Ihavetamedmenof iron inmyday, shall Inot easilycrush these men of butter?

-Alba, Duke of, Ferdinand Alvarez deToledo
  On his appointment as Lieutenant-General to the Netherlands. Quoted in J L Motley The Rise of the Dutch Republic (1889), vol.2.

Don't iron while the strike is hot.

-Anonymous
  Women's liberation slogan, quoted in PBS broadcast, 26  Jan.

No iron can stab the heart with such force as a full stop put just at the right place.

-Babel, Isaac
  Guy de Maupassant.

If the iron dice roll, may God help us.

-Bethmann Hollweg,Theobald von
  Speech in the Reichstag.

Thou art my Son: this day have I begotten thee. Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel.

-Bible (Old Testament)
Psalms 2:7^9.

Thou,O king, sawest, and behold a great image. This great image, whose brightness was excellent, stood before thee; and the form thereof was terrible. This image's head was of fine gold, his breast and his arms of silver, his bellyand his thighs of brass.His legs of iron, his feet part of iron and part of clay. Thou sawest till that a stonewas cut out without hands, whichsmotetheimage upon his feet that were of iron and clay, and brake them to pieces.

-Bible (Old Testament)
Daniel 2:31^34.

And heshall rulethemwith a rod of iron; asthevessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers.

-Bible (NewTestament)
Revelation 2:27.

The great questions of our day cannot be solved by speeches and majority votes but by iron and blood.

-of)
  Speech to the Prussian Chamber, 30 Sep. He later altered the concluding words to the more commonly quoted'blood and iron'.

O Winter! bar thine adamantine doors. The north is thineöthere hast thou built thy dark Deep-founded habitation. Shake not thy roofs, Nor bend thy pillars with thine iron car.

-Blake,William
  Poetical Sketches,'To Winter'.

Whose feet they hurt in the stocks: the iron entered into his soul.

-Book of Common Prayer
Psalm105:18.

Ay me! what perils do environ The man that meddles with cold iron!

-Butler, Samuel
  Hudibras, pt.1, canto 3, l.1^2.

If gold ruste, what shall iren do?

-Chaucer, Geoffrey
  Canterbury  Tales,'General Prologue', l.500.

From Stettin in the Baltic toTrieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent.

-Churchill, Lord Randolph Henry Spencer
  Speech at Fulton, Missouri, 5 Mar. He had used the phrase in a telegraph to President Truman,12 May1945, when he said of the Russian-held territories that 'An iron curtain is drawn down upon their front'.

Any old iron, any old iron, Anyany old old iron? You look neat Talk about a treat, You look dapper from your napper to your feet. Dressed in style, brand new tile, And your father's old green tie on, But I wouldn't give you tuppence for your old watch chain; Old iron, old iron?

-Collins, Charles
  'Any Old Iron' (with E  A Sheppard and Fred Terry). The second line is commonly rendered'Any any any old iron?'.

Aye, they heard his foot upon the stirrup, And the sound of iron on stone, And how the silence surged softly backward, When the plunging hoofs were gone.

-de la Mare,Walter
  'The Listeners'.

   'Girl number twenty unable to define a horse!'said Mr Gradgrind† 'Girl number twenty possessed of no facts, in reference to one of the commonest of animals!'† 'Bitzer'said Thomas Gradgrind.'Your definition of a horse.' 'Quadruped.Graminivorous. Forty teeth, namely twenty-four grinders, four eye-teeth, and twelve incisive. Sheds coat in the spring; in marshy countries, sheds hoofs, too. Hoofs hard, but requiring to be shod with iron. Age known by marks in mouth.' Thus (and much more) Bitzer. 'Now girl number twenty,'said Mr Gradgrind.'You know what a horse is.'

-Dickens, CharlesJohn Huffam
  Hard Times, bk.1, ch.2.

We must beatthe ironwhile it ishot, but we may polish it at leisure.

-Dryden,John
  Aeneis (his translation of  Virgil's  Aeneid), dedication.

Quiet book-learning in monasteries and ethereal music, sonnets and courtly loveöthat stuff is all fantasyand veneer† You couldn't afford to let the beauty of the thing seduce you too far or you forgot the truth and the truth was always hard as iron bloody bars.

-Galloway,Janice
  Foreign Parts, ch.7.

   Wenn das deutscheVolk dieWaffen niederlegte, wu«  rden die Sowjets†ganz Ost- und Su« d osteuropa zuzu«  glich des gr o« ÞtenTeiles des Reiches besetzen.Vor diesem einschlieÞlich der Sowjetunion riesigenTerritorium wu«  rde sich sofort ein eisernerVorhang heruntersenken. Should the German people lay down their arms, the Soviets†would occupyall eastern and south-eastern Europe together with the greater part of the Reich.Over all thisterritory, whichwith the Soviet Unionwould be of enormous extent, an iron curtain would at once descend. See also Churchill 217:92.

-Goebbels, (Paul) Joseph
  In Das Reich, a Nazi propaganda weekly, quoted in The Times and the Manchester Guardian on 23 Feb.

This man,Comrades, has a nice smile, but he has iron teeth.

-Griswold, Alfred Whitney
  Speech to the Supreme Soviet on proposing Mikhail Gorbachev as the new party leader.