Iron quotes
652 quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
Explore further
Browse quotes that often appear alongside iron — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
Quote collection
Follow a thought to its author, or read the full quote page.
"In 1841 you and I had together a tedious low-water trip, on a Steam Boat from Louisville to St. Louis. You may remember, as I well do, that from Louisville to the mouth of the Ohio there were, on board, ten or a dozen slaves, shackled together with irons. That sight was a continual torment to me; and I see something like it every time I touch the Ohio, or any other slave-border."
"To be thoroughly conversant with Man’s heart, is to take our final lesson in the iron-clasped volume of Despair"
"We were lucky to get Sam Jackson and Jeremy Irons and John McTiernan back. Long movie and hard movie to make and difficult for me because instead of working, my biggest concern was not repeating things I had done it in the previous films. And it rang notes in my head of episodic TV. A sequel is not a new movie; it's a chapter in a movie that you have already seen. Thank god Sam was there and thank god Jeremy was there. Again, it went outside the template of that series of films but it did well and made a ton of dough and the third chapter of a lot of sequels is always the one that falls down."
"It is not easy for a people conditioned by fear under the iron rule of the principle that might is right to free themselves from the enervating miasma of fear. Yet even under the most crushing state machinery courage rises up again and again, for fear is not the natural state of civilized man."
"We had our own civilization in Africa before we were captured and carried off to this land. We smelted iron, danced, made music and folk poems; we sculpted, worked in glass, spun cotton and wool, wove baskets and cloth. We invented a medium of exchange, mined silver and gold, made pottery and cutlery, we fashioned tools and utensils of brass, bronze, ivory, quartz, and granite. We had our own literature, our own systems of law, religion, medicine, science, and education."
"My child, what I want is muscles of iron and nerves of steel, inside which dwells a mind of the same material as that of which the thunderbolt is made."
"This policy cannot succeed through speeches, and shooting-matches, and songs; it can only be carried out through blood and iron."
"You turn if you want to. The Lady's not for turning."
"Robert was the true steel. Stannis is pure iron, black and hard and strong, yes, but brittle, the way iron gets. He'll break before he bends. And Renly, that one, he's copper, bright and shiny, pretty to look at but not worth all that much at the end of the day."
"As great Pythagoras of yore, Standing beside the blacksmith's door, And hearing the hammers, as they smote The anvils with a different note, Stole from the varying tones, that hung Vibrant on every iron tongue, The secret of the sounding wire. And formed the seven-chorded lyre."
"Iron necessity is a thing which in the course of history men come to see as neither iron nor necessary."
"In days of yore, the poet's pen From wing of bird was plunder'd, Perhaps of goose, but now and then, From Jove's own eagle sunder'd. But now, metallic pens disclose Alone the poet's numbers; In iron inspiration glows, Or with the poet slumbers."
"I could have clasped the red walls to my bosom as a garment of eternal peace. "Death," I said, "any death but that of the pit!" Fool! might I have not known that into the pit it was the object of the burning iron to urge me?"
"Love is the victor in every case. Love breaks down the iron bars of thought, and sets the captive free."
"I never really saw my dad around when the Iron Maiden and the AC/DC were playing. But he knew what I was doing. I was just absorbing music. So he just kind of left me to my own devices."
"An iron curtain has descended over Europe."
"All daring and courage, all iron endurance of misfortune-make for a finer, nobler type of manhood."
"This London City, with all of its houses, palaces, steam-engines, cathedrals, and huge immeasurable traffic an tumult, what is it but a Thought, but millions of Thoughts made into One-a huge immeasurable Spirit of a Thought, embodied in brick, in iron, smoke, dust, Palaces, Parliaments, Hackney Coaches, Katherine Docks, and the rest of it! Not a brick was made but some man had to think of the making of that brick."
"You can't hammer tin into iron, no matter how hard you beat it, but that doesn't mean it's useless."
"Have there ever been more submissive slaves? Adoring, even in their irons, the God who punishes them."
