’ outhouse attached to a mansion – both the master’s house and the servants’ lost in a bond now anachronistic and buried – a light shone even at this time of the day, beacon of winter.

The most compelling evidence for the likelihood that the Great Pyramid was constructed by craftspeople with specialized knowledge and advanced techniques is the precision with which it was built. This precision reveals more about the true nature of its builders than any inscription or cartouche. There is no way to ignore the accuracy of this stonecutting, despite Egyptologists' interpretations of the inscriptions found in pyramids or temples in Egypt. After all, hieroglyphics, like any language, has the potential to be misunderstood. After discussing much of the preceding information with the artisans at today's building sites, machine shops, and quarry mills, I became aware of the reason why we are still influenced by ideas that are not compatible with practical application. The artisans of today are too busy making a living to give serious thought to scholarly theories, and even when gross inequities are presented to them, they respond with a cynical shrug. When told that giant limestone casing stones, which were cut to within 1/100 of an inch, were cut with hammer and chisel, a typical response was a shake of the head.

Turned out that being with someone is an acquired skill. There is an art to it. Basically, you have to watch your partner take a chisel -- or a war hammer, depending on the day -- and chip away at the ideal version of them that you’ve created in your mind. The person you fall in love with is always slightly different from the person you need to stay in love with. More real and more flawed, but also more complex and better defined. There were a few things about Zuha that bothered me. I adored that she was smarter than I was, but she could slice me to pieces with her wit whenever she wanted. I'd always known this about her but her words when they were sharp -- whether because she was in a mood or because she was just being careless -- now cut deep when before they’d just stung. I could also be carelessly mean. It was something we were learning to live with. She was surprisingly human in other ways too. Her hands were bitterly cold, her pretty long hair somehow got everywhere, and her incurable lust for shawarma wasn’t ideal. Garlic breath is real, after all. The thing about being in love is that if you can endure the sight of the idol you’ve fallen for crumbling before you, and learn to love the truth of who your partner is as you discover it, then you’ll have someone to take your hand as she’s reading, and who’ll lean over and whisper in your ear, ‘Let us be true to one another...

… man is to him a thing unshaped, raw material, an ugly stone that needs the sculptor's chisel. No longer to will, no longer to value, no longer to create! Oh, that this great weariness may never be mine! Even in the lust of knowledge, I feel only the joy of my will to beget and to grow; and if there be innocence in my knowledge, it is because my procreative will is in it. Away from God and gods did this will lure me: What would there be to create if there were Gods? But to man doth it ever drive me anew, my burning, creative will. Thus driveth it the hammer to the stone. Alas, ye men, within the stone there sleepeth an image for me, the image of all my dreams! Alas, that it should have to sleep in the hardest and ugliest stone! Now rageth my hammer ruthlessly against its prison. From the stone the fragments fly: what's that to me? I will finish it: for a shadow came unto me—the stillest and lightest thing on EArth once came unto me! The beauty of the Superman came unto me as a shadow. Alas, my brethren! What are the Gods to me now? A Dionysian life force needs the hardness of the hammer, and one of its first essentials is without doubt the joy even of destruction. The command, "Harden yourselves!" and the deep conviction that all creators are hard, is the really distinctive sign of a Dionysian Nature.

… man is to him a thing unshaped, raw material, an ugly stone that needs the sculptor's chisel. No longer to will, no longer to value, no longer to create! Oh, that this great weariness may never be mine! Even in the lust of knowledge, I feel only the joy of my will to beget and to grow; and if there be innocence in my knowledge, it is because my procreative will is in it. Away from God and gods did this will lure me: What would there be to create if there were Gods? But to man doth it ever drive me anew, my burning, creative will. Thus driveth it the hammer to the stone. Alas, ye men, within the stone there sleepeth an image for me, the image of all my dreams! Alas, that it should have to sleep in the hardest and ugliest stone! Now rageth my hammer ruthlessly against its prison. From the stone the fragments fly: what's that to me? I will finish it: for a shadow came unto me—the stillest and lightest thing on EArth once came unto me! The beauty of the Superman came unto me as a shadow. Alas, my brethren! What are the Gods to me now? A Dionysian life force needs the hardness of the hammer, and one of its first essentials is without doubt the joy even of destruction. The command, "Harden yourselves!" and the deep conviction that all creators are hard, is the really distinctive sign of a Dionysian Nature.

Nails are forged for pounding. Man is born to trouble. Man is born for trouble. Man is born to battle trouble. Man is born for the fight, to be forged and molded—under torch and hammer and chisel—into a sharper, finer, stronger image of God.

The poet drafts his work as a writer but edits it as a sculptor, with his pen as a chisel and his mind a hammer.

Toolmaking has given us shovels, hammers, chisels, and knives. But sometimes those tools are used to kill people, so we must remember that, although a valuable enterprise, toolmaking has also brought us misery.” But,

Sam, can you, you know, like burn that concrete off her hands?” “No. I can’t aim that precisely.” “I don’t even know what can be done,” Edilio said as he fed the girl another microscopic bite of food. “You try and break that stuff off with a sledge hammer or something, or even a hammer and a chisel, it’s going to really hurt. Probably break every bone in her hands, man.” “Who would have done this to her?” Lana wondered. “That’s a Coates Academy uniform,” Astrid answered. “We’re probably not far from there.

We are all like the clay Buddha covered with a shell of hardness created out of fear, and yet underneath each of us is a 'golden Buddha' a 'golden Christ' or a 'golden essence,' which is our real self....Much like the monk with the hammer and the chisel, our task now is to discover our true essence once again.

Should’ve stayed a carpenter,” he whispered. But the sword had been the easier choice. To work wood you need all manner of tools–chisels and saws, axes great and small, nails and hammers, awls and planes. To be a killer you just need two. A blade and the will.

Cartwright grooved the chisel's tooth into the base of the skull, where the spine would fuse, and lifted the hammer. The chisel jumped in his hand and half the skull turned to silt. It cascaded down the rock wall with the faintest sigh. The {nine-fingered} boy let out a string of oaths so profane, so unparalleled, that surely they'd been inspired by a hell so near. Cartwright was glad to have a hammer in hand.

key. ‘Duggan, Grant!’ she yelled. ‘Chisel, hammer, now!’ Howard grabbed the tools from the guards. He set the chisel against the lock and cracked it open with a single strike. Lucy flung open the freezer lid. The smell hit them like a physical blow. Trying not to retch, Lucy swung her torch beam inside. A girl was lying on her side. She was naked. She wore a handcuff on her left wrist which didn’t appear to be secured to anything.

There is a thing we do," the Leszy says, "where we rearrange ourselves, cutting off pieces here and there to fit a mold that was never meant for us. I..." He tosses the berry, catches it. "I know something of that. But becoming the Driada's warden taught me one thing: if the world has not prepared a place for you, you must take a hammer and chisel and carve one out for yourself." She wraps her arms around herself. "I'm not brave enough for that." "You are so very brave, Liska," he says. "Braver than you know. Infuriatingly so, in fact. Just look at what you've done to me - turned me soft despite all my grand efforts to resist your relentless charm.

Ideas for stories and poems are like imprisoned statues waiting to be released, not with a hammer and a chisel, but with a notebook and a pen.

That is the untold exchange of our world. That is the true cost of death. To die is to lose your hammer and chisel. Your opportunity to mark the world is over. You slide your cards away and leave the table.

Imagine that you spend years and years of your life digging a tunnel. While eating, sleeping, bathing, resting, working, that’s all you think about – your tunnel. That’s all you work on. Your tunnel becomes your life. Your friends, peers and others keep excelling in life, they continue to flourish and progress, while you are chiselling away, one blow at a time, stuck in that tunnel. Your friends move into new houses and buy bigger cars, while you continue to pinch pennies. ‘You remain soiled, hungry, lacking, even poor, but you don’t give up because you believe in your dream. You only have hope that one day you’ll see the other end of this tunnel, but you can’t be sure. You cry, you laugh, you struggle, resist, battle, you feel depressed at times, but you keep pushing, and pushing, and then one day your blow has a different sound. It’s not as full, you feel just a thin layer separating you from the outside. Your heart throbs in anticipation. You hit harder and the hammer-head goes through. ‘And then, light stares at you. Right in your eyes. The light you have been waiting for. A gust of fragrant wind from outside cools your sweaty brows. You take a deep breath and you smell victory. It feels unreal, unbelievable, incredible. You pinch yourself to make sure you aren’t dreaming. And, for once, your reality is better than your wildest dreams. That’s how I feel right now.

You know what lasers are?” “No,” I said stuffily. “Not lasers, or masers, or atoms, or molecules, or flashlights—” He raised an eyebrow, then the other one. “You may think you know what a laser is, but you do not, you simply do not, my ignorant friend. You may know that laser is an acronym for light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation, which describes a concentrated source of coherent light all of the same wavelength, and you may realize that with lasers men can drill holes through little jewels and also bounce signals off the moon and make holograms, and you may be vaguely aware that men even now perform delicate retinoneural surgery—weld eyeballs, to you—and even more delicate microsurgery on single cells, and do other exciting things such as etching halftone plates and fixing decayed teeth. But you do not know what a laser is.” “I’ll bet I’m going to find out.” “It is your great good fortune. Soon lasers will be all over the place, coming out of your ears. They’ll be used for swift bloodless surgery, for invisible death rays that slice open the enemy, knock down satellites, carve legs of lamb. They’ll carry thousands of phone calls on one beam of light, zillions of television sets on one laser beam—” “Sets?” “—stations. Channels, signals. What do you care?” “I don’t.” “But I haven’t told you the greatest thing,” he said. “Can I stop you?” “During the demonstration earlier tonight, Dr. Fretsindler—that’s Fretsindler of M.I.T.—had a big hunk of granite on the stage. He banged it with a hammer, smacked it with a chisel, and naturally nothing happened.” “Then why are you telling me all this?” “Nothing was supposed to happen, Sheldon,” he said cheerfully. “That was the point. But then Fretsindler aimed some new kind of infrared laser—already had it on stage—at the damned boulder.

My father gave me a hammer and chisel to carry with me in my satchel. “With that you can make enough for a meal anywhere you go.” My father said. Joseph gave Joshua a wooden bowl. “Out of that you can eat the meal that Biff earns.

be careful, my dear friend. If he has started a good work in you, he will complete it. You may rebel, but you will suffer if you do. You may fight against him, but you are only bringing trouble on yourself. You may say “But I want a bit of pleasure in the world. I’m young.” All right, go after it, but you will pay for it. If he has started a good work in you, he will finish it. If you try to remodel this mold, you will only be inviting the chisel and the hammer, and he will go on with his work until you are faultless and blameless and spotless in his presence in the glory everlasting.

The can opener was invented in 1858, before that, people used a hammer and a chisel.

As we look around the world, especially in Egypt, Lebanon, Turkey, the west coast of Italy, Peru, and Bolivia, there are stone structures and the remains of others which don't easily fit into the standard picture of history. The pyramids of Giza in Egypt, Puma Punku in Bolivia, and the great megalithic wall of Sachsayhuaman in Peru are but three examples of astonishingly well-made stone works which modern engineers, stone masons, and other experts puzzle over. Conventional academics in general date these structures well within the standard timeline of so-called civilization. The generally prescribed creation date of the three pyramids of Giza is about 2500 BC, Puma Punku is alleged to have been constructed around 600 AD, and Sachsayhuaman approximately 1200 to 1400 AD. However, what intrigues engineers, architects, stone masons, and other professionals is the extreme precision of the work, often in very hard stone, which many archaeologists insist was usually achieved using bronze and or copper chisels, wooden measuring devices, and stone hammers.

One also finds, even to this day, some amazing works such as the aforementioned Sachsayhuaman and the Coricancha in Cusco, where no mortar of any kind was used. It was stone-on-stone, with astonishing accuracy of fit. In the Inca toolkit, as found in the archaeological record, only copper and bronze chisels have been found, along with wooden measuring instruments and stone pounders or hammers. Conventional archaeologists contend that such tools were responsible for the refined workmanship seen in Cusco and other 'Inca' areas. However, the stone used - granite, andesite, and basalt - are harder than the majority of the tools used, and thus could not have been responsible for the work. The same is true of Tiwanaku and the connected site of Puma Punku. Massive megalithic blocks with sculpted surfaces are found at these locations, made of local sandstone, which would be difficult to shape with bronze chisels and stone hammers. However, the real enigmas are the even harder andesite and basalt stones, cut and shaped with such precision that modern engineers, stone masons, and other professionals question how such work could have been achieved without at least 20th century technology.

To change yourself on behalf of another human being, is to truly evaporate the person that you are. You will become a shell of hollow smiles, vacant eyes and an arrested soul. Don't be the filling for someone else's cupcake. You be your own self. Be your own sweetness. Don't be the empty vessel that anybody that comes along in your life can use to change who you are. Of course, there is always room for improvement. But, we hold the hammer and chisel. And, not anyone else. Carve out the person you NEED to be. Not the person somebody may WANT you to be. In the end, you might just find that the angels above think you are swell enough, just as you are. - A.H. Scott 1/19/12 #NYC #quotes #authenticity #happiness #character #self-love

Do you understand what it means to be a saint?” Cazaril cleared his throat uncomfortably. “You must be very virtuous, I suppose.” “No, in fact. One need not be good. Or even nice.” Umegat looked wry of a sudden. “Grant you, once one experiences…what one experiences, one’s tastes change. Material ambition seems immaterial. Greed, pride, vanity, wrath, just grow too dull to bother with.” “Lust?” Umegat brightened. “Lust, I’m happy to say, seems largely unaffected. Or perhaps I might grant, love. For the cruelty and selfishness that make lust vile become tedious. But personally, I think it is not so much the growth of virtue, as simply the replacement of prior vices with an addiction to one’s god.” Umegat emptied his cup. “The gods love their great-souled men and women as an artist loves fine marble, but the issue isn’t virtue. It is will. Which is chisel and hammer.

Turned out that being with someone is an acquired skill. There is an art to it. Basically, you have to watch your partner take a chisel—or a war hammer, depending on the day—and chip away at the ideal version of them that you’ve created in your mind. The person you fall in love with is always slightly different from the person you need to stay in love with. More real and more flawed, but also more complex and better defined.

I imagine my heart in my chest. I imagine prying it open with a chisel and rock hammer, and once it splits down the seam I push out everyone, one by one. I fit the halves back together after them and tell myself I'll learn to love the quiet they leave behind.

The importance of setting goals for the sake of personal development is well-known. For just as the stone can be shaped into a sculpture only through the force of a hammer and chisel, so too our potential, or the development of our character, can only be actualized through discipline, struggle, and exertion. To merely float with the tide of life promotes a weak body and a soft mind. Hence, we need to learn to swim with the stream of life and strive and fight for worthy goals.

Were it not for the sharp chisel, and the many hammer blows; no carving would be praised.

Everything was in order, although coated in dust, cobwebs and what looked like an entire village of dead bugs. A pegboard held his saws, chisels, hammers, vises and screwdrivers. He’d used old wooden cigar boxes with tiny knobs screwed to each to construct drawers for a homemade cubby holding a wide assortment of nails, screws, bolts and washers. The power tools were neatly arranged on the wooden shelves beside the bench. An old nail barrel held scraps of lumber. She inhaled deeply. The shed smelled of cigar smoke, WD-40 and sawdust. It smelled like Papi.

If thou lift up thy tool upon it, thou hast polluted it." Exodus 20:25 God's altar was to be built of unhewn stones, that no trace of human skill or labor might be seen upon it. Human wisdom delights to trim and arrange the doctrines of the cross into a system more artificial and more congenial with the depraved tastes of fallen nature; instead, however, of improving the gospel carnal wisdom pollutes it, until it becomes another gospel, and not the truth of God at all. All alterations and amendments of the Lord's own Word are defilements and pollutions. The proud heart of man is very anxious to have a hand in the justification of the soul before God; preparations for Christ are dreamed of, humblings and repentings are trusted in, good works are cried up, natural ability is much vaunted, and by all means the attempt is made to lift up human tools upon the divine altar. It were well if sinners would remember that so far from perfecting the Saviour's work, their carnal confidences only pollute and dishonor it. The Lord alone must be exalted in the work of atonement, and not a single mark of man's chisel or hammer will be endured. There is an inherent blasphemy in seeking to add to what Christ Jesus in His dying moments declared to be finished, or to improve that in which the Lord Jehovah finds perfect satisfaction. Trembling sinner, away with thy tools, and fall upon thy knees in humble supplication; and accept the Lord Jesus to be the altar of thine atonement, and rest in him alone. Many professors may take warning from this morning's text as to the doctrines which they believe. There is among Christians far too much inclination to square and reconcile the truths of revelation; this is a form of irreverence and unbelief, let us strive against it, and receive truth as we find it; rejoicing that the doctrines of the Word are unhewn stones, and so are all the more fit to build an altar for the Lord.

Before we can be ready for our place in the heavenly temple we must be hewn and shaped. The hammer must do its work, breaking off the roughnesses. The chisel must be used, carving and polishing our lives into beauty. This work is done in the many processes of life. Every sinful thing, every fault in our character, is a rough place in the stone, which must be chiselled off. All the crooked lines must be straightened. Our lives must be cut and hewn until they conform to the perfect standard of divine truth.

You were a bare rock. Someone hammered and took a piece out of you. You can either cry about it or let me chisel some more pieces out of you and sculpt you into a divine form.