mountain

To Hunt an'assault'on the mountain merely meant a concerted, military-style operation; whereas to Shipton 'assault'sounded more like a criminal offence.

—Cranfield, Ingrid

Hisexpressionmayoftenbe called bald†but it isbaldas 34 the bare mountain tops are bald, with a baldness full of grandeur.

—Arnold, Matthew

The Buddha, the Godhead, resides quite as comfortably inthe circuits of a digital computeror thegears of a cycle transmission ashe does at thetop of a mountainor in the petals of a flower.

—Pirsig, Robert M(aynard)

The best that an American can look forward to is the lonely pleasure of one who stands at long last on a chilly and inhospitable mountain top where few have been, where few can follow, and where few will consent to believe that he has been.

—Kennan, George Frost

   I've climbed my last political mountain.

—Wallace, George Corley

Motor racing is dangerous; but what is danger? It is dangerous to climb a mountain. It is dangerous to cross main roads. It is dangerous to explore a jungle.One cannot frame regulations to make everything safe.

—Hawthorn, Mike

   Like the dew on the mountain, Like the foam on the river, Like the bubble on the fountain, Thou art gone, and for ever!

—Scott, Sir Walter

Doing time is like climbing a mountain wearing roller skates.

—Dean,John

I emerged at last, stumbled a few steps in the mud and then I saw it: an ethereal mountain emerging from a tossing sea of clouds framed between two dark barracksöa massive, blue-black tooth of sheer rock inlaid with azure glaciers, austere yet floating fairy-like on the near horizon. It was the first17,000-foot peak I had ever seen. I stood gazing until the vision disappeared among the shifting cloud banks. For hours afterwards I remained spell-bound. I had definitely fallen in love.

—Benuzzi, Felice

Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned: for she hath received of the L hand double for all her sins. The voice of himthat crieth in the wilderness,Prepare ye the way of the L, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valleyshall be exalted,and everymountainand hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain: And the glory of the L shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of the L hath spoken it. The voicesaid,Cry. And hesaid,What shall Icry? All flesh isgrass, and all thegoodlinessthereof isastheflowerof the field: The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: because the spirit of the L bloweth upon it: surely the people is grass. The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever.

—Bible (Old Testament)

He clasps the crag with crooked hands; Close to the sun in lonely lands, Ringed with the azure world, he stands. The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls; He watches from his mountain walls, And like a thunderbolt he falls.

—Tennyson

   Behold, thou art fair, my love; behold, thou art fair; thou hast doves'eyes within thy locks: thy hair is as a flock of goats, that appear from mount Gilead. Thy teeth are like a flockof sheep that are evenshorn, whichcameup from the washing; whereof every one bear twins, and none is barren among them. Thy lips are like a thread of scarlet, and thy speech is comely: thy temples are like a piece of a pomegranate within thy locks. Thy neck is like the tower of David builded for an armoury, whereon there hang a thousand bucklers, all shields of mighty men. Thy two breasts are liketwo young roesthat aretwins, which feed among the lilies.Until the day break, and the shadows flee away, I will get me to the mountain of myrrh, and tothehill of frankincense.Thou art all fair, my love; there is no spot in thee.

—Bible (Old Testament)

   He isgone on the mountain, He is lost to the forest, Like a summer-dried fountain, When our need was the sorest.

—Scott, Sir Walter

We are Giants in physical power: in a deeper than metaphorical sense, weareTitans, that strive, byheaping mountain on mountain, to conquer Heaven also.

—Carlyle,Thomas

Oxus, forgetting the bright speed he had In his high mountain cradle in Pamere, A foiled circuitous wandererötill at last The longed-for dash of waves is heard, and wide His luminous home of waters opens, bright And tranquil, from whose floor the new-bathed stars Emerge, and shine upon the Aral Sea.

—Arnold, Matthew

Verde que te quiero verde. Verde viento.Verdes ramas. El barco sobre la mar y el caballo en la montan‹  a. Green how I love you green. Green wind.Green boughs. The ship on the sea and the horse on the mountain.

—Lorca, Federico Garc|¤  a

I have never been able to decide whether, in mountain exploration, it is the prospect of tackling an unsolved problem, or the performance of the task itself, or the retrospective enjoyment of successful effort, which affords the greatest amount of pleasure.

—Shipton, Eric Earle

O Caledonia! stern and wild, Meet nurse for a poetic child! Land of brown heath and shaggy wood, Land of the mountain and the flood. Land of my sires! what mortal hand Can e'er untie the filial band That knits me to thy rugged strand!

—Scott, Sir Walter

Great poetsseldommake bricks without straw.They pile up allthe excellencestheycanbeg, borrow, or steal from their predecessors and contemporaries and then set their own inimitable light atop the mountain.

—Pound, Ezra Loomis

The Fujiyama of Architecture†at once a lofty mountain and a national shrine.

—Mumford, Lewis

Great is the L, and greatly to be praised in the city of our God, in the mountain of his holiness. Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth, is mount Zion, on the sides of the north, the city of the great King.

—Bible (Old Testament)

If we knew all the laws of Nature, we should need only one fact, or the description of one actual phenomenon, to infer all the particular results at that point. Now we know onlya few laws, and our result is vitiated, not, of course, byany confusion or irregularity in Nature, but by our ignorance of essential elements in the calculation. Our notions of law and harmony are commonly confined to those instances which we detect; but the harmony which results from a far greater number of seemingly conflicting, but reallyconcurring, laws, which Thoreau we have not detected, is still more wonderful. The particular laws are as our points of view, as, to the traveler, a mountain outline varies with every step, and it has an infinite number of profiles, though absolutely but one form. Even when cleft or bored through it is not comprehended in its entireness.

—Thoreau, Henry David

   [Plays that would] cut through time like a knife through a layer cake or a road through a mountain revealing its geologic layers.

—Miller, Arthur

I am forgetting myself into admiring a mountain which is of no use for sheep. This is wrong. A mountain here is only beautiful if it has good grass on it.

—Butler, Samuel

Morally, spiritually, we are fettered. What have we achieved in mowing down mountain ranges, harnessing the energy of mighty rivers, or moving whole populations about like chess pieces, if we ourselves remain the same restless, miserable, frustrated creatures we were before. To call such activity progress is utter delusion.

—Miller, Henry Valentine

See one promontory (said Socrates of old), one mountain, one sea, one river, and see all.

—Burton, Robert pseudonym DemocritusJunior

O beautiful for spacious skies, For amber waves of grain, For purple mountain majesties Above the fruited plain! America! America! God shed Hisgrace on thee. And crown thy good with brotherhood From sea to shining sea.

—Bates, Katharine Lee

The love of field and coppice, Of green and shaded lanes, Of ordered woods and gardens Mackellar whiteman likeshimor not.If thewhiteman says he does, he is instantlyöand usually quite rightlyömistrusted. Is running in your veins. Strong love of grey-blue distance Brown streams and soft, dim skiesöI know but cannot share it, My love is otherwise. I love a sunburnt country, A land of sweeping plains, Of ragged mountain ranges, Of droughts and flooding rains. I love her far horizons, I love her jewel-sea, Her beauty and her terrorö The wide brown land for me!

—Mackellar, (Isobel Marion) Dorothea

I'll love you dear, I'll love you Till China and Africa meet And the river jumps over the mountain And the salmon sing in the street, I'll love you till the ocean Is folded and hung up to dry And the seven starsgo squawking Like geese about the sky.

—Auden,W(ystan) H(ugh)

'Tis distance lends enchantment to the view, And robes the mountain in its azure hue.

—Campbell,Thomas

Climbing over rocky mountain, Skipping rivulet and fountain.

—Gilbert, Sir W(illiam) S(chwenck)

And Jesus said unto them,Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.

—Bible (NewTestament)

Baedeker is astonishingly enduring; travellers can use nineteenth-century editions with confidence, providing they take some elementary precautions. Many hotels will long since have disappeared, and the prices will be somewhat different, but if Baedeker says'On leaving the tunnel, the best view is on the right', it probably still is, unless somebody has shifted the mountain, and his descriptions of sceneryand where to go to see it at its best are still valid, as ispracticallyall of his potted history.

—Levin, (Henry) Bernard

Some men go through life absolutely miserable because, despite the most enormous achievements, they just didn't do one thingölike the architect who didn't build St Paul's. I didn't quite build St Paul's, but I stood on more mountain tops than possibly I deserved.

—Thorneycroft, Lord (George Edward) Peter

Tching prayed on the mountain and wroteon his bath tub. Day by day make it new cut underbrush, pile the logs keep it growing.

—Pound, Ezra Loomis

Like a god going thro' his world there stands One mountain, for a moment in the dusk, Whole brotherhoods of cedars on its brow

—Browning, Robert

Proudly the note of the trumpet is sounding, Loudly the war-cries arise on the gale, Fleetly the steed by Loc Suilig is bounding To join the thick squadrons in Saimear's green vale. On, every mountaineer, Strangers to flight and fear: Rush to the standard of dauntless Red Hugh! Bonnought and gallowglass, Throng from each mountain-pass! On for old ErinöO'Donnell abu!

—McCann, M(ichael) J(oseph)

Up the airy mountain, Down the rushy glen, We daren't go a-hunting, For fear of little men; Wee folk, good folk, Trooping all together; Green jacket, red cap, And white owl's feather!

—Allingham,William

The last bear, shot drinking in the Dakotas Loped under wires that span the mountain stream. Keen instruments, strung to a vast precision Bind town to town and dream to ticking dream.

—Crane, (Harold) Hart

Come down,O maid, from yonder mountain height: What pleasure lives in height?

—Tennyson