A Quote by Ernest Shackleton

I do not know what 'moss' stands for in the proverb , but if it stood for useful knowledge... I gathered more moss by rolling than I ever did at school.

Ernest Shackleton

Quote Topics

Did Ever Know Knowledge More Moss Proverb Rolling School Stands Stood Than Useful Useful Knowledge

Quote Author

Ernest Shackleton
Irish - Explorer
February 15, 1874 - January 5, 1922

The difference between the Japanese and the American is summed up in their opposite reactions to the proverb (popular in both nations), "A rolling stone gathers no moss." Epidemiologist S. Leonard Syme observes that to the Japanese, moss is exquisite and valued; a stone is enhanced by moss; hence a person who keeps moving and changing never acquires the beauty and benefits of stability. To Americans, the proverb is an admonition to keep rolling, to keep from being covered with clinging attachments.

Carol Tavris

Moss is inconceivably strong. Moss eats stone; scarcely anything, in return, eats moss. Moss dines upon boulders, slowly but devastatingly, in a meal that lasts for centuries. Given enough time, a colony of moss can turn a cliff into gravel, and turn that gravel into topsoil.

Elizabeth Gilbert

A rolling stone gathers no moss and therefore will not be derided as a moss-back. Roll as much as possible.

George Ade

Travel and society polish one, but a rolling stone gathers no moss, and a little moss is a good thing on a man.

John Burroughs

The rolling stone rolls echoing from rock to rock; but the rolling stone is dead. The moss is silent because the moss is alive.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

For your popular rumour, unlike the rolling stone of the proverb, is one which gathers a deal of moss in its wanderings up and down.

Charles Dickens

Disaster beats stasis. Better a rolling stone than a moss-covered rock.

Evan Harris

A rolling stone can gather no moss.

Publilius Syrus

Annie Lee Moss was a black woman who worked for the Army as a code clerk in the Pentagon. She was identified by an undercover agent of the FBI as a member of the Communist Party. Moss denied it, the Democrats sprang to her defense, and she has been treated ever since as an innocent victim of McCarthy.

M. Stanton Evans

If Kate Moss hadn't been booked when she was 14, Kate Moss might not exist.

Carine Roitfeld

A rolling stone gathers no moss, but it gains a certain polish.

Oliver Herford

The early bird gathers no moss! The rolling stone catches the worm.

Jim Carrey

The stone that is rolling can gather no moss;For master and servant oft changing is loss.

Thomas Tusser

It has been said that a rolling stone gathers no moss. I would add that sometimes a rolling stone also gathers no verifiable facts or even the tiniest morsels of journalistic integrity.