"Like a flash of lightning and in an instant the truth was revealed. I drew with a stick on the sand the diagrams of my motor. A thousand secrets of nature which I might have stumbled upon accidentally I would have given for that one which I had wrestled from her against all odds and at the peril of my existence."
Lightning quotes
Lightning
231 quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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Lightning quotes (page 2 of 12)
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"She was the storm, she was the lightning, she was the adult world with all its power and all its secrets and all its foolish casual cruelty."
"There are two kinds of geniuses. The characteristic of the one is roaring, but the lightning is meagre and rarely strikes; the other kind is characterized by reflection by which it constrains itself or restrains the roaring. But the lightning is all the more intense; with the speed and sureness of lightning it hits the selected particular points - and is fatal."
"The most unusual salesman I ever met is a fellow who made a modest fortune purveying lightning rods. But he suddenly lost interest in his work. He got caught in a storm with a bunch of samples in his arms."
"A mere nothing suffices — and the lightning strikes."
"For nowadays the world is lit by lightning! Blow out your candles, Laura -- and so goodbye. . . ."
"Got a head full of lightning, a hat full of rain."
"Ever wonder what the speed of lightning would be if it didn't zigzag?"
"Lightning, your presence from ground to sky, no one knows what becomes of me, when you take me so quickly."
"I do believe there are leaders who are like lightning and they come along and they lead. The Lincolns of the world, the Alexander the Greats, they do exist. They have existed."
"Love is a clash of lightnings"
"Censure is like the lightning which strikes the highest mountains."
"Life, struck sharp on death, Makes awful lightning."
"Apparently one impression we are making... is that creativeness consists of lightning striking you on the head in one great glorious moment."
"The moment of a miracle is unending lightning."
"When Benjamin Franklin invented the lightning-rod, the clergy, both in England and America, with enthusiastic support of George III, condemned it as an impious attempt to defeat the will of God."
"We wander through this life together in a semi-darkness in which none of us can distinguish exactly the features of his neighbour. Only from time to time, through some experience that we have of our companion, or through some remark that he passes, he stands for a moment close to us, as though illuminated by a flash of lightning. Then we see him as he really is."
"I have learned to prize the quiet, lightning deed, not the applauding thunder at its heels that men call fame."
"Now he'll outstare the lightning. To be furious Is to be frightened out of fear."
"To stand against the deep dread-bolted thunder, In the most terrible and nimble stroke Of quick, cross lightning."